Lee Savold - a heavyweight champion?

Woodcock basically got the slot in the ‘vacant title’ bout because he’s British and the BBBC was calling the shots.

His other qualification was he beat Savold by DQ on a low blow nobody but the referee apparently saw, and Woodcock fell to the ground and didn’t get up — he was being soundly beaten and conned his way to a ‘win’ that set up him getting thrashed in the rematch.

He also was apparently blinded in one eye by a detached retina from Baksi pounding him from pillar to post in an easy KO win, but the blind BBBC doctors turned a blind eye to it to serve Her Majesty’s boxing board.

 

I'm not entirely sure these questions are not more of a case in point than they were meant to be.

What you presented is a framing. I can choose to enter that framework and debate or agree within the limitations of the logic or I can choose to represent the same idea as a counter framework. I'm just explaining to try to change the tone of my posts because I do a good job coming off adversarially despite the fact being I am drawn to this forum and you poster because I do respect your opinions and experiences.



I am unsure


This seems a luxury per the conversation. If the conversation is a chronological list of authorities and their impact on boxing then are you so dismissive of Paddy? Monte Masters is one of our favorite stories to share with new fans despite Monte not even having the legitimacy of any champion you named. Paddy O'Grady and his Son-in-Law-Champion Monte have significantly impacted the sport specifically with a lack of legitimacy!

Under that light, I ask you, do you not need to know these men? Their time? What happened? Okay, then, what is a list of bodies and their champions other than facts? Fact is Monte was a champion no one respected. Simple. Any list that denies the existence of Monte, the WAA(Was it? I mean the body) and Paddy simply deals in propaganda.








That said, I will not avoid the framing you presented:

You know full and well what the majors are. I'm not going to explain that unless you tell me you don't actually understand the difference between the major bodies and the minor bodies.

If you are asking me does BBBoC qualify as a major. Uh, yeah, I mean that is consensus not my opinion. Check like, boxrec, or whatever source you like. Pretty much everyone agrees BBBoC is def a major post war. The IBU may is more debatable because WW2, Hitler boned them. Since the IBU got nazi'd the BBBoC the most important player in Europe. Even the IBU's return is largely due to BBBoC support.

That said, if you did just mean my personal opinion on these matters, TBH, and I do not mean this insultingly. I am not sure I see Europe, including the British, as a legitimate force in heavyweight boxing until Lennox Lewis. Again, no offense to anyone. European champions are pretty few. Every ATG has some euro contenders on their resume and such but it's really just mostly Americans playing the roles of champions and top contenders.

It's similar to the present just flipped. When was the last time you saw America as a legitimate force in HW boxing? I could be wrong but I don't think there is a single american on the ring ratings atm.

 

To me, any of the four major belts are world titles under the current circumstances.

I guess you can say in Savold's day it was different since you pretty much basically had to be undisputed to be recognized as such.

 

But was he the "Peoples Champ"?

 

It's the first and only time I even heard this argument debated ...

 

People in the UK considered him a champion. He lived in England for almost a year after defeating Woodcock and capitalized on his celebrity by raking in a lot of money engaging in exhibitions. That's what he was doing in the year which transpired prior to his next fight with Joe Louis. When Lee left England, the boxing community held a big banquet in his honor. There's even a British newsreel clip documenting that fact. So I'd argue he was the people's champion in the UK. I think people in the UK were at least as excited about Lee as people in the US were about Ezzard Charles.

 

Interesting. I bet he left many baby Lee's behind.

 

I believe I am your huckleberry when it comes to introducing Monte Masters and the WAA, aka (as Malcolm “Flash” Gordon called it) the WBO’Grady, haha, to this discussion.

Monte won the vacant WAA heavyweight crown in mid-1982 in Oklahoma City with a KO 1 of Larry Simmons, 2-0 per Boxrec (on the way to a 3-2 career) but billed as 14-0 and ‘the Pride of Denver.’

Then he split with Pat O’Grady’s daughter and was stripped.

Not sure of the circumstances (perhaps he reconciled with Sean’s sister), but in September 1983 he beat Tony Fulilangi in Phoenix with a 14th-round TKO. Fulilangi was 22-0-1, so not actually a bad win.

That belt was, near as I can tell, never defended.

So now I present, for the first time, the lineage of the ill-fated WAA title:

Masters lost his very next fight, by TKO 8, to future cruiserweight titleholder Bernard Benton in Atlantic City. So as we are tracing lineage, whether the WAA sanctioned this bout or not, he lost the lineal title.

Benton beat Pierre Coetzer and Ricky Parkey, then lost a 10-round decision to Marvis Frazier in October 1984. If 10 rounds is good enough for Dempsey and Tunney, it’s good enough for me. And both were over the then-cruiser limit of 190 pounds, so we’ll count it as a WAA lineal title change.

But wait, there’s more!

While Marvis had already lost a world title fight to lineal champ Larry Holmes, we’ll calculate this as him winning the lineal WAA and thus the lineages weren’t settled.

Well darned if Frazier’s next loss wasn’t to Mike Tyson, who would claim the WAA lineage, then go on to collect the other belts. Finally, when he beat Michael Spinks, the WAA lineage fully folded into the overall heavyweight championship lineage.

So, see, the WAA’s heritage and lineage lives today. Kinda/sorta, anyway. LONG LIVE THE WBO’GRADY!!!

Thank you for attending my Ted (O’Grady) Talk.

 

I dunno, there aren't any newsreel clips about that!

 

You need to write a multi volume series on the WAA!

 

WBO’Grady: The Champ Thomas Years

 

Young Stribling won the NBA title and it was retconned too.

 

The basis for recognizing Savolds belt and not recognizing Vitalis(from a merit standpoint historically they both happened) is that Savolds lineage eventually became lineal.

 

With hindsight, Walcott v Charles for the vacant title just seems like common sense, but it's understandable that not everyone went along with it right away.

When Louis wrote the letter which announced his retirement, he also announced that he'd got together with Arthur Wirtz and Jim Norris to form a new organisation called the IBC and that they would be promoting a fight between Walcott and Charles for his vacant title. But of course, this wasn't 1895, a retiring champion didn't get to nominate his successor. The NBA accepted the plan, but the Ring, the NYSAC and the BBBC saw it differently.

The letter also stated that Walcott and Charles had both agreed, should they win, to defend the title within 90 days against either Lee Savold or Gus Lesnevich. This crystallised the idea that this was a US-only arrangement, since Savold and Lesnevich were coming off losses to Bruce Woodcock and Freddie Mills respectively (albeit by controversial DQ in Savold's case).

This led to the British promoter Jack Solomons organising an eliminator between Woodcock and Mills for the right to meet Savold (whom he already had under contract) for British and European recognition.