How did Ray Robinson navigate such a gifted path as a pro ?

To compare the era of Lewis and Klitchko to the 1940s is ridiculous. Even the 50s and 60s when Giardello was fighting was a rapidly changing landscape than what you had the generation previous because you now had a monopoly on the venues and television by the IBC which in many ways was a precursor to what you see today. The power of the club promoters was rapidly slipping away and the advent of television money into the sport was making the old way of establishing yourself in a local club unnecessary. A fighter didnt have to have a previous fanbase to be showcased in the Detroit Olympia because now, in the 1950s that fighter may have never set foot in Detroit but might be popular by virtue of television. So fights that didnt make sense in the past now were easier to make in many instances. But if you look closely at Giardello’s fights with black fighters they follow a natural progression. His first fight against threatening black fighter was Gil Turner, a cross town rival of Giardello that was a natural match in Philly. His next fight against a threatening black fighter was Saxton, who had appeared twice recently in Philadelphia in big fights against fellow black fighters between that and Saxtons television fights he was already a good card. From then on you can go down the list and see the black fighters he fought were established through television, film, and radio in ways that Burley, Wade, Cocoa Kid, et al never were. This is a testament to the way that media changed american boxing in the post war years, the fact that there was no war on which held the divisions in stasis, and the maturing attitudes towards race in the country. But trying to compare Giardellos career during the explosion of television boxing in the 1950s and 60s to the rise of LaMotta and Robinson in the 1940s with no tv and a war on is comparing apples and oranges.

 

In any case all your points have little to do with Tony Zale. As champion he is obligated to fight his top contenders, regardless of whether they are big draws.

Robinson also pulled out of a fight when Cocoa Kid was announced as a replacement. So clearly some of these fights could have been made given one was all set to go when Robinson pulled out.

 

Also, as I've pointed out top white fighters like Marcel Cerdan and Jake LaMotta were happy to fight Holman Williams once he had started to decline and looked beatable. If lack of money and interest was an issue the fight never would have happened at all.

 

During late 1941, Charley Burley moved to Minneapolis along with his wife and daughter after being managed by Luke Carney for a short period of time, probably for a matter of months during 1941. Carney was the longtime manager of Fritzie Zivic, which means that Zivic and Burley were stablemates for a short time. Here are the gate figures of Burley's bouts at the Armory in Minneapolis that were found in the Minneapolis Star:

December 12, 1941- Ted Morrison...…..............TKO-2 Gate- "About $1,100."
January 9, 1942- Shorty Hogue..................KO-10 Gate- $1,400.
January 23, 1942- Jackie Burke...................TKO-5 Gate- "Less than $1,000."
February 26, 1942- Holman Williams...............W-10 Net Gate- "Around $1,500."
March 13, 1942- Jay Turner......................TKO-7 Gate- "About $1,600."
April 9, 1942- Cleo McNeal.....................KO-5 Gate- "Less than $1,000."
April 30, 1942- Sammy Wilson.................KO-2 Gross Gate- $3,416.22
(Note- Burley's bout with Wilson was on a boxing show that also featured Sugar Ray Robinson and Reuben Shank in separate bouts. As far as the fans were concerned, Robinson stole the show. At the time that this show took place, Curt Horrman, a millionaire, controlled Robinson's contract. According to Robinson's biography, Horrman and Robinson later parted because Robinson felt that Horrman wasn't tough enough as a negotiator. I myself am somewhat puzzled in regards to Robinson fighting on this show at a time when he was drawing far larger gates at important venues. According to Harry Otty's biography of Burley, Robinson received a purse of $1,000. for fighting on this show, which is far below what he could command at important venues. It could be that Robinson broke up with Horrman partly because of Robinson was fighting on a show like this one for a relatively small purse.)

At the time, Tommy O'Loughlin, an experienced boxing man, was promoting the boxing shows at the Armory in Minneapolis. Beginning in late 1941 or early 1942, O'Loughlin was the manager of Burley for several years, probably as late as 1946.

