How good was Jeff "Candy Slim" Merritt?

I’ve always wanted to know more about him myself. His record reflects that he might have had a shaky chin

 

Merritt's career pretty much ended in 1974 when he suffered a disastrous 1st round TKO to the light-hitting fringe contender Henry Clark and then got arrested for armed robbery. He made a comeback after getting out of jail but never got back on track.

It's true about him breaking Earnie Shavers' jaw. Archie Moore got fired as Shavers' trainer for allowing it to happen.

 

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Sol, I remember when it happened and read the same piece about Archie getting fired for this. And I believed it until seeing an Earnie Shavers interview. Here is an excerpt:

DH: Don King wasted no time signing you to a huge match the following month in the Garden with Jerry Quarry. In your own words describe the events that led up to this bout getting cancelled.

ES: I was sparring with Jeff Merritt and he caught me with my mouth open and broke my jaw. You couldn’t make a mistake like that around Jeff. Jeff was the best puncher I ever met and could have been something. But Jeff loved the ladies and drugs a little too much.

DH: The official story was that Don would never allow you two to spar and that Archie Moore disobeyed orders, put you two in the ring and was fired over the broken jaw incident. How much truth is there to that?

ES: None. Jeff and I sparred together all the time. But when this happened, there was a lot of money at stake and somebody had to take the fall. (laughing) And it wasn’t going to be Don.

 

He talked about it in his book right?

 

Larry Holmes said he's the craziest motherf*cker he's ever seen.

 

I didn't read his book, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was mentioned as it was a point in his career that had a lot of notoriety. But here is that interview in its entirety.

Touching Gloves with…Earnie Shavers - The CBZ Newswire (cyberboxingzone.com)

 

George Foreman said he was better than Earnie Shavers and it was a sad case.