murderers row question.....

im not exactly sure what that means. murderers row was predicated on black fighters who couldn't get a shot at the big money fights because they were too good and black. extremely high risk low reward for the white fighters. unless you just mean a group of white fighters who trained together and were all really good.

 

A group of world class white fighters who couldnt get a title shot?? Tough one, I dont think so, some Klit fans will argue Corrie Sanders, although he eventually did and he hardly was fighting murderers row competition to get his shot

I suppose you could argue the Soviet Block Amateurs, when they werent aloud to turn pro, but thats a stretch

 

Cubans have a case perhaps.

 

There's only one "Murderer's Row". After that, there's just "dark horses". Dark horse in the sense of 'underdog' not skin color.

 

Wes Ramey and Billy Petrolle come to mind. Petrolle FINALLY got his shot, but by then he was pretty much over the hill from what I've read. But both were greatly feared and respected in their day.

 

Packey McFarland might be considered too, but I don't know how "avoided" he was, only that he never got a title shot. Senya would be the one to consult on that one.

 

A lot of good fighters were frozen out by WW II. Polish-American Tommy Yarosz, Teddy's less fortunate brother, is one which comes to my mind immediately. Take a look at LaMotta's record, and branch out from there. You'll uncover plenty of Caucasian middleweights with imposing records.

 

My first thought was that this was a rather silly question (no offense meant to the TS)....but after thinking about it, I began to wonder if there were any possible names that could be drummed up (No, I don't have any to offer). We all know that there was a lot of racial turbulance in some of these previous eraa, and while the most magnified (and rightly so) is the exclusion of top level black boxers being black listed (no pun intended) from title shots. I have been reading alot of older articles/stories and books about past era fighters and have come across boxers being discriminated against. In some of these cases guys who were italian or irish were guys who would change their last names in order to get shots or fights...but the jewish population seemed to have been the main racial group that was often times forced to change their last names to recieve any opportunity. Due to their skin color the transition outside of name was almost seemless, while our black murders row could not even attempt to go that rout.

Their is evidence of guys having to ghange names or pretend to be another nationality, but I am not sure if there were any on the level of the black murder's row where it was as readily apparent that were being intentionally segregated from the sport of boxing...anyone else have any ideas????

 

You posted this prior to me sending mine...thanks for the name! You seem to have a wealth of knowledge, can you think of any fighters of jewish/Irish/Italian descent or others who were unwilling to change their names for the sake of erasing societies stigmas attached to their nationalities or who struggled to get shots due to that???

 

Hm, after WW2 boxing was a pure American sport for a while, where basically you had Americans fighting for world titles in America and Europeans fighting for European titles in Europe. The Europeans are seen as beeing not on the same level as the Americans often because they didn´t fight each other and America beeing the center of boxing. You could make an argument that those European fighters were similar the murderer´s row. Avoided because they were high risk, low reward and not American.


PS:
I´m exagerating a bit for the sake of the argument. Of course there were Europeans who fought with more or less success in America.

 

Plenty of posters here with a particular ethnic background or awareness ought to be able to generate names of their favorites. I'm very far from the most knowledgeable member here with respect to this matter.

My first inclination is not to pigeonhole ethnic bigotry when contemplating anything reminding one of the Black Murderers Row, but simply to focus on the fact of how WW II froze title opportunities from all active contenders who were not eliminated from competition by military service. At the time, the greatest stigma attached to these seemingly able bodied athletes may have been the simple fact that they were not in uniform while thousands of their countrymen were dying in battle.

Robinson, Moore, Charles and Walcott just happened to be able to hang on long enough to get past WW II and reach the television age. Bivins, ironically by virtue of being able to compete through WW II, was too shopworn to break through to the top by the time the war ended, but he then at least got plenty of television exposure, which I think demonstrated that he enjoyed considerable mainstream respect by the media. Moore was older than Burley, and only got his shot at Maxim over two years after Charley retired.

 

With respect to European middleweights active during WW II, I'd start with Marcel Cerdan's record, and then network out from there. Even within German and German occupied territory, there was wartime boxing activity.

 

There were plenty of white fighters in and around the middleweight division who were avoided for years.

In the U.S., ideologues masquerading as high school history teachers have filled the heads of generations of students with half-truths mistaken for gospel truth. Let's not fall into the same trap. African Americans had it rough, but so didn't alot of others -including talented white fighters without the right connections.

Burley and co. weren't simply avoided because they were black. Many of the champions of their day were just as black. Who do you think were avoiding them?

I'm considering giving LaMotta his due. Take a look at who he fought and was willing to fight. That was a tough man who feared no one.

Then there's a guy named Billy Graham...

 

I was talking about the situation after WW2 where you had basically two boxing scenes - one in America and one in Europe - with the world titles beeing "held captive" in America and only rarely a European getting the chance to fight for it.