Harry Kid Matthews vs the following men

Matthews wasn't very good. He might win 2 matches here. That's it.

Walls and Maxim would be his best chance.

 

Actually, it was then a paper organization. The State athletic commissions had the real power to sanction fights.

Here is Nat Fleischer on this issue from the October, 1953, Ring Magazine, pages 16-17--

"As for the selection of the leading contender, the NUMBER ONE rated boxer, as the proper opponent in a bout for a world championship. there again the NBA will hit a snag. Boxing today is a highly commercialized sport. The promoter of a world heavyweight title has a huge investment. He refuses to take any chances on a flop. He insists that the most colorful contender, or the one who is likely to draw most in a given locality, be the opponent of the title holder."

"In Europe, the choice is made from the top two men. In New York, the same procedure takes place. But in Europe the champion has no say in the choice. That is done by a championship committee of the European Boxing Union whereas in New York the title holder has the final say. The NBA, however, is on record against both plans. Its choice rest on the outstanding contender and that is what the NBA hopes to foist on all states and all commissions."

There is then a discussion of the return bout contract for the Marciano-LaStarza fight, with New York having a rule against return bout clauses, but getting around its own rule by having the contract signed before the fight, but only filed in court after the fight. Fleischer comments, "Thus, so far as New York is concerned, its rules have not been violated."

"No matter what the NBA does in regards to the return clause and its insistence that the leading contender only may be given the title shot, the above situation will exist. Illinois would gladly accept the championship match under the same conditions that did New York and so would Michigan, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or any of the other leading states that can stage a world title fight."

Of course Nat was right. California did stage the Marciano-Don C fight, regardless of what the position of the NBA was.

*just stepping aside, it is obvious what the NBA big-shots wanted. They sought to put themselves in the position of being the only ones able to pick the "logical" challenger. Of course, that would put them in position to demand bribes from the challengers to secure that rating. Just another case of a cure being worse than the disease.

**My take would be that things were far better before the sanctioning bodies got into the act. Now we wait years and even decades for fights between top men to be made. Who knows when Joshua, Wilder, and Fury will ever be matched? Why should they? There is plenty of money to be made fighting other people, at least until they are so old and close to retirement that they might as well take a shot at a risky big money fight and a legacy.

"hack from the nysac"

Saying New York doesn't matter is like saying London doesn't matter in England or Paris doesn't matter in France.

It was the clear capital of American boxing where most of the biggest fights were staged.

Anyway, what makes a hack from the NBA worth listening to?

 

No one is disputing that,

except that the term mandatory is a modern term.

The fact is the fight was sanctioned and went on in an NBA state which ignored the NBA ukase.

I suppose the lesson here is that if you want to issue a ukase you better actually be the tsar.

 

Cockell's credentials are very weak just as those two he beat to get his shot ,Lastarza ,and Mathews credentials are .Mathews bubble was terminally burst in brutal fashion by Marciano,and Lastarza was badly diminished after the continuous pounding he received from Rocky in his, in my view unjustifed, title shot.Same thing with Rex Layne, after his fight with Rocky he was never the same fighter.
Lastarza "qualifed, "as a credible challenger for Marciano on the basis of beating the badly used up and on the slide Layne.Anyone doubting how far along Layne was has only to compare his results before and after the Marciano fight !

 

We are debating the stature of these men in early 1955.

Jackson came into the Valdes fight 16-2-1. He had wins over a faded Henry, a slipping Layne, and Dan Bucceroni, as well as the fringe contender Norkus, who popped into the ratings briefly with a victory over LaStarza.

To the point of the Marciano-Don C and Moore-Valdes fights, Jackson hadn't beaten several of the men you are listing so folks weren't using them to judge the relative resumes of Valdes and Don C. Slade had actually beaten Jackson. Jackson only reversed that loss on June 27, 1955, after the Marciano-Don C fight, and by the way then lost the rubber match to Slade. Charles was beaten twice in August, 1955. Baker in 1956.

As has been pointed out fairly, there seems a problem keeping a point in history separate from hindsight about what happened later.

Layne--Why shouldn't one focus on wins over Layne? The Layne of 1952 ended the year as the #2 heavyweight contender and defeated Charles that year. Matthews beat him just before he fought Charles. Jackson beat him when he was obviously slipping and on a losing streak. LaStarza beat him when he was rated #2.

Willie James--well tomato can James was the New England heavyweight champion. His career record was 19-6-1 with wins over some decent fighters other than Layne, such as Willie Wilson and Jimmy Walker. To the point, he defeated Bert Whitehurst twice, once by KO, and Whitehurst had defeated Jackson in 1953. In 1954 James KO'd the 1952 Olympic champion and top prospect Ed Sanders. Sanders died after the fight. James only had one more fight, a KO loss to Baker, and then abandoned boxing. I don't know your definition of tomato can, but James was an erratic but dangerous fighter who was in the top 25 or so heavyweights. Still, I grant that this was a bad loss for Layne at the time. Layne was one of those who didn't always focus and train well.

