You dont know how many fighters with the "talent" to become great fighters were destroyed by similar conditions, similar bad management and similar circumstances to the ones Walcott endured. That's the reality of the boxing game. You interpret what I say about Walcott as "excuses", but I'm just explaining the reality of the boxing game to you. You either understand or you dont. Walcott was a great fighter, IMO. All fighters lose fights, it's what they become eventually that counts.
Walcott was simply lucky to make a come back when the division was rather weak. Louis was old (before both fights with Walcott in interviews he repeated that he has slowed down and is not the same fighter anymore), Charles not only has been past his prime, but above his best weight too. And Marciano beat Walcott both times, some other fighters made him look bad, but all came second best all the same.
The division was weak, but Jersey Joe Walcott was an excellent fighter when he was on form. Joe Louis was slowed down but he was still a terrific fighter when Walcott fought him - and the majority of people who saw that fight thought Walcott had won, even Louis seemed to believe Walcott had won, as did the referee. I can only say how I see it. Walcott looks an impressive boxer-puncher to me, on film footage.
As I already said, based on scoring system used at the time, Louis legitimately won the fight with Walcott. It was only after the fight that the NY commission thought about changing the scoring system to give more weight to knockdowns in the scores.
Lots of people scored it for Walcott. Most of the boxing writers (familiar with the scoring system in place) thought Walcott deserved the decision. One of the scoring judges scored it for Walcott. The majority of people who bothered to score it (sportswriters), and they knew the scoring system, thought Walcott had won. Joe Louis thought Walcott had won at first. The two scoring judges who called it for Louis were in the minority of those who saw that fight. The crowd booed the decision, almost unanimously. This is what I have read. I'm not pronouncing judgement on a fight I have not seen in its entirety, I'm simply stating what others - who DID see it - thought.
Than under the ten must system, Lewis and Holyfild relly fought to a draw. The judges do get it wrong(On a lot of cases) The same thing happen to Louis Walcott 1.
Referee (who gave it to Walcott) often sees the fight different from judges sitting at ringside. NYT's James P. Dawson saw it 8-7 for Louis and Arthur Daley 9-6 for Louis. AP poll had 20 out of 34 writers voting for Walcott, but they couldnt really explain how a fighter who runs away all the time deserves a win. Most criticism came from people who either watched it on TV or listened a radio broadcast, those who attended it live were less critical.
I think that it was a borderline case to be honest. A fight where a decision win for either man could have been justified. The National Police Gazette came down in favour of Walcott and said that it would recognise him as the champion even presenting him with a belt.
OK, so what does all this tell us ? Lots of people thought Walcott deserved the decision, as I've said.
from the footage i have seen, his boxing IQ is not as good as toney's. he is not effective in certain situations unlike toney. for example he couldnt fight with a 185 pound marciano on the inside. toney never had any trouble when he was fighting modern time heavyweights in close like evander holyfield, rahman etc. he gets caught with shots that toney just doesnt get caught with. skill wise toney is far superior than alot of old time fighters.
That they might have thought he deserved to win (not necessary that they scored it for Walcott using official rules approved by NY commission, which were different from ones used in other states), but that a lot of people thought otherwise as well, and that it was a legitimate win for Louis based on scoring system at the time. It wasn't a robbery by any means, a controversial decision that could go either way, but that's it. Louis also fought with a hand injury most of the rounds, to add to him already being on the downslide.
I consider Joe Louis perhaps the greatest heavyweight of all time, and I believe he was still quite great in 1947, so any man who can go 15 rounds with him and convince many people that he'd won, or hold Louis to a draw, even in 1947, is a very good fighter. Add to that the fact that Walcott LOOKS GOOD doing it on film, and that he LOOKS GOOD winning the title from Ezzard Charles 4 years later, and he even LOOKS GOOD losing the title to Rocky Marciano (another fighter I'd rate very highly on the all-time list) then I conclude that Jersey Joe Walcott was a very good fighter or a great fighter, and not a journeyman.
Even Louis didn't think about himself being that good at the time. Neither did contemporary authors, they all knew Louis was clearly past his best. Due to specifics of his style, his reflexes and handspeed slowing down meant a lot for his effectiveness (as a counter-puncher), so that looking good against that version of Louis means a lot less that some people tend to think. But that's just my opinion. Walcott looks very poor in his fights vs Charles, not that Charles looks much more impressive to me, but neither man looks like a true boxing master in their fights with that flat-footed slow-paced in-fighting with lots of clinches and in general fights being not very clean, both getting tagged by punches a lot more often than one could think by simply reading about them, and neither showing particularly impressive offensive arsenal either. Looking good, or, rather, making Marciano look bad, it not that much of an achievement. Skills, coordination, cleverness, smoothness, Marciano looks very poor at all these things, so it wasn't that hard to look good against him for a while.
So why didnt anybody else do it? If you look at the postwar rankings Walcott did a prety good number on the top contenders of his era to earn a fight with Louis. He was obviously the best contender out there by a substantial margin.
