My top 20 Welterweights, all time

Plus wins over Holman Williams & 2/3 over Fritzie Zivic, with the odd "1" being a soucre of some contraversy (though I am actually quite happy with it now). And sorry to have to mention it, but he was also ducked ferociously by the very best.

Trinidad fighting to Burley's schedule is much more interesting than Burley fighting to Trinidad's schedule (the only difference might be Burley winning the MW title from Hopkins). I don't think comparing the two is sensible given Tito's limitations.

 

You'll come to love him in time.

 

Burley was a great skipper.

Napoles is certainly looking like my thumb in the eye. Working on it.

 

As you wish; though as i'm sure you're aware, this wasn't uncommon practice for fights taken on short notice or made so that titles/ratings wouldn't be affected at that time (though they usually were, ratings I mean). Also, for this entire period, Burley was ranked at Welter by ring.

I tend to turn a blind eye to your objections because you're throwing out a HUGE number of fights involving these type of marginalised fighters (generally ducked black contenders) if you stick to the premis and there were no inbetween ratings divisions at that time which means you have some real weirdness in terms of the weights matches have to be considered as being "offically" staged at - best example here would be Burley-Moore. Burley destroyed Moore in what was a MW contest - but Moore weighed 161. If Burley didn't destroy Moore at MW, did he destroy him at LHW? Moore is a top 5 LHW fighter, but not if he was beaten half to death by a 155lb man in this division.

Although I have no real objection to your system, I will excersise a little common sense and not allow couple of pounds here or there to prevent me comparing, directly, men like Burley, Williams, Booker, Hogue and yes, Moore, with their future/past peers.

 

I actually agree with your overall point here - but the alternative is the greater of the two evils in my view. It basically means throwing out most of the big fights for guys like Burley, Coco Kid, Holman Williams, Eddie Booker, etc etc. I think it is not unreasonable to take either apporach, but if you have a specific interest in marganalised fighters from pre 1960, as I do, it basically means judging them in a pool on their own - which is what the powers that be at that time were after. **** that.

I consider Holman Williams an ATG fighter, and certainly don't see those losses as shameful. Without becoming one of "them", I would like to say this about two of the Burley fights with Williams. The NC is highly suspicious (I always feel like nothing like enough has been done to expose the business end of boxing in Calafornia at this time, this is where Marshall and Hogue did most of their fighting, you know?) and was probably crooked. Burley was well ahead on the cards at the time. It is not possible to find a newspaper report that sees the NC as a fair result. Boxing, of course, so anything could have happened but there it is. Burley's first loss saw him leading on the cards in (I think) round 8 when he threw his shoulder out. Burley finished the fight (of course) but was firmly outpointed down the stretch.

Lloyd Marshall has a patchy record but was the ultimate business fighter, probably ever (he eventually fled to Europe). I think he weighed 159 for that fight.

The Leto win is a poor one, but it was also a soundly booed SD with Burley coming back from the broken hand that had kept him out for 6 months.

Zivic is an ATG welter, and there is suspicion surrounding the win. I am actually quite happy with the result, although it took me a couple of years to come to that conclusion (seems it could have gone either way - but it reads like Zivic got the result for superior aggression rather than skin pigmentation to me). Both these guys are on my top 20 list, and both deserve to be there. Top 20 guys will tend to drop 1 out of 3, when they fight each other, don't you think?

 

Yeah, this is not unreasonable. Although the in between divisions have encouraged a real culture of weight-making, and I've no doubt that Burley probably would have turned pro at 140, before doing most of his best work at 147 and then moving up the divisions as applied according to what was available. If LMW had exsisted in Burley's time, and the prevailing culture at that time had remained static, he probably would have fought plenty there.

Coco Kid also got a punt at a legit title. Not 100% sure he was allowed to "fight" for it though. Burley also held the coloured WW title.

Just for the record, Burley fought plenty at 155 ish, but that was also his walking around weight - anything above 158 tended to mean he was out of shape. I'm sure you see what that would mean for a modern version of the fighter.

[/quote]
Facing excellent competition you're going to be dropping decisions every now and then, and that's understandable, but I think the loses around welterweight are a little too often and too frequent given the amount of fights he had there to really stake a decent claim that Burley belongs in the top couple at welter.[/quote]

My position is that, at the time when Burley-Robinson was first made (Robinson basically leap-frogged Burley to the title without taking him on, as did Zivic) I would make Burley a slender favourite. Peak for peak I would make Robinson a slender favourite. In the meantime, make no mistake, Robinson was the only one who didn't want to make this fight. The press of the day was split around 50/50, with a majority seemingly favouring Burley over the 15 round distance and Robinson over 10 (not a position I neccesarily agree with).

Burley is my #2 because he has proved his greatness and because in my opinion he would beat more ATG WW's than anyone in the divisions history, other than Robinson. Not very sweetly scientific perhaps, but I am quite happy with Burley's position. He's also the guy with the best chance of beating my #1, Robinson.

Shame they couldn't make that fight. I think about it most days.