Most Overrated and Underrated heavyweights of patterson/Listons era

You keep harping on about Ring Magazine ratings but you need to get it through your thick skull that the Ring ratings are meaningless. They DO NOT dictate who gets title shots.

I realize they are easy for you to look up (and those are annual ratings anyway which dont give any idea of the fluidity of the actual ratings month to month) but the NBA was who dictated who got title shots, do a little digging into what those ratings actually were and you will see your perception of events dont jive with the reality of the situation.

How does that article refute that ****ell might have been a bigger draw than Valdez?? Do you have attendance and gate receipt statistics?? Just because Weill was trying to have a Valdez fight in Miami (which illustrates they werent trying to duck Valdez) in order to draw a Cuban crowd doesnt mean he was a bigger draw it simply means they HOPED he would draw big there.

 

Yeah that about sums it up... Timing and circumstances have just as much to do with certain fights being made as does a man's status.

 

Christenberry certainly thought Charles deserved a rematch over Valdes because he handed back a bond saying Nino was not good enough to challenge for a title.

Valdes was better than Cokkell but untill they fought it was a case of deciding which of the two looked a better challenger and it was out of a former obscure journeyman who could not impress outside of Europe, struggled in ham and egg fights ever since beating Charles. But did beat erratic 16-2 Tommy Jackson ...or a fat former light heavyweight who beat two Marciano opponents, most recently Roland Lastarza, unbeaten against heavyweights and had not been officially deemed "not good enough to challenge" by a leading boxing commission.

Nobody could look into the future and know Cokkell did not have a single win left in him. At that time he'd just beat Roland Lastarza who was regarded as a more proven contender than Rockys 16-2 sparring partner Tommy Jackson who Valdes just beat.

 

By that logic Moore deserved the title shot more than Valdez because he beat Valdez in March of 53 and again in May of 55 as well as Bob Baker. Only someone trying to trash Marciano or lick Valdez' jock strap cant admit the hypocrisy of that argument.

Thats simply not true. Charles was rated ahead of Valdez before his fight with Marciano. He was made the #1 challenger by the NBA right after his fight with Satterfield in January of 1954.

 

And then knocked out the guy who beat Valdez twice in two fights...

 

The IBC was a promoter. They dont set ratings.

Nevermind that while you are trumpeting Valdez you lose sight of the fact that he lost to:

Moore, Harold Johnson (who Moore had beaten), and Bob Baker (who Moore had beaten). The only thing that kept Moore from being rated above Valdez was the fact that he was LHW champion. Moore was clearly the better and more deserving fighter and had more right to be upset about Marciano fighting ****ell. Yet guess who Marciano defended against? Moore! So you dont really have much of a case at all.

 

You said Valdez was rated from Dec 53 to March 54. He was not. Charles was rated #1 starting in January 54, three months before you say he entered the ratings. Again, this depends on what ratings you are discussing. You keep bringing up ratings that have absolutely no bearing on the title picture and as such are meaningless.

Furthermore, what champion fights #1 after #1 after #1 after #1??? None of them do. Every champion takes a gimme. Marciano's gimme just happened to be his #2. Few champions even do that. The fact remains that your timeline and sense of context is completely out of whack and simply doesnt jive with history.

 

Don't know if someone already commented on this as I don't feel like reading back through many pages of text.. But I don't see how Ingemar Johannson can be overrated.. he was an olympic gold medalist who destroyed the number one contender in a single round then proceeded to dethrone a prime Patterson. He also beat some pretty good fighters on his own side of the pond. Yeah its true that he didn't face a larger part of the field of heavyweights, but he was mingling with the best in the world for a couple years. If anything Ingo is underrated.

EDIT: My bad. Johansson was a silver medalist... Not a gold medalist.