My Top 50 All Time Heavyweights

Yes he caught ray cold, it happens. happened to archie moore vs leonard morrow. does not mean there better. ray handled thompson with ease according to the papers in the first fight, and IMO was clearly the better fighter h2h. thompson had tons of weaknesses, while ray was a nightmare h2h vs the top guys of the era. Bob Pastor won 2 shutout decisions over turkey thompson, he was easy to outbox, can u imagine what walcott and charles would have done to him?


fact remains under practically any other comission, the ray-thompson fight is ruled a DQ win for ray. how could this not be a DQ win for ray. thompson hit him IN THE BALLS, thats illegal.

 

go ahead why dont u get the account of burley knocking out walcott too in sparring LOL LOL LOL LOL




as far as im concerned, if you dont think that highly of ray u better rethink ur evaluations of louis, charles , and walcott, since louis ducked ray......and walcott and charles lost to a 38 year old elmer ray,.

 

I have a question. Sonny Liston hit Eddie Machen low in the 11th round. Machen was given a minute to recover. If Machen claimed to be too hurt to continue, should he have been given the fight? If not, why not?

A lot of guys are hit low in fights. Few claim to be unable to continue after rest periods and so opt to take a no contest. I would still like to see film of this one. Certainly Ray was winning going into the sixth, but things can turn around fast with big punchers. Perhaps Ray was in trouble before Thompson accidentally hit him low and saw a way to get out of the fight while avoiding a knockout defeat--and took it.

Thompson could punch hard enough to ko anyone and he had a much better chin than Ray. I pick Charles and Walcott to beat him, but he would certainly be a dangerous opponent. Fact remains he ko'd a peak Ray.

"Bob Pastor won two shutout decisions over Turkey Thompson"

They gave Pastor the round in which he was knocked down six times? Under modern conditions, the first fight would have been a first round knockout for Thompson, for whatever that is worth.

Anyway, no one is arguing that on balance Thompson is better than Ray. I argued that Ray deserved to be in the top fifty, not Thompson, although there certainly is a case for Thompson.

 

But the fight account from mf does not describe any of this. it describes ray as beating the heck out of thompson for 5 rounds, and CONTINUING to dominate thompson in the 6th before thompson hit him low. NOW TAKE NOTE, thompson did not foul ray once, he fouled ray TWICE. thats golota-bowe all over again to me....except in this fight thompson was getting hurt badly.



Modesto Bee account, August 10th, 1943, reads, "Turkey Thompson still wore his crown today after a match with a tough Floridian named Elmer Ray, who punched his better known opponent around the ring for six rounds only to have Referee Lee Ramage atop the bout with no decision after Ray had been fouled twice," and according to the Fresno Bee Republican, "Ray had won all five rounds and was out in front in the sixth when he was hurt by a low blow and Ramage stopped the bout."

I would argue, ray hadnt fully peaked yet, he was just catching his stride, but he didnt hit his peak until 45-46. IMO ray deserved a DQ win vs thompson making the series 1-1, but thompson does have a case for top 50. I do think ray, murray bivins were better contenders, but thompson had the punchers chance vs anyone.

 

If sonny had fouled eddie twice in the same round like thompson did to ray, i would say yes he did deserve to be Dqed. different circumstances, because ray was dominating the fight shutout after 6 and thompson appeared to get dirty and hit him low twice because nothing else was working. liston and machen both were pretty dirty that night.

 

I remember reading Fritzie Zivic on the art of dirty fighting years ago. Zivic wrote that you should flurry to the body, slipping in the low one, and then when the victim drops his hands, you finish him with a shot to the jaw, leaving the referee confused. Old Fritzie must have studied at Dempsey's knee.