How Good Was Earl Walls?

"I would bet my life savings that a fight between Walls vs Cokkell in 1954, Walls would win."

Given that Walls was beaten at his peak by the grossly overweight, inexperienced, and otherwise thoroughly mediocre Edgardo Romero, who had a lifetime 8-12 record,

this tells us less about Cokkell than about your tendency to hold extreme views.

Walls tended to blow opponents out early, or to struggle. Without more film, Walls is hard to gauge, but there seems to be reason to question his stamina or technique off what happened if even average heavies lasted out the early rounds.

 

Edward there is film of earl walls

Watch from 0:45 and on
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zezjr3Ydv0

 

I agree with most of it

Jimmy Slade in the same tier as don Cokkell despite destroying him easily in 4 rounds? While also defeating hurricane Jackson 2x?


Cokkell is overrated. He was not good. His resume is terrible

You talk about Layne being pas it when he fought walls? Lastarza and Matthews were way past it when they fought cokkell

Walls two knockouts over Layne was better than anything cokkell accomplished at heavyweight. Walls also beat slade in 54 when slade had beaten hurricane Jackson. Slade was much better an cokkell himself.


watch the film, walls is flat out more tooled than cokkell and better

 

What kind of "opponent" is this!!!! There is NOTHING coming back. Boxing is a two way street not a one way Turkey shoot. It's imposible to gauge when you don't see Walls responding to any offence what so ever. It's not like he set anything clever up, used a unique move to initially catch his opponent. The guy crumbles hearing the bell.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zezjr3Ydv0[/QUOTE]

I have bad news.

I have checked out this french guy who Earl Walls is beating up here. He's not a real fighter. His record of "wins" was built against guys who had never won a fight while losing plenty. This French guy who Walls beat did beat one 5-0 guy who (you guessed it) fought only guys who had also never won. After beating the "5-0" guy He fights Earl and retires. But hey, at least the one guy he drew with won two fights (against guys who never won) before losing 14 times in a row...

Seems like there was a circuit of phoney boxers financed by a promoter who could deliver guaranteed wins for well invested in prospects. When Earl Walls was brought over from Canada to the then capital of the British Empire he needed to make the right kind of splash. So this poor sap was served up! Every opponent connected to him was a phoney!

 

"Walls two knockouts over Layne were better than anything Cokkell accomplished at heavyweight."

Why? Both Matthews and LaStarza had beaten Layne before he fought Walls.

Matthews is being totally dismissed, but he lost only to Marciano and Cokkell after the war, and his only other losses after he was about 18 were to Chase and Booker both of whom also defeated Archie Moore and Lloyd Marshall about the same time. Matthews was twenty when he fought those two. Critics jump on Matthews for being built up, but he had a pretty impressive won-lost record over a very long career,

just a thought--but perhaps Cokkell deserves a bit of credit for beating Matthews three straight times. Who else was beating Matthews? Walls was beating guys who were losing to all kinds of other fighters.

And as for being built up, wouldn't Walls be the ultimate built-up guy with a whole slew of knockouts over faded names to polish his reputation?

*I repeat that Walls deserves credit for his performances against Layne, but I don't think it should be pushed too far. His resume is really pretty shallow, more shallow I think than Cokkell's.

**Tier four is my also ran tier, and I put Slade, Cokkell, and Walls in it.

 

Before I comment on the other stuff

Why is Slade in the same tier as cokkell? Slade destroyed cokkell in 4 rounds, both in there primes. Slade also beat hurricane Jackson 2x

 

Seriously, what is this supposed to prove?

We have an imposing looking young fighter against an utterly overmatched and obviously untalented opponent.

The announcer blathers on about Joe Louis and a coming champion,

but Walls lost his next two fights to Lloyd Barnett and Alf Gallagher, hardly the types who could be expected to beat Joe Louis.

 

And lost to a lot of other guys. Slade was an in and outer-

Slade was a very good light-heavyweight (and could always make the light heavyweight limit) and I have no problem putting him in tier three if you want,

but not Walls--too many hard to explain mediocre performances from him and not enough top wins.

 

Just saw this thread. Earl Walls was a terrific athlete who had problems getting motivated for fights against less than stellar opponents. When he realized he'd never fight Marciano his work really suffered. Though he lost close decisions to Slade and Romero, he came back and whipped both of them, and he avenged the points loss to Harrison with a shocking 1st round knockout! In his early losses, Walls was poorly managed and went into fights sometimes not having eaten for days.

Earl Walls had the makings of a world champion but never had an Al Weill or James Norris behind him. Unfortunate waste of talent. In his prime, I would have liked his chances against any of the top contenders of his day.

 

No, no, no, this was no "would be champion". He was not an unfortunate waste of talent. Walls is as thoroughly researched in this thread as can be. Don't just take my word for it just read the posts by Edward morbius.

The footage of Walls shows a complete set up of a fight against a virtual stunt man masquerading as a boxer. If he was so unfortunate why is he matched like this with an opponent who has a phoney record who was imported from France especially to build up Walls? Then matched with genuine fighters Walls lost his next two fights!

 

Albert Coulbaly was a black man trying to compete in Europe. He went the distance with a few local heroes in Sweden and Austria so the British promoter thought he'd give Walls a few rounds at least. Didn't happen. Without access to film or news accounts it's hard to say what happened later in the Lloyd Barnett fight, but a guy with his build shouldn't weigh 188 1/2 lbs. If Walls hit to the body it was pretty much guaranteed to be ignored by the British judge who was also the referee. As for Gallagher, he was a rough customer who could take a shot. According to what I've read, both guys were warned by the ref for clinching, another no-no in those days in British boxing. After his second warning, Walls was disqualified.

Walls was a black (Negro) Canadian managed by a second-rate hustler back in the days when coloured guys didn't always get a fair shake, even in the UK. Look at his best efforts to see what he was really capable of. In his last years as a pro his wife and family were pressuring him to quit before he got hurt, so his mind wasn't always on his work. He went into real estate right after he announced his retirement.

 

"a guy with his build shouldn't weight 188 1/2"

Walls weighed 186 1/2 for the second Layne fight, one of his most impressive wins.