Glass Ceilings of Eddie Machen and Zora Folley?

In the case of Machen I think it could be said his prime was beaten out of him by Ingo and a horrible referee. I have a boxing magazine from I guess 1956 I would have to go looking for it, it’s in the wake of Rocky’s retirement. An in depth and long article is written on Machen early in his career that is extremely favorable. Apparently in this write up he was viewed as the lead talent and heir to Marciano as a champion.

 

During their time I think the interest was limited for more than one black fighter at the top. Black champions defending against black contenders probably didn't make very much money.

But most of the time, there were better contenders about. Simple as that. Their window was in 1958, when Patterson gave them a pass. After that both were eliminated from contention by Liston, and when he was done with Patterson they were on the slide, especially Machen, and Clay the new top contender.

Rematch clauses and few title fights (often only one per year) certainly didn't help their cause. Folley had to stay relevant for a decade to finally get his shot, but that's of course hard to do.

 

Good Post!

 

It should also be said about these guys that they had to go on the road to fight their opponents. Who knows how Folley's decision loss to Cooper (which he would avenged with a KO), draw with Mildenberger and MD loss to Bonavena (rematch, Folley won the first) would have turned out had they been in his home town instead of theirs?

Back then, if you were black and had no amateur pedigree and backing like Patterson and Clay, you had to really stand out and they never managed to do that.

 

They might have had alphabet belts in the modern era they were top 5 guys for a long time and those type of guys tend to win belt nowadays. The period between 1950 and 1965 was the hardest period to get a title shot at HW other than the world wars. But both were only the clear cut number one contender for less than a year before losing to Johansson and Liston respectively. Folley was 3-1-1 in non title 12 rounders and Machen was 1-4-1. To Machens credit Ali credited Machen for him figuring Liston out and he put forth a noble effort.

I would put them in the HOF but I am more easygoing with that. They are borderline top 5 guys for that 1955-1965 era.

They were average sized fighters with less than a 60% KO rate. When their careers started that was not at all a problem by the time their careers ended it absolutley was. Enter Muhammad Ali and Ernie Terrell who they had their title shots against when the guy they were trying to beat in the beginning was Patterson.

 

I believe Folley getting his title shot, like Williams was based more on his past work, than anything he was doing at the time. Ali seemed to have been giving out title shots to those he perceived to have earned one, yet never received them.

 

Folley had a good run after the Terrell loss, but his best wins of that run (like Chuvalo) were a few years before the Ali fight, yeah. But he was ranked first or second by The Ring, much because Ali had been cleaning house of course, so he was a pretty logical choice and I think he gave a very good account of himself.

Williams's reflexes were shot to ****, but Folley still looked sharp. Next to Mildenberger, he probably gave the best account of himself of all Ali's challengers during that reign, so he showed himself to be much more than a nostalgic charity challenge.

Let's also not forget that he the year after took Bonavena to an MD in Buenos Aires.

 

True, and according to the Associated Press Folley "outclassed the wild-swinging Bonavena most of the time" and many in Bonavena's hometown crowd booed the decision.

https://ibb.co/YDL6mJP

 

Thanks for the find!

Yeah, being the hometown fighter or not can really make a difference to a fighter's resume. Take Usyk for example. If the Briedis, AJ 2 and Fury fight really had been close, he'd be 0-3 against them and his legacy would be very different.

When you're the away fighter you often have to win clearly to get the decision, and even that isn't always enough.