Earnie Shavers v.s Jersey Joe Walcott

no mention of walcotts power Dr. Z? Walcott hit at the very minimum the same level as quarry, except his punches were sneakier. Quarry blasted shavers in 1. Shavers no doubt has a punchers chance, but Walcotts trickery skill counterpunching is too much for the game shavers.

 

After reviewing the film time and time again, I am starting to wonder if Walcott tanked it against layne in promise for a 2nd Title shot against Ezzard Charles(I have heard this rumor from a good source). Walcott just appeared to not let his hands go vs layne, He faked layne out time and time again but never delivered his sneaky sharp powerful counterpunches like he did on film vs charles, hoff, louis, marciano. Something was off, I smell something foul. Note Walcotts manager Felix Bocchichio was one of the sketchiest managers in the business. Could be just a bizarre assumption.

 

Shavers was 50 for the Yates fight, and had no business coming back to the ring. While Walcott was still learning on the job, I do think the Simon and Fox fights are indications his chin was suspect vs punchers....and it was.

This is part of my point. You never know which Walcott would show up, or how he would fight. This includes his prime fights.

Agreed. Here is the thing to focus on, Quarry was aggressive. This is why he caught Shavers early. Walcott was never like that. It is highly unlikely Walcott fights Shavers the way Quarry did.

I was comparing them as punchers. And in my book, Shavers hit harder than either Louis or Marciano. On film, Shavers did not need to land flush to hurt his man. He could land arm shots and the other fighter would wince, and this includes guys like Ali.



In closing, if should be noted that Shavers destoryed a slick boxer in Jimmy Ellis in one round, and got KO'd Jimmy Young too. Shavers is likley to land on Walcott as well.

 

I don't think Quarry punched as hard as Walcott.

However, Jerry tended to be more aggressive.

 

Was this a fight where Walcott got cut?

 

Why? Just a betting coup. Layne was never even given a shot at the title. He clearly was not an IBC fair-haired boy.

There are rumours all over the place--Moore dumped his fight with Patterson-Patterson dumped the two fights with Liston, etc--I wouldn't credit them without solid evidence.

I think it possible that Walcott held Layne cheap and did not train as hard as he should have.

 

He wasn't just "learning on the job." Simon and Fox were both established contenders with immense experience and/or high-level management and training (Fox was a veteran of well over 100 pro fights and a perennial top guy, and Simon was an established contender and protege of Jack Johnson), while Walcott was an unknown journeyman and part-time boxer called in to act as an opponent for them. Walcott was not even a top 30 heavyweight at the time and was not in anywhere near elite fighting condition, so the results of these fights just plain don't hold significant relevance to a discussion of a peak Walcott's ability anymore than Sam Langford's early-career KO loss to a welterweight does.

Yes, but I was under the impression the idea was that this is a match between both guys at their best. Shavers wasn't too incredibly consistent either.

Walcott was certainly aggressive early against Marciano. If he swamped Shavers early and caught him by surprise the way he did Marciano, I think Walcott has a mighty good shot at an early KO.

Young was very green when Shavers stopped him, and beat Shavers by nearly all accounts in their rematch (which was officially a "draw"). It should also be noted that Ellis was 33, hadn't won a major fight in over two years when he fought Shavers, and went on to win only two of his next seven before retiring.
Bob Stallings, a 21-24 journeyman who had been stopped six times, gave a prime Shavers a thrashing and beat him over 10 rounds- Shavers' power may have been special, but it wasn't enough to consistently compensate for his deficiencies as a fighter, even against low-level opposition. No one questions that he would be capable of knocking Walcott out if he connected with his best shot, but the point is that his delivery is nowhere near the level of a Louis or Marciano, and Louis and Marciano were both fortunate to just barely get that job done against Walcott. Louis and Marciano were supreme two-handed composite punchers who carried their knockout power for a full 15 rounds and had immense systematically-effective offensive abilities, and an "on" Walcott was more than able to cope, even giving better than he took, for 10+ rounds against both of them. Shavers may have hit harder than those guys with a single punch, but his offense, by comparison, was predictable, one-dimensional and limited, and he certainly couldn't maintain power for the full distance the way they could. Hence there is obviously a chance Shavers connects with an atom-bomb type shot and takes Walcott out, but the probability is much higher that Walcott makes a ****** out of him and cruises to a decision or puts him away.

 

Wasn't he beating Mercado up and ended up gassing out again. I semi-remember the fight, but just know that Ernie was knocked out. Lyle straight ****ed him up.

 

Shavers had Lyle in fits and wasn't far from closing the show actually.

 

The bell didn't actually hurt Lyle, man was he rocked

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Walcott's best is too good for Shavers, IMO.