Note- I made a mistake in saying that O'Loughlin managed Burley beginning in late 1941 or early 1942. Some named Bobby (or Bobbie) Eaton bought Burley's contract during November 1941, which resulted in Burley and his family moving to Minneapolis. In fairness to Eaton, Burley was fighting far more often under his management than he was while in the same boxing stable as Fritzie Zivic. It appears that Eaton parted company with Burley during late 1942.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Nonsense. As I said, Jake fought Williams in Williams hometown where he was established. Its only in hindsight that you say Williams looked beatable. Nobody in the USA saw the Cerdan Williams fight and press reports had it a close fight with several feeling Wiliams won. So what you have is two top guys fighting a very even fight and Jake going after the one one that was most easily available to him. Keep in mind he also tried to fight Cerdan who was ordered by the NBA to make that fight before the Zale bout but refused. Jake, despite having a higher rating, didnt get his shot until he was forced to bribe Cerdan with a boatload of money. So pretending Jake was cherry picking misses the boat on the context of the era.

Im not defending Zale because he absolutely avoided the best post WW2.

 

the net gate of Williams and Burley is interesting. $1500 for a fight between two top contenders?

 

Just to elaborate on Klompton2's point, plus my own two cents,

This is Holman Williams' year by year record

1942-----(9-5)
1943-----(11-3)
1944-----(14-2-3)
1945-----(13-2-1)
1946-----(5-1 prior to fighting Cerdan)

His 1944 record included victories over Jack Chase (3), Jose Basora, Lloyd Marshall, Aaron Wade, and Kid Tunero.
His 1945 record included victories over Cocoa Kid, Charley Burley, Bert Lytell, and Archie Moore.
His 1946 record included victories over Aaron Wade, Wildcat Henry, and Bob Satterfield.

His 1945 losses were to the Cocoa Kid & Archie Moore, with the draw to Lytell. He beat all three that year. The 1946 loss was to Lytell, but Williams off his record was always going in and out, with most of his fights going to the judges. He would later beat Deacon Johnny Brown who KO'd Lytell after Lytell beat Williams.

Bottom line--I don't see any evidence that Williams was slipping when he was matched with Cerdan. He was coming off a victory over Satterfield.

The claim of Williams slipping is based on him losing to Cerdan and LaMotta, but runs into the problem that perhaps these men were just good enough to have beaten him at any time.

Cerdan especially is totally a wild card here. No one really had beaten him with his only losses on fouls. It is fair to point out that with the war breaking out just as he was coming into his own, his top level victims were thin, but he certainly looked good against those he met.

He was 30 in 1946 when he really stepped onto the world stage. At that age LaMotta was at the end of the line, Burley was losing to Lytell and fading from contention, and Williams was on the cusp of a severe decline. Cerdan goes on to win the title at 32 and to lose it to the 27 year old LaMotta when 33. If anyone wants to argue there is a lack of evidence of his being a great fighter, they have a point, but there is also a lack of evidence that he wasn't a great fighter, and both his record and his showing on films are impressive.

I think the prudent course with Cerdan is to accept that he was possibly great with the caveat that the proof is too shaky to draw a firm conclusion one way or another.

 

Excellent post making sound points.

 

Here are The Ring ratings from 1945 on

1945
Champ-Zale
1--Williams
2--Burley
3--LaMotta
4--Graziano
5--Cerdan

1946
Champ--Zale
1--LaMotta
2--Burley
3--Graziano
4--Cerdan
5--Abrams

1947
Champ--Graziano
1--Zale
2--Lytell
3--Cerdan
4--Belloise
5--LaMotta

1948
Champ-Cerdan
1--Lytell
2--Belloise
3--LaMotta
4--Zale
5--Delannoit

What stands out to me is how arbitrary these ratings are. Lytell lost 10 fights from 1945 to 1947 but still moves ahead of all the contenders, including Cerdan who hasn't lost to anyone (since the early career foul losses) and LaMotta who has beaten him.

For example, why exactly did LaMotta pass Burley in 1946? It could be justified on the basis that he beat Williams who had beaten Burley in 1945, but then why is Cerdan who also beat Williams as well as Abrams still behind Burley? and even Graziano? Burley did win all his fights that year. So did Cerdan. LaMotta fought a draw with Jimmy Edgar, but that didn't hurt his rating.

