How does Ezzard Charles look in this film?

I haven't seen this for ages! Lovely, relaxed style, great footwork and variety of punches. Great boxer all round.

 

To be honest, I was more taken aback by Valentino's shortcomings when I watched the fight earlier this year. My notes: Valentino a(nother) fairly sloppy brawler who doesn’t seem very skilled or talented. Charles backing up and then ambushing, catching Valentino following him. Huge hand speed & reflex gap magnified by Valentino coming in wide open with his hands low and loose. Strange that these guys throw so few jabs to close distance, for most of the fight. Nice knockout (beautiful 1-2) but I can’t see Valentino lasting 8 rounds against any decent modern heavy. Last fight of Valentino’s career (13 losses). Certainly a great foil for Charles' athleticism and skill though.

 

If you don't see great footwork, timing and variety in Charles, I despair. The guy oozed class.

 

Slow on foot, open target for right cross or right uppercut, knows little how to punch straight.

 

Pretty decent against a guy blind in one eye.

"I just had an operation on my right eye and was out of the gym [for almost a year],” he recalled. “Three or four days after getting the okay to resume training, my manager, who turned out to be a louse, told me, ‘You’re fighting Charles in four weeks.’ I said, ‘I can’t be in shape to fight the champ in that time, push it back a bit.’ He just told me to get in the best shape I could.”

 

This is a fun fight to watch and the fact that Valentino made it so interesting is bad for Charles. Valentino was pretty ordinary but he made Charles work for the victory.

 

I remember back in the day Charles was talked as a top 3 or 4 ATG p4p around here, now I think he got overrated tbh.

Hey, great fighter, great resume all that, we do not have a lot of his best on film sure, but I think we have many other guys that were better than him, especially looking at this footage that doesn´t impress me as much as so many others out there.

 

That's my take on it. Charles had excellent offensive skills, and could often beat his man to the punch with speed. In his prime, he was rather tough-minded too. A fun guy to watch.

My issues with Charles is at times he could have fought smarter, and is something of an underachiever on defense. Sometimes he was better off boxing than brawling.