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

In light of the fact that Archie Moore's career got a shot in the arm after he was active as a professional boxer for more than a decade, I was wondering how Charley Burley would have fared if he also was active throughout the 1950s. But it has dawned on me that Moore had a far more colorful personality and more of a crowd-pleasing fighting style than Burley did.

- Chuck Johnston

 

This is a bizarre argument. Its like saying, lets compare these guys at middleweight based on their success against non middleweights. The point is that while LaMotta was fighting smaller fighters (more threatening than the guys that Graziano was beating) he was also fighting and beating very stiff competition at Middleweight. Thats something Graziano simply never did. I cant think of a single top ten middleweight Graziano defeated in his run to the title. I cant think of a single threatening middleweight Graziano defeated that might have slipped through the cracks of the rankings. His requisites for challenging for a middleweight title are laughable and indefensible. You can argue he was popular, which he was. You can argue Zale deserved a gimme after the war. I wont argue too much with that but the guy fought 9 months and 6 fights before ever stepping in the ring with Graziano (his seventh gimme) and then fought ten months and four more gimmes before rematching Graziano, then went 11 months and three fights against unrated opponents and was given first crack at Graziano, who himself had gone 11 months and had one fight against a guy he had already beaten by a wide margin. And this is after the title had been frozen for over five years. So essentially two guys, fighting nobody threatening but each other (and over the hill faded champion and a guy who had never beaten a top contender) tied up the title for nearly seven full years while every fighter in the top ten during those seven years had to sit on the sidelines and wait. Even Marcel Cerdan was ordered by the NBA to face LaMotta in an elimination before facing Zale but the monopoly of the IBC threw their weight around and got Zale that fight, against a guy who was past thirty and spent the vast majority of his career at middleweight and who had only faced a few top contenders himself and struggled in one form or another each time. So please, spare with the weird argument that Graziano somehow deserved it more than LaMotta because he only faced three guys that he had a ten pound pull in weight over, as if that has anything to do with anything. The fact is that if you look at Grazianos record prior to his title shot every recognizeable name is a smaller fighter. Meaning whenever he stepped up his level of competition he wanted to be the bigger, harder hitting guy. You cant say that about LaMotta.

 

But .....
Zale-Cerdan (21 Sep, 1948) was promoted by Tournament of Champions, which was a new promotional outfit that was challenging the monopoly of the Twentieth Century Sporting Club.

.... and ....
The IBC - International Boxing Club - wasn't even formed until March 1949.


So you're statement is a bit inaccurate, to say the least.

I don't know if you're deliberately making stuff up to diminish Zale and boost your boy LaMotta, or whether you're simply clueless about the era in question, but I guess it has to be a bit of both.
Your suggestion that the IBC monopoly threw their weight behind a Zale-Cerdan fight is laughable considering your pretensions to being some sort of serious boxing historian.

 

This tells me what you think and what your values are but tells me nothing about the boxing world of the 1940's.

It is like discussing ancient Egypt with someone stating that it was absolutely foolish of them to waste the money and resources to build huge pyramids to house the corpses of dead kings. This tells us about his values but nothing at all about the ancient Egyptians.

This is judging the past rather than understanding it. Like all other fighters, Zale was in his own time and what matters is whom folks in his time thought he should defend against.

Like it or not, LaMotta was not the clear cut top challenger. He didn't eliminate the likes of Burley and Williams during the war years so he came into 1946 as just one of several challengers, and with a spotty record against smaller men as I pointed out. Now what you say about Graziano making his rep against smaller men is true, but he was both highly ranked (#4 in 1945. #3 in 1946) and the guy the public wanted to see fight Zale due to Rocky winning his big fights by KO's.

I don't see much criticism due to Zale for fighting Graziano as the gates show that these are the fights the public wanted. There has been post after post saying it was okay for LaMotta to duck Burley as he was a poor draw, but Zale going with by far the biggest draw of the highly rated contenders produces all sorts of moralistic posturing.

"You can argue Zale deserved a gimme"

Depends if one considers a guy who went 32-2-1 from 1944 to 1952 with 27 KO's and beat most everyone he fought by KO just a "gimme" in your terms or a "joke" as someone else said. The bottom line is did the folks at the time consider Graziano a gimme. Seems odd with his fights with Zale the most exciting and memorable of the era.

"tied up the title for over 7 years"

Poor Jake. He got a shot at the title at 27. Lots of boxers' careers were put off the rails by WWII. Jake seems one of the least harmed to me. If he had cleaned out the division during the war he would have a much stronger case for an earlier title shot.

