If Not For Imprisonment, Would Rubin Carter Have Become World Champ?

I doubt it. I think he was already past prime. Maybe he would have a little chance to repeat his upset win against Emile Griffith (think he was worldchampion at that time). Though I don`t think, that Carter would get a title fight.

 

No

 

He was already on the slide by the time he robbed and murdered those people. He wasn’t even a contender anymore.

 

Griffith was the welter weight champion. Carter got a title fight ,against Giardello ,and lost a unanimous clear decision.He was a good contender, but not championship timbre.

 

He went to jail 1966 and Emile Griffith was 1966-1967 WBA & WBC Middlewight Worldchampion (lost to Benvenuti, but won the rematch) and then for a second time 1967-1968 WBA & WBC Champion.

 

But he fought Griffith in1963 ,when Griffith was the welterweight champion. Carter ko'd him about a week before Griffith received the Fighter Of The Year Award.I'm aware of Grffith's championship fights ,I watched them as they happened.

 

Okay, but the question was: If Not For Imprisonment, Would Rubin Carter Have Become World Champ?
But I know what you mean. It was a great time for boxing fans!

 

I recall watching Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show back in the 70s when Carter was briefly released with the retrial imminent. On the show Carter's main alibi was "I was making $100,000 a year and about to get a title fight with Dick Tiger. Why would I have to rob anyone?" Which sounded plausible to the man on the street. But I needed to check him out and pulled out my old Ring Record Book and saw that he went 7-7-1 in his last 15 fights. And even at my age at the time, I thought, "No one was giving this guy a title shot!"

 

Dick Tiger kicked them living **** out of Carter. Given his mediocre record and the beating Tiger gave him he was never getting a shot at Tiger. I dont think he would have ever beaten Griffith again either. I consider that fight a situation where 99 times out of 100 Griffith beats him it just so happened that 1 out of 100 long shot came in their first fight.

 

Nah. He was on the downside of his career. Losing as many (if not more) than he was winning. He also lost soundly to Giardello. You can often tell who knows his career and who knows the movie by the “robbed of the title” angle. Sure, it sounds great and was nice marketing but it didn’t go down like that

 

And I've answered the question twice in my posts,I just stated that Carter had his title shot and lost ,he also lost to Tiger,Scott,Rodiguez x 2 , Archer, Rivero,Morris, and Gonzalez.
His ko of Grififth was a win over a welterweight .Carter had his last fight at the age of 29 and he had won just 5 of his last 12 fights , he was past prime, and when prime was not quite good enough to be champ.

 

Yeah, he wasn’t prime anymore when lifted. The story is told by some that prison stopped him being a champ. Not true

 

I think he would be underdog against more or less all lineal middleweight champions. He could be one of the different boxing organisation champions from about 1990 onwards, but he would lose against the best ones (Hopkins, Martinez, Golovkin, Canelo...).