It's a tradition by now, these Murderers' Row series that appear once or twice a year on The Sweet Science.com This one is only two parts, but it'll give you a glimpse into just how great Eddie Booker was. http://www.thesweetscience.com/news/articles/14906-shadow-boxing-at-the-golden-gate-part-1
Doesn't it just make you sick the way these guys de-railed one another? Booker is just cleaning house but he runs into man on fire Chase. I mean what the ****, these days if you can go two years unbeaten they give you a strap. Good stuff.
Great piece Stoney on the "stealth" member of "murderer's row " , Eddie Booker...He was a great fighter who is so sadly forgotten today...Kudos for changing that travesty...On his record I see Booker decisioning a tough Irishman Jimmy McDaniels in 1939...This is the same Jimmy McDaniels i and my dad watched the WW Ray Robinson annihilate at MSG in 1945 in 2 rds...Who knows if McDaniels was the same fighter 6 years later , For what it's worth. ? Waiting for your next column...
I read once that one of Booker's fights with Moore was filmed but it got damaged over time and is now lost :-( About the eye injury: is there a chance of Zivic causing it? Not sure about timelines but Fritzie is another top suspect just from his name, no?
Well-said, man. Tracing who beat who and how within the Row and is mind-boggling. These were internecine wars like no other. I recently went through Hank Kaplan's archives in Brooklyn, and he had plenty on the first few years of Booker's career. They were talking about him being a monster threat to the WW throne in 1937. Ross? Armstrong? Many thought Booker would have beaten them both. Booker is looking more and more to me like a complete fighter. I can't say that I'd pick Burley to beat him.
Word was that Zivic fouled him with thumbs and the fact is that Booker finished that fight with his left eye swelled shut. That was in '39. Did that injure his eye the first time? couldn't say it did without guessing. However, after the Chase fight in '43, he was in the hospital for 24 days for eye surgery. When Booker went east in the late 30s, guess where he trained.
:think I dont know but Im curious to know now. Was it Stillman's? Wild guess. Some people rate Booker on the same level as Burley but Burley got rid of common opponents more impressively right? What Booker did to a PRIME Archie Moore though? That's a great fighter. If the fight was filmed, conf) am hoping it still exists somewhere. Its more of a shame though that we dont know about the technique and skills those guys used nowadays. How skilled must Booker have been to have beaten the guys he beat (Marshall, Williams, Hogue, Moore etc.?
It was Stillman's all right. And Booker impressed them so much that he ruined his chances to get a shot against the names. Did Burley beat guys more impressively than Booker? I'm not so sure. Forget just looking at the names and results, you want to look at what happened. Cocoa Kid -Burley got a draw that probably should've been a win after Cocoa Kid had faded, but he beat him decisively in '38. Booker dropped a decision the next year. Cocoa Kid was just about peaking then and the decision could've gone either way. At that point, Booker was a deliberate technician -he didn't change his style until later, had he been more aggressive with Cocoa Kid and crowded him like Leto, Turiello, Ambers, and those guys, he may have taken them. Holman -Burley gets the edge in the series. Booker went even with him. In '39 Holman was still a boxer-puncher and probably at his most dangerous. Booker got a draw, Burley got beat. Marshall.... Booker schooled him. Burley got dropped and defeated. Chase -Burley owned Chase. Booker got a boxing lesson, though he was winning the first 5/6 rounds until his left eye closed. That may have been shenanigans -stuffing removed from the offending glove. The Zivic fight was the same deal. Booker was dealing with him, until Zivic closed an eye and came on strong and capitalize on it. But all that is secondary at best. Styles make fights. And Ezzard Charles casts a long shadow over this fight. Charles owned Burley and his style was close enough to Booker's to give me pause. ---By the way, their skillsets and technique can absolutely be determined with research. When you have numerous boxing writers who doubled as expert analysts all over the U.S. describing the same style and the same habits of a fighter, you can see what he had. Cocoa Kid, Holman, Wade, Lytell, Booker, Chase -all of them. Burley and Marshall are on film, as is 15 seconds of Holman.
I'd be interested to see a breakdown of Burley and Booker, how their fight would go. Was Booker just as skilled as Burley? Charley and Holman are considered at the top in terms on skill they are seen as the best and they went even in their series. Is Eddie on the same level or slightly lower? Burley and Marshall do look very good on film. Williams does some stuff too like that "candy cane." as one example. Interesting to see Booker being seen as similar to Ezzard (who whipped Moore, like Booker) I know Booker was described as similar to Jack Johnson because of his defensive moves like slipping shots and parries. Amazing that no one wanted to fight him after seeing him in Stillmans, its not like talent was rare there. It sounds like the row were from the real old days with style. burley especially from the way he has his stance and combinations etc. Holman looks like the Sugar man though.
Part 2, the end of Eddie Booker's fistic career comes like thunder. http://www.thesweetscience.com/news/articles/14925-shadow-boxing-at-the-golden-gate-part-2
1 of d great traits of that website/your articles is that they do not contain a link 2 their predecessors in d series nevermind 2 each other as a whole .
Geez....does boxing journalism get better than this? I'm almost hesitant to write any more historical pieces for fear that I might miss something that Mr. Toledo WOULDN'T have missed. Well done sir!
