If post 1950 heavyweight Champions drew the color line

We wouldn't realize it though. A lower echelon of white fighters would have replaced the black fighters and boxing fans today would still romanticize them anyway.

 

How about if we only recognized as champion those who defended against blacks?
The excludes:
Sullivan
Corbett
Fitzsimmons
Jeffries
Hart
Willard
Dempsey
Tunney
Schmeling
Sharkey
Baer
Braddock
The first Champion is then Tommy Burns, the second Jack Johnson,the third Joe Louis.

 

A better comparison with what went before, would be if the black fighters since 1950, had drawn the colour line against white contenders.

 

Johnson was catering to the sure fire winner supply and demand,ie give the public what they want.They wanted a White champ and they sure as hell would not get it by matching him with another black.

 

The reality is that at some stages of that dark period, there was not a black fighter who would have made a decent sparring partner for the current champion.

 

We generally know how good it was, because there were always some top white contenders, who were willing to fight the top black contenders.

Between 1880 and 1950, the depth of the pool of black contenders oscillated considerably. You had head to head monsters like Peter Jackson, then a few years later, the best was somebody like Joe Butler.

 

The record would be rewritten .. every champion before Louis should have asterisks next to their name and having fought one or two black fighters excludes no one .. without a level playing field the whole history of the sport is based on illusions ..

 

Am I right in thinking that Marciano is the only white American heavyweight champion who ever successfully defended the title against a black man? Or am I forgetting someone obvious?

 

He is the only one who defended it against two black challengers with the combined age of 76!

 

Would you also apply that to Jack Johnson and Joe Gans?

 

Hollyfeild beat older challengers. Two guys Combined age 85.

 

As they are not a total of 76 my point stands, and yours is irrelevant.

 

I think Dempsey qualifies as unified champ, since he beat the man who beat the man who unified black and white titles.

 

I am not sure this is correct.

Sullivan definitely defended against the coloured fighter Herbert Slade. I dont think this is really debateable.

Also, Jeffries may not have defended against blacks. But he would have won the title when he defeated the coloured champion Peter Jackson.