I see him mentioned a lot on the forums but i really don't know much about him. Could anyone fill me in on why he's considered the greatest lhw of all time. Who did he beat? What was his style like? And most importantly, if I wanted to see how skilled he was at lhw what are some of his best prime performances I should watch?
you should see his fight with Lloyd Marshall at light-heavy Charles is considered so great because despite being a natural light-heavy, he competed against the best heavyweights and held his own. He had several wins vs hall of famers- 3 vs Archie Moore who would go on to dominate the light-heavy division as champ for 10 years, 2 vs Charley Burley who was an avoided fighter that no one wanted to fight including (possibly) Robinson and Cerdan, 4 vs Jimmy Bivins; one of the best light-heavies ever, r5 vs Joey Maxim a light-heavy champ, one vs an aged but still solid Louis, and two vs Walcott. He gave Rocky Marciano, the only unbeaten champ, his toughest fights. Plus he has two wins over Marshall who may make it as a hall of famer this year
The think about Charles is that he was good at everything. He could outbox master boxers like Moore and Burley and outslug heavyweights like Walcott.
Ezzard whipped Moore 3 times, as stated previously, but it wasn't close until the final fight when Moore hurt Charles, but Ezzard came back from the brink of a KO to hurt Moore and KO him. I have alot of clips of him, and the full Pat Valentino fight. He did everything well.
Okay thanks a lot i'll try to watch that fight just need to find it. Those are some really impressive wins at lhw though.
he really is a double weight world champion. **** the bull**** stats. unlike ray leonard he gave rematches to his great opposition. so he must be rates above him
Ezzard Charles was indeed a great fighter. I know that Louis was basically done as a fighter at the time, but I love to see the film of Charles-Loius. Charles was at his peak then, and did a masterful job of outboxing Louis. I think he went into decline from that point on, however, although he pulled it together pretty good to put up such a great fight against Marciano the first time.
Although he was never actually allowed to fight for the light heavyweight title, Charles beat three men who held it at one time or another. His overall record against former or future world light heavyweight champions, in fact, stands at 10-1! He also beat numerous other dangerous and highly avoided black fighters all the way from middleweight and heavyweight, guys who, like Charles himself for much of his career, were denied title shots, but who were legitimate elite fighters in their divisions, such as Charley Burley, Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, Elmer "Violent" Ray, etc. And Charles' heavyweight accomplishments are very impressive in themselves as well- he pretty well ran through a very solid group of contenders, soundly outpointed an old-but-still-very-capable Joe Louis, split a four-fight series with the brilliant Jersey Joe Walcott, and, while his career was starting to slide, he gave Rocky Marciano hell for 15 rounds. Charles' resume on the whole is one of the greatest in the history of the sport. Unfortunately, about the prime performances, though, there is very little surviving footage of Charles in his peak light heavyweight days.
I was actually watching parts of Charles-Walcott II & III last night on ESPN Classics. The man knew how to fight.