"Even Marcel Cerdan was ordered by the NBA"

Why should a French fighter dance to the NBA's tune? In my opinion, Cerdan had earned a title shot. In 1948 LaMotta was coming off the terrible loss to Cecil Hudson, and the stoppage by Fox in which Jake later claimed he didn't even try. Not giving an honest effort is to me not a reason to make anyone the top contender. In fact, throwing a fight seems to me a good reason for never getting a title shot. Also, the NBA wanted a LaMotta-Burley fight at the end of 1946, but this one didn't come off either, with Jake fighting two welters instead, Bell and Janiro, with Burley eliminated instead by Lytell.

Anyway, the fight was sanctioned so the NBA's ukases amount to nothing but wind.

"Cerdan"

Rather odd that he is criticized by a LaMotta supporter when his first defense was against LaMotta. Was Jake the #1 contender in June of 1949? Also, the fight was held in Jake's home away from home, Detroit. I wonder why not in France? Cerdan came to the US and beat American fighters in America, both contenders and the champion. It is fair to point out that his record of top men is thin, but it is not fair to go to the other extreme and conclude Cerdan was nothing but a phony. He had a really outstanding stat record and I maintain he is a guy for which the evidence is not strong enough to draw sweeping conclusions about either his greatness or his lack of it.

 

That's a bit of stretch. To say they essentially tied up the title for seven years.

As you say, the title was frozen.
Tony Zale served in the U.S. Navy.
There was a world war going on.
Anyone who could avoid military service and enjoy to further their boxing career in contender-level fights during those years was relatively fortunate.

 

It's fair to say the Zale-Graziano trilogy tied the title up for TWO years, but Graziano was a draw and the first fight was a classic , so a rematch was a natural ... and then Graziano won the title in the rematch, in a classic, so a rubber match was a natural.
Fans really wanted to see those fights.

 

Yes, but why is Robinson critcized for not facing Burley ?
Robinson wasn't welterweight champion until December 1946, several years after Burley was campaigning as a welter.
Robinson became middleweight champion in February 1951, by which time Burley was out of the picture.

 

Yes. As champion perhaps Zale should be held to higher standard than contenders, of course, but if the first Graziano fight is considered acceptable, then the subsequent fights with him must be too, since the fights justified the trilogy.

Zale was unable to cash in on being undisputed middleweight champion for years as the war was on, and we're supposed to believe Jake LaMotta, who turned pro in 1940 or '41, was this horribly aggrieved party, despite him making very good money for years in boxing rings having fortunately been exempted from military service while champions and contenders careers were disrupted by those world events.
It's ridiculous.

If Burley's case can be written off as"tough ****" because he couldn't draw, and "that's how boxing worked in those days" .... then surely there's no case against Zale for facing Graziano three times in lucrative engagements that the fans really did want to see!

 

Yes. Holmes was matched very carefully. Shavers was his only top 10 win before fighting Norton.

Basically, Holmes benefitted from the division becoming depleted.

If he had started facing top 10 competition around 75-76 he would have had a tougher road.

Prime Young and Lyle and a still formidable Foreman, a better version of Norton. A still good Ali. The division was certainly tougher then when Holmes ascended to the WBC title.

 

Story of Holmes career... On his way up through a storied division he managed to miss nearly all the big names. Compare his early record to the likes of Young and Lyle. Then as champion he mainly defended against second raters and inexperienced heavies, never facing the other champs and rarely fighting someone ranked among the top two or three in the division.

 

If someone needs to tell you about the boxing world of the 1940s then why are you pontificating about it? LaMotta was far more proven than anyone Zale fought in 18 fights after the war. Period. That's not even disputable. He had been in the mix longer and against tougher competition more consistently than either Graziano or Cerdan. To top it off he was a draw and had built up substantial fanbases in several cities across the Eastern United States. Trying to draw a false equivalency between him and Burley is beyond ridiculous. A fight between LaMotta and Zale would have been a big gate. Maybe not as big as Graziano but in Chicago, Detroit, or New York it would have done huge numbers. So the idea that there is some comparison between Burley not being able to get fights because he was boring, dispassionate, and couldn't draw flies if he was covered in **** and LaMotta who was popular, exciting, and sold tickets is pretty pathetic.

I keep hearing these deluded Burley fanboy revisionists claiming LaMotta ducked Burley. WHEN? When was there ever a viable offer from a legitimate promoter for LaMotta to fight Burley? When LaMotta signed to fight Williams he did so in Williams hometown within a year of Williams defeating Burley, Satterfield, Moore, Lytell, and Wade and just on the heels of his fight with Cerdan which the AP, likely the only outlet the vast majority of Americans had access to as a descriptor of that fight thought Williams got a draw. Claiming LaMotta ducked Burley is akin to claiming Frazier ducked Lyle despite fighting people who were better than Lyle and often right after Lyle lost to them. So far the only "offer" Ive EVER seen for Burley to fight either Jake or Robinson was from Burley's manager. Let me ask you this, are you so stupid that when you hear Wilder or Joshuas managers bellowing fight offers that its legitimate or do you wait until an actual promoter starts working on the fight before you take it seriously? Because the oldest way for an unknown or unpopular fighter to get some free publicity is to challenge a more popular, more established, more bankable fighter whether he means it or not.