On the Layne-Walcott fight - I'd like to see film of it. I think the story that Walcott might have tanked it in return for another title shot is possibly true, that's exactly how business was often done in those days, and Layne was 10-1 underdog. Who knows ? Whether it was fixed or not, the whole thing signals corruption anyway. If it was 100% on the level, Walcott's shady "connections" or Charles's IBC promoters somehow bypassed Layne and linked Walcott up with another shot which is almost as bad as the fix being made on that premise anyway.

 

Young was very green when Shavers stopped him, and beat Shavers by nearly all accounts in their rematch (which was officially a "draw"). It should also be noted that Ellis was 33, hadn't won a major fight in over two years when he fought Shavers, and went on to win only two of his next seven before retiring.
Bob Stallings, a 21-24 journeyman who had been stopped six times, gave a prime Shavers a thrashing and beat him over 10 rounds- Shavers' power may have been special, but it wasn't enough to consistently compensate for his deficiencies as a fighter, even against low-level opposition. No one questions that he would be capable of knocking Walcott out if he connected with his best shot, but the point is that his delivery is nowhere near the level of a Louis or Marciano, and Louis and Marciano were both fortunate to just barely get that job done against Walcott. Louis and Marciano were supreme two-handed composite punchers who carried their knockout power for a full 15 rounds and had immense systematically-effective offensive abilities, and an "on" Walcott was more than able to cope, even giving better than he took, for 10+ rounds against both of them. Shavers may have hit harder than those guys with a single punch, but his offense, by comparison, was predictable, one-dimensional and limited, and he certainly couldn't maintain power for the full distance the way they could. Hence there is obviously a chance Shavers connects with an atom-bomb type shot and takes Walcott out, but the probability is much higher that Walcott makes a ****** out of him and cruises to a decision or puts him away.[/quote]


:good I agree, a pure puncher can pull out of a fight with one punch but Shavers lacked in so many area's. A friend of mine saw the 2nd Young fight and felt Young took the fight easy. Shavers was in his prime vs the 5"9 Stalling and took a beating, Stallings was Ko'd before and had a 21-24 record but I saw the fight and Shavers did not look impressive, also Earnie could not ko lightheavy Vicente Rondon was was KO'd in 2 by Bob Foster. Earnie could hit with 2 hands but was he even a modernday Bob Satterfield? I saw the fight with Ellis and Jimmy hurt Earnie but got caught on the ropes (jimmy had seen betterdays) then I saw Quarry ko him in 1 but Earnie was made to order for Quarry.

 

What would be the point? By having Walcott throw the Layne fight the promoters devalued the Charles-Walcott match. Why was this in their interest? And why bother fixing the fight so Layne can win and then deny him the shot at the title he had earned to give Walcott not one but two title shots when he had already had three. Walcott won the title in his fifth shot. Layne, despite wins over Walcott, Satterfield, and Thompson, never got a shot, and if Walcott had lost and Layne beat Marciano, Layne was still not next in line. Louis was going to get another shot in September of 1951.
This rumour makes no sense and I have seen the films of the fight. Layne wins it by carrying the fight to Walcott despite a badly cut eye and Walcott seems to tire in the later rounds.

According to boxrec, Layne was a 4-1 underdog.

 

Read the fight report. Walcott beat the dog out of simon for 6 rounds before tiring due to exhaustion from lack of training and falling over and being counted out. Simon didnt knock him out with a good punch, walcott got knocked out from exhaustion(ala foreman-ali)

 

I doubt Charles-Walcott had much value at the time regardless of Walcott winning or losing, considering that Charles beat him convincing before. And even a Walcott coming off a loss might have had more value than some of the alternatives.
To the promoters and mobsters who run things maybe it made business sense, maybe they had a huge slice of Walcott.

Maybe Walcott was told to take it easy on Layne to build Layne up for later, or maybe it was just a straight betting thing.

I'm not saying I believe any of these things, but speculation is endless. There are LOTS of conceivable reasons why fights can be fixed. You cant simply rule "no motive".

That Layne didn't get a shot shows how unfair and illogical and crooked the promoters operated.
So, as I said before, if we assume the fight was 100% on the level we still come up with a crooked situation.

Speculating along the lines of ".... so if it was a fix, how come ____" is too much speculation. We can never know what goes on behind the scenes.

It's probably best to assume the fight was 100% on the level. But it's also worth remembering that fighters from that era have claimed to have thrown fights to get themselves title shots. Fighting "handcuffed" was even more common, according to some fighters of the era, and Walcott fits the profile of a fighter that would have been acquainted with that side of business. That puts the idea of Walcott-Layne-Charles situation being fixed firmly in the realm of possibility, at face value at least.

You say the rumour makes NO sense, but I think it's possible. I dont try to make full sense of every single detail. If something shady was going on, it will remain a bit shady ie. obscured.

I haven't seen the fight but I'm more inclined to believe the fight was on the level rather than fixed.
Managerial connections favoured Walcott getting another shot no doubt, Charles' people probably considered it a safe option. Still, I wont say there was absolutely no motive to fix Walcott-Layne, because there may well have been.