My view is that one might rate either Burley, Cerdan, or LaMotta the #1 contender depending on what criteria you use to judge their records. No one stood out from the pack.

 

In regards to the bout between Charley Burley and Holman Williams that took place in Minneapolis on February 26, 1942, at least that was a "stand-alone" main event which drew a net gate of about $1,500. But according to a ringside report in the June 24, 1942 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Burley and Williams fought in a scheduled ten-round bout, Burley winning a decision, on a boxing show featuring three other scheduled ten-round bouts: Leo Rodak vs. Charley Varre, Curtis Sheppard vs. Eddie Blunt and Freddie Pope vs. Chickero Sanchez, at Crosley Field (the home of the Cincinnati Reds for a number of decades) in Cincinnati on June 23, 1942. That boxing show had an attendance of 998 and a gate of $1,558. It was reported that Promoter Bill Gobel took a loss of "approximately $6,100."

It was originally thought that the boxing show wasn't going to take place. But the Cincinnati Boxing Commission told the managers of the fighters that it would guarantee the fighters' purses because Gobel had posted a $5,000. bond.

Bouts between Burley and Williams appeared to draw fairly well in New Orleans. Their no-contest bout that took place in Hollywood also may have drawn a decent gate because that venue generally drew good crowds every week. But I don't have access to old New Orleans newspapers, and the gate figures for Hollywood boxing cards generally weren't included in ringside reports.

- Chuck Johnston

 

As the Ring's ratings, they were (presumably) compiled by Nat Fleischer, who was known to make random or biased choices on occasions. In any case, this is just the unofficial opinion of the Ring. The NBA ratings were the official ones.

Also bear in mind that these are just the annual ratings, which don't necessarily reflect how a fighter was rated over the course of the year. Their standing could be skewed by a big win or loss right at the end of the year, for instance.

 

Yet LaMotta was not even remotely competitive with Lloyd Marshall a guy who Williams had beaten previously.

I think evidence points to Williams being past his best by 1946, the sheer number of bouts he had participated in as well as the fact that many of his contemporaries were past it by this stage makes it a logical conclusion.

 

"The NBA ratings were the official ones."

For the NBA, but the NBA was only a Union of some American states and did not even include the most important one, New York, where the NY State Athletic Commission set the rules.

But Zale was a world champion and Cerdan is French. I think the EBU had as much legit say about a world title bout as the NBA did, if possibly more.

To me the problem here is that there is no "official" ratings and they are by nature going to be, and were proven to be, arbitrary.

As Fleischer pointed out in the 1950's, the NBA could say whatever it wanted, but it was the state athletic commissions which sanctioned the fights. As for the Zale-Graziano fights, not only New York, but Illinois and New Jersey sanctioned these fights.

The NBA's opinion had as much impact as The League of Nations opinion that the Japanese should withdraw from China had in 1937.

And that raises the issue of Graziano getting title shots. The general public wanted these fights. Should they have a say? Or is the opinion of this or that group of politicians and bureaucrats all that matters?

Sort of like a country. Should decisions be made by a vote of the people? Or should the folks at the top just tell everyone else what to do?

 

and--Frazier was not even remotely competitive with Foreman a guy Ali beat decisively.

It is a point, but is always somewhat shaky. A beat B while C lost to B and therefore A beats C has not proven to be true quite often. We are dealing with styles make fights, and also that all of us human beings have our good days and bad days. I think if a student took the same test on two different days he might get different results even with the same knowledge base just because of variations in mental functioning due to normal ups and downs.

 

I doubt that's why Cerdan fought Williams.
Cerdan was probably looking for a highly-ranked American to defeat.
Williams was ranked #1 by RING magazine at the end of 1945 and only lost to Bert Lytell in April '46 before facing Cerdan in July.
I don't know whether Cerdan's managers were working on the Williams match prior to the Lytell fight or not, or whether the Lytell fight is enough for them to conclude he was in real decline or not.

People talk a lot of crap about Cerdan's career but unless you read French newspapers and sources, knowledge of Cerdan is limited.