Most overrated fighter of the Murderer's Row?

Futch apparently.

 

1. It doesn't matter. It's just one guy's opinion, and Futch has certainly been wrong plenty of times (remember when he said Ken Norton would be easy pickings for Bobick?? LOL!!). Why would you change your own opinion of a fighter based on something Eddie Futch (or anyone) said? What if Futch had declared Eddie Booker to be the best of them, instead of Burley? Would that mean you'd have to move Booker up in your rankings?

2. He wasn't "smaller" at all than Booker or Williams - Booker started as a welterweight like Burley, and Williams started all the way down at lightweight. In his first fight with Burley, Williams was outweighed by about 10 pounds, but still won anyway. Despite this, Booker beat Moore even more impressively than Burley did, plus he beat Lloyd Marshall, rather than simply lose a close fight to him. Williams also beat Marshall a couple of times as well. Burley did not "win" his series with Williams either, they were officially 3-3-1, with Burley failing to win any of their last 3 fights, even though Williams was the older of the two and his career was nearly about to wind down. Booker split a couple of fights with Williams too, and beat him in his final career fight despite being blind in one eye.

3. #2 pretty much addresses this already, but let me reiterate that Booker beat Moore even more impressively (not only dominating him and dropping him a bunch of times, but finishing him off as well), plus Burley did NOT win his series with Williams, it was a tie at best.

4. Neither Charles nor Bivins were top LHWs or HWs at the time Burley fought them, which is what matters. Bivins in particular was extremely green - it was only his first year as a pro and he'd only had about 10 fights or so, none of them against a ranked contender. At that time, Burley was one of the top welterweight contenders and was just breaking into the middleweight ranks as well. Bivins was horribly overmatched in terms of experience. For his part, Charles was coming off losses to Ken Overlin and Kid Tunero, and a year later would lose badly to both Lloyd Marshall and Bivins, both of whom made him do a yo-yo routine. He was a far cry from the great fighter he would later become (as he proved in rematches with Bivins and Marshall). Both Bivins and Charles were huge underdogs against Burley and were not supposed to beat him even with what weight advantages they might've had. Also, Burley did not "relatively hold his own", all three were very decisive losses, even considered embarrassing to some extent, and were big setbacks to his career progress and reputation.

5. Again, go back to my #2 and 3. I'll also reiterate that Marshall whupped the young and green Charles that Burley could never beat, and in fact was always outclassed and overwhelmed by. The fact is, all of the Murderer's Row have big wins and mixed results in fights against each other and common opponents. There's no one that clearly emerges as the #1 best. For example, Marshall has arguably the best resume of all of them - he beat a whole host of future/former champions and HOFers in his career (including Burley) - so why shouldn't he be regarded as the best of the bunch? Likewise, if anyone wanted to focus on Williams, Bivins, and perhaps even Booker and portray him as the best of the bunch, he could probably do that too. It just happens that Burley is the one who has been "rediscovered" in recent years. You could give that same praise that's given to Burley to about 3-4 other members of the Row, and you could also make the same criticisms of him that you can of some of the others as well.

 

1. TBH I feel Futch didnt like Norton despite training him. Its not just Futch anyway, loads of people rate Burley the best, Moore said Burley was the best he fought, not Booker

2. He wasnt smaller than Williams, Booker started at WW BUT this was a teenager by the age of 20-22 he was a solid MW, Burley was allot smaller than Charles/Moore/Marshall/Bivins

3. No he wasn't Burley was 155, Williams was 148, thats 7lbs and 6months later Burley would fight at 147 1/2 pounds, so they were the same size pretty much

4. Just because Booker stopped Moore and Burley didn't doesn't make Burley's win worse, Moore himself claims Burley was the best. Moore also held Booker to a draw

5. Yes Booker beat MArshal who beat Burley BUT

Burley dominated Chase 3 times who beat Booker

Burley dominated Hogue who also beat Booker.

Burley beat Zivic who beat Booker

Burley beat Cocoa Kid who beat Booker

Against like opponents Burley performed better than Booker

6. I think its McVey that has info about Burley performing better than given credit for against Holman. Again look how much better Burley performed against common opponents, Cocoa Kid just had Williams number while Burley beat up on Kid, and how much deeper his resume is.

7. See point 4.

8. Charles and Bivins were coming into their physical primes and were 2 of the best LHWs ever and Charles has a claim for no1 P4P ATG, both had size advantages and were technically LHWs and both monster punchers. Charles would beat Maxim twice that year, sure he had 2 losses to 2 men with a combined 197wins in his first 20fights, those probably made him a better fighter.

9. Marshall lost to numerous men that Burley beat such as Archie Moore, Hogue, Chase, Williams, Oakland Billy Smith. He has the best wins on paper, but Charles was green, Burley was small and an SD, Williams was old, Lamotta and Maxim were damn good wins though.

Burley ended 83-12, Marshall 71-25 against similar levels of competition.

I'd agree that all these men were great fighters, I just feel on balance Burley is top2 with Charles and your right there isn't

 

I think Power Puncher makes excellent points ... I also feel Robinson avoided a lot of tough fighters ... rarely mentioned by everyone who simply hands him the pound for pound title ... great series of points though ... good thread !