....I have heard that he was very controlled by James Norris and Frankie Carbo of the shady IBC in his day and that he was some what protected in close decisions, of which he had many. His 3rd fight with Billy Graham was supposed to a robbery and his loss to Johnny Saxton, who was also mob controlled, was suspicious? Please enlighten me because I am not an expert on Kid Gavilan and he is highly thought of, with a style that lends itself to close fights, but how much of his career was tainted by his connect with the IBC? Or was this just a general part of boxing at the time? I know he was no Carnera but were many of his fights fixed?
I always thought the Billy Graham III outrage was very fake. I myself thought it as a very close fight and could easily see it scored even at the 9-6 range for the cuban.Seen most people have the same opinion. He didn't get the decision in close(some would say robberies) fights with Ike Williams.Felton,Graham I,Saxton or Byars. If anything he was on the wrong end of bad decisions more often than not.
I reckon he was affected more negatively by the mob than anything else. He was certainly not protected and generally had to work very hard to be given the benefit of the doubt.
The only question is if he was bent over by the mob. Didn't really get any favours in his career from the fights that I've seen. The Graham and Basilio fights were close but imo Kid fairly won both. Decisions I've seen which I think were bogus include Bratton II, Saxton, and Womber. Going by reports you could probably add another ten fights he was screwed in.
He definitely Won the 3rd Graham fight. He may have allowed Saxton to spoil his work a bit more than he could've done in their fight. Or maybe he was just having an off night? Either way he probably could've earned the win there but Saxton was one of the guys given the most preferential treatment. In fact it's led to him being quite underrated IMO. Good fighter.
