If Armstrong Had Become a Four Division Champion...

Wasn't it just for the California MW title, and not the actual MW title? I could be confusing or misremembering something, though.

 

The actual belts were full of **** in the mw division back then.

Apostoli beat both thil and steele and barring politics he'd have unified all the belts in them two fights.

He then lost to corbett3 before beating him in a rematch.

He then lost to garcia who got his gift against henry.

There is a mythical lineal claim to the title garcia held but none of the major belts sanctioned it.

More importantly to me though, he'd proved himself the best mw in the world.

 

barring garcia, is there another middleweight that armstrong could have beaten to further that claim?

 

Victories over overlin and abrams would certainly have helped. Plus soose seemed to persistantly pick up gift victories himself.

The division was quite fractured despite apostoli defeating the ring, nyasc and nba title holders.

Damn politics.

 

i always thought the fractures and politics were a more modern problem. shame it's longer standing than that

 

I thought Garcia beat Armstrong. At least it was close.

 

Well a hundred years ago the scene was very similar to today with each division having a couple of claimants each (hw is tidy most of the the way through).

With the nba and nyasc they usually agreed. It was steele's management who made the fight at 161. Although the weird "non title" agreement between thi (ring and some other belt champion) and apostoli was, well weird.

By and large they agreed but this few years of mw title history is quite fractured in particular.

Stonehands has gone into much more detail in this sort of research so he'll probably have a much clearer and articulated viewpoint.

 

Hes top 3 for me anyways. If he had have gotten the nod it would be hard to argue against him being no1, though personally i still would find it hard to split him,Greb and SRR

 

so still top 3 then

 

Yeah. I meant that i could understand others putting him at no1 but id personally still find them hard to split

 

hoping to keep this on the front page till stoney chimes in with his thoughts on the mw scene from this era

 

Mickey Walker had a 4 year reign after a dubious decision from Tiger Flowers who won the title from Greb.

The NBA declared the MW throne vacant because Walker failed to defend the title in a timely fashion. The NYSAC suspended him for the same reason. Walker made things clear and easy by appearing before the NYSAC and vacating the throne in June 1931.

The NBA then ordered a tournament, which Gorilla Jones won after beating Oddone Piazza in Milwaukee, WI in Jan 1932. Walker was at ringside.

Thil beat Jones by DQ in June. Though later stripped by the NBA and NYSAC, he remained the top man as late as Dec 1935 and was generally recognized as late as October 1936.

Then things got interesting. Fred Apostoli fought Thil in September 1937 but before he did, the NYSAC made both sign an agreement that this bout was not for the title despite the fact that Thil had not lost his title in the ring and both weighed in under 160 lbs. Now why would they do that? Because they recognized Freddie Steele as champ. Apostoli did everyone a favor and stopped the unpopular Thil, and then he goes right after Steele.

Steele agreed to fight Apostoli but only if Apostoli came in over the weight limit so that Steele's claim wouldn't be at risk. As far as I'm concerned, Apostoli was already the true champ. Anyway, Apostoli stops Steele in the 9th and Steele won't give him a shot.

Apostoli goes on to beat Young Corbett III and the NYSAC finally recognizes him in '38.

Ceferino Garcia KOs Apostoli in '39.... that means that had Armstrong been given that decision, Armstrong would be the real MW champ.

Ken Overlin beats Garcia, Billy Soose beats Overlin and Soose vacates in 1941 to fight as a LHW....

 

:good I hoped I had this one right (I do like it when the premiere fighter actually has the linear claim) but i know you've lived breathed and ate this stuff for months so I was hoping to hear your take on things.

 

This sums it up, quality post.

 

I think people put too much attention into that aspect of Garcia II. He beat him before and I question the legitimacy of that MW belt anyways. Fact is he already held 3 belt of 3 divisions at once and is a top 5-10 ATG. That fight doesn't change that and neither does it diminish his career either. He didn't need it for his legacy he had better wins. For the record I thought he beat him in the rematch but it wouldn't have been his best win and maybe not even top 3-5 it just would've been a cherry on top.