Matthews--discounting his losses to Don C, which boils down to the circular argument that if Don C beat him we have to devalue Matthews. Why not if Valdes beats Jackson we have to devalue Jackson? Neither argument is any good.

if we take out the three fights with Don C, Matthews record from 1946 to 1956 was 60-1-2 with 40 KO's. His only other loss was to Marciano. His only KO by Marciano. Matthews fought a draw with one George Evans in 1946 in his second fight back after three years in the service during WWII. The other draw was with Beshore whom Matthews beat both before and after.

A poster said that Marciano burst Matthews' bubble. But if it takes a Marciano to burst your bubble you might be pretty good, the same as Dempsey bursting Fulton's bubble, or Louis bursting Baer's bubble, or certainly Liston bursting Patterson's bubble. I think Fulton, Baer, and Patterson were all pretty good. It was just that Dempsey, Louis, and Liston were better. My take is the same is true for Matthews.

A big effort is being made to dismiss light-heavies. They didn't back then, and why should they have? Valdes had lost to both Moore and Johnson. Jackson had lost to Slade who had been rated at light-heavy in 1953. Layne had lost to Matthews. The smallish Satterfield had KO'd Baker. Why would anyone equate size with being good when the bigger men were losing and losing and losing to the small guys. My take is the two best challengers out there for Marciano in early 1955 were Moore and Johnson, even if both were light-heavies.

 

He defeated Charles but it was considered a robbery. Mathews was a Hurley hype job.His bubble might have been burst by any number of contenders had he fought them, so to say it took a Marciano to do it is wantonly misleading.

 

It was Marciano who "burst his bubble." The all the other contenders would have beaten him part is just speculation. The usual circular argument, starting with the premise that the fighter wasn't good and then assuming he loses to everybody he never fought.

It is just a fact that almost every other fighter of the era had losses to lesser or even far lesser fighters than those who defeated Matthews.

"considered a robbery"

Nat Fleischer had it 5-5. Jack Hurley 6-4 for Layne. So along with Dempsey the three best boxing experts watching the fight did not have Charles winning on rounds. I wouldn't say this decision might well have gone the other way, but it seems it was a close fight.

Look, I have watched films of supposed robberies such as the Gavilan-Graham fight, and the Maxim-Patterson fight, and didn't see a robbery. The Pastrano-Johnson fight is another one. They were all close fights. Without film, I'm not going to "robbery" w/o better evidence than opinions of American sports writers.

So I accept the official decisions in almost every case. It is the actual result, after all.

 

I agree with the first part. Valdes was the better contender, but not the best one out there. That was Moore.

"Don C did not deserve a title shot against Marciano. Period."

There have been far worse title challengers. Not being the top man doesn't automatically mean you are totally unworthy. Don C really had decent credentials.

Wills was the best out there in 1923. Does this prove that Firpo was unworthy. Not exactly.

An even better example might be Willard in 1915. Was he the best out there? Especially off achievement? I don't think he was close. But he was good enough to win the title, so it difficult to see him as an unworthy contender.

Valdes "brought height, reach, punching power"

He still lost to a lot of small men. The fact is that size didn't seem quite the advantage back then that most see it today. The reasons might be interesting to explore. Perhaps it is because the modern super-heavyweights are so huge that they have moved so far beyond the average in size that the bulk of good fighters are simply too small to defeat them. Off the records, this was not so in the old days.

We probably disagree a bit on Jackson. He stays an enigma to me. Valdes deserves full credit for stopping him via the three-knockdown rule, but I really don't know how good Jackson was. Charles, Layne, and Henry were definitely slipping. Hard to tell about Baker. Jackson lost 2 of 3 to Slade. Jackson ended up taking such beatings from Patterson and Machen that several states actually pulled his license and banned him. That doesn't happen to all that many top contenders while still in their mid twenties.

Certainly size matters, so the old-timers can't really be expected to compete with the modern super-heavies. But my take is it is sort of like comparing the modern NFL to the NFL in the 1960's. The biggest team then was I think the Rams. Their defensive front four were all 6' 5" to 6' 7". But the best team was the Packers and I don't think they had a starter 6' 5". Could the Packers compete with the huge modern teams? No. Could the larger Rams? No. They couldn't either. Being somewhat bigger didn't make them as good in their own day and wouldn't make them competitive today. The size explosion has left all these teams behind.