How good was Charley Burley

Robinson and Lamotta were both offered around 30 to 50k, which around that time was near their best paydays. Billy Conn turned down 30k to fight him too. Yes they avoided him like the plague.

How good was he? He was a master boxer, a cross between Roy Jones and Floyd Mayweather in style, but not as quick.

He was the best of the Murderer's Row, a league of black fighters who would fight each other multiple times as not many white boxers would fight then. Although Holman Williams ran him close. Ezzard Charles and Bivins beat him although both were bigger than him.

 

It was a superb era for welters middles and light heavies.anyone of the murders row could have beaten the white middleweight champions of the day and Charles could have been a multi weight champ as could Archie Moore.
It wasnt just black fighters who got short changed, Fritzie Zivic had to give weight to LaMotta and was tough enough to lock horns, gloves, thumbs and elbows with burley.
There might be 17 championship belts per weight division these days but at least there's more chance of a contender getting his chance.

 

Eddie Futch once called Burley the best fighter he ever saw, which is huge praise coming from perhaps the most accomplished trainer in the sport's history.

Despite the limited footage of him, I rate Burley at his best as one of the most dangerous h2h middleweights and welterweights of all time.

 

Actually, the offer was $7, 500. Which was laughably dismissed. I posted a thread recently on this. Burley wasn't even in Conn's orbit monetarily or in drawing/star power. Even in their hometown of Pittsburgh there was no demand for such a fight.

 

This ****ysing video is already known to many here , but it gives a small idea of ​​his skills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81non05aKX4

 

I think Burley was one of the best of all time in two divisions.

 

Power, I can see the similarities with a slowed down version of Floyd Mayweather but Jones? The little view we have of Burley shows a very by the book fighter who knew all the nuances, Jones was free style.

Surf-Bat made a point I've come across often concerning Burley and its that he wasn't a big crowd draw. The film of him is pretty tedious and slow moving to view, you really have to be in the technical subilties to get into it. Robinson was a buisinessman who said he disliked boxing, Burleys not being able to put paying customers in the seats likely played a part in his not getting a number of big fights.

 

Burley was GREAT....but he was also perfection...and he suffers the same fate here as Harold Johnson in terms of popularity....when Teddy Brenner (or was it Harry Markson?) said of Harold...."theres no room in this world for perfection"...unfortunately.

 

Unlike Charley Burley, Harold Johnson eventually became a world champion. Johnson also made a much better living from boxing than Burley did.

What would have happen if Burley was able fight throughout the 1950s like Archie Moore did? Would Burley be able to get televised bouts? Moore made a much better living during the 1950s than he did during the 1930s or 1940s. Would Burley also be able to do it? No one knows the answer to the any of the questions.

- Chuck Johnston

 

There are many here more knowledgeable than myself but i was of the impression that when SRR was winning and became champion at welter, Burley was campaigning at middle and by the time SRR began fighting at middle, Burleys career was wrapping up. A kind of overlap, if you will. Whilst many welters and middles have fought over the years, i would hardly call SRR and Burleys non meeting as a duck. I find it very hard to believe Robinson would have 'ducked' anybody

 

One of the most underrated ever.

 

My thought too, tho I know Burley was certainly one of the mid-40's-late 40's mid-weight bad a**es that was often 'frozen out' of any shot.