Jimmy Bivins

My 33rd best heavy ever for his wins over Lee Q. Murray, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, Lee Savold, Tami Murielloa, Joey Maxim, Turkey Thompson, and Gus Levenisch. His record shits all over a lot of so-called great heavies.

 

Never looked into him really. His ending looks like one of the saddest.

Have to keep an eye on this thread.

 

I kind of skimmed over his career and decided it wasn't top 50 material, choosing Charley Burley over him as "the guy with alot of losses that Ezzard Charles fought"

Bivins beating Charles seems like an outlier, maybe a stylistic problem or a bad situation for Charles. Walcott beat him and Charles avenged the losses

That being said, he was a hell of a fighter in an extremely stacked division

 

Skimmed

 

One thing is for certain, Bivins should have gotten the title shot, Louis or Lesnevich, probably both.

 

If you aren't familiar with his life during retirement, do yourself a favor and definitely DON'T look into it. Learning about it kind of put a sad tint over him, sort of like learning about Brian Wilson's mental illness and his father's abusive personality took away from my enjoyment of the Beach Boys.

 

Great thread if I may say so.

 

i read a recent article regarding archie moore and jimmy bivins. Found it interesting coming from Moores own words.

Jimmy Bivins, oh my goodness, Bivins did me the same way I did Marshall. Bivins came to me and said, “What did you knock Lloyd out for? You had the fight won.” So I said, “Because he knocked out Harvey Massey the same way. What’s it to you?” So Bivins didn’t like me. We fought in Cleveland. Bivins hooked me and I went down to one knee, and Bivins, mad at me, stood up over me and hit me when I was on my knees and hit me with an uppercut on the left side of my face right underneath the cheekbone and knocked me head over heels, knocked me out. He had struck a nerve and all across my front gum, all the way across my mouth, was numb for two years. I despised Bivins. They gave me ten minutes rest, and they made me continue the fight, and Bivins eventually knocked me out again. Finally, two years later, I got a rematch with him in Baltimore. We went in the Armory. Capacity was twelve thousand. They had fourteen thousand in there. It must have been 95 degrees that night. I knocked Bivins down in the fourth round, beat him unmercifully all through the fight, and then in the ninth round I caught him on the ropes, knocked him out. And the people threw hats up in the air, money up in the ring, shouting and yelling. I finally had got Bivins. Then I fought Bivins four more times. I knocked him out another time, and then I decisioned him a couple of times

 

Moore and Charles were just big middles/ small light-heavies when Bivins beat them and Bivins had a weight advantage over both. Moreover, both Charles and Moore went on to dominate their series with him, winning 4 out of 5. Bivins beat Maxim quite early in Maxim's career. Maxim beat him later on.

If anything I think Bivins gets a bit overranked nowadays based on the big names on his record (many of whom also beat him) without context. His best run at heavyweight coincided with the two biggest names in the division (Louis and Conn) being in the army for four years.

 

Bivins was a small but skilled light heavyweight without a big punch. His best stuff was a quick left jab, and defense. A bit short but with long arms for his height, Bivins defeated larger men at heavyweight.

He did rather well in the World War 2 years, when half the talent was overseas in the military and managed to defeat some fine fighters, while losing a few times via upset.

There is film on him to watch.

 

im not the best at this mate and ive tried 3 times to post the link but it aint happening. If your on FB theres a page called Vintage Boxing Photos Archive. Just scroll down and its from the 10th Nov. Its an article called 10 things with Archie Moore. Im sorry i cant be more helpful