So no, your characterization is way off. And frankly its not even contextual. Go back and see what the press and NBA were saying at the time. Its one thing to say Zale deserved a big money gimme against Graziano ONCE. Its entirely another thing to fight him, beat him, sit on the title another year, fight him again, then for Graziano to sit on the title for another while Zale gets first crack. That's ridiculous. Meanwhile you had actual middleweight contenders who had been fighting tough opposition and had actually proven themselves that weren't getting the fight. It wasn't just LaMotta either. You can pick half a dozen guys that were greater threats than Graziano and would have kicked the **** out of Graziano. Trying to pretend the title wasn't tied up by two guys for 7 years is pure fantasy. It was. I understand there was a war on but once the war was over and Zale had shaken off the rust with half a dozen fights against no hopers and then cashed in against Graziano he had an obligation to **** or get off the pot. He knew full well what he was doing. His handlers knew he wasn't a lock to beat any of those guys and he was cashing in. The apologists here in a thread criticizing a young welterweight contender on his way up for not fighting well established middleweights and light heavyweights is pretty comical.

You clearly have not read a late 1940s article regarding LaMotta, or likely have looked for articles that supported your contention, if you think LaMotta wasn't an established top contender. In fact the running narrative of his career at that point was that he had labored long and hard at the very top of the ladder while getting passed over. Id have to question your research into this period if you somehow missed that. Youd have to be trying to miss it. Youd have to be reading every paper and magazine with your eyes closed.

 

Finally, and for the last ****ing time, quit using the bull**** Ring magazine ratings to try to back your absolutely garbage point. Let me spell this out for you: THE RING WAS A MAGAZINE. ITS RANKINGS WERE UNOFFICIAL OPINIONS. THEY HAD NO BEARING ON ANYTHING. THEY DID NOT DICTATE WHO GOT TITLE SHOTS. FURTHERMORE, DONT BE A LAZY ASS KEYBOARD WARRIOR AND QUOTE ME RINGS ANNUAL RANKINGS. THOSE ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A ONE MONTH SNAPSHOT. THE ONLY REASON IDIOTS QUOTE THOSE IS BECAUSE THEY ARE EASY TO SEARCH ON BOXREC AND DONT REQUIRE YOU TO GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND WASH THE GREASE FROM YOUR FINGERS TO ACTUALLY FIND SOME REAL RANKINGS. Got it? Ok.

Yes I absolutely consider Graziano a gimme. I think hes a fraud and one of the most overrated fighters in history. Hes akin to Carpentier, a guy who built his successes on lesser fighters, failed whenever he stepped up, and whose popularity hid the fact that he was mediocre.

Why should a French fighter dance to the tune of the NBA? France was a member of the NBA and Cerdan was challenging for the NBA title. That's why? Its a pretty simple concept. Money, as has always been the case in a sport populated by crooks, won the day and Cerdan who was backed by the mob. The NBA couldn't afford to buck the mob because they had the fighters and when they partnered with Norris within the year Norris had the venues. At that point if the NBA deviated too much from those guys they would have been squashed. It would have been suicide as an organization. It wasn't until Norris' monopoly was broken up that the NBA was able to assert itself and suddenly you see fighters getting stripped for not fighting their top contenders or sitting on the title like what happened to Moore, Robinson, and Ali. That wasn't some coincidence. It was something that should have been happening all along and if the mob and very soon Norris hadn't been involved it would have been and the contenders would have had a lot more opportunities.

If you know absolutely zero about the fox fight and how LaMotta got his title shot then yes, my criticism would seem odd. Since your entire post shows an appalling lack of knowledge of the era Ill just assume that's the case and explain to you that LaMotta was forced to throw the Fox fight by the mob in order to get his long looked for title shot. The mob controlled Marcel Cerdan. See how that works? See how your boy got his title shot so easy? Even then LaMotta had to pay Cerdan a bribe and give his entire purse to Cerdan on top of the bribe. That's why LaMotta got his title shot against a career welterweight who had struggled with the handful of middleweight contenders he had fought and as one might expect Lamotta stopped him in a one sided fight with Cerdan claiming an injury, a habit of his when he lost or looked bad in fights...

 

Okay, Klompton, do you care to tell us how "the IBC monopoly" threw their weight behind the Zale-Cerdan match in 1948 ?

LOL

 

The sob stories for LaMotta make amusing reading, as always.