No Color Line , Different Heavyweight Champion Lineage ..

The black fighters who lost their title shot's due to the color line are not exactly enigma's.

They fought the top white contenders, so we have a pretty good idea how good they were.

Nobody before Jackson was remotely in Sullivan's league.

Jackson probably was the best in the world for a time, but he clearly wasn't an order of magnitude better than Corbett.

There was nobody between Peter Jackson and Jack Johnson, who was in the class of Jeffries or even Fitzsimmons.

Johnson's reign was a high point for black fighters, with the three best in the world very clearly being black fighters.

Even so Hart beat Johnson, so I do think that the Hart Burns lineage was a legitimate one.

Willard beat Johnson fair and square, so not much to argue there, and none of the top black contenders were standout's during Willard's reign.

Wills was obviously a standout contender, who could have been anything from a long reigning champion, to just another Dempsey victim.

Godfrey was not as good as his best white contemporaries, unless he was wearing the cuffs big time!

Gains was a very fine fighter, but probably not better than the best white contenders.

 

No it isn't.

When you get into the detail, it is more of a controversial decision.

Sharkey beat the two best black contenders of his era.

If you don't rate him very highly, then it is pretty bad for them!

He was a class above any contemporary black contender, before Louis came along, and he even squared the circle against Louis.

 

The state of Sullivan is irrelivant. The objection is not that Jackson could have won the title, but that he would have kept it until Jeffries.

Considering that at that time, everyone who held the title became unmotivated and declined, I see zero reason to think Jackson was the exception. It's not like he was a little past his best by the time he fought a young Jeffries, he was completely shot to pieces. And if you are going to go down such extreme hypotheticals, why can't you argue that Sullivan, with the added pressure of black challengers, would have stayed on top form much longer?

And also Sullivan retired for a period, and Slavin gained some recognition as champion, Jackson beat him and took his claim, one with some real credibility, and then stopped boxing and drank himself to oblivion. I don't see any reason to think success would have made him more motivated, when it had the opposite effect of everyone else back then.

 

Sometimes you say some smart sh#t.

 

So much of who wins the title is just the luck of getting the shot at the right time.

I think Jackson would have won the title, but who's to say Slavin wouldn't have happened to get the shot first, and then Jackson won it. Sullivan was already well in decline by the time Slavin and Jackson came to prominence, someone else winning the title in between is totally plausible. Perhaps Jeffries would have delayed his retirement or maybe not. Maybe he beats a not yet ready Jack Johnson and sets back his title shot, or maybe Sam McVea gets him at the right time and gets a title run.

 

What is the logic? I just pointed out that for the last 63 years of the 20th century all the champions other than Marciano and Johansson were black. That is a fact, not logic.

"there hasn't been a black champion since Lewis."

And how many white American champions have there been? The color line was a creation of white Americans.

The success of Wlad Klitschko is interesting, but I don't think it has much to do with the old American color line.

None of the American champions prior to Braddock defended against a black challenger. Burns was a French Canadian.

It is also a fact that the only white American heavyweight champion to ever make a successful defense against a black challenger was Marciano.

My only deduction was that it certainly raises doubts about the earlier white champions. It wasn't like they jumped into the ring to prove superiority in championship fights against black contenders. The black champions from 1937 on certainly did prove their superiority in the ring.

 

In nineteen fifteen he would have been a very hard fight for Johnson.

 

I am not going down the rabbit holes of these diversions. I am only interested in taking an overview of the facts.

From 1882 to 1937, Americans held the title for 48 of those 55 years. In the other seven years, the championship was held for two years by Fitz, two by Burns, two by Schmeling, and one by Carnera. Burns defended against Johnson and lost. The other three didn't have a black challenger rated as the outstanding challenger. I am not aware of any statement by any of them drawing the color line.

Seven of the other 48 years was Johnson's reign, the only black contender to get a shot against a white champion in those 55 years.

And for 41 years there were white American champions who did not defend against black challengers, several publicly drawing the color line. The first who did make such a defense, Braddock, lost.

For the rest of the century, up to Lewis in 1999, American blacks dominated the heavyweight championship other than the reign of Marciano and the brief reign of Johansson.

I am not interested in paper champions such as Savold or Damiani. The baton as the best heavyweight was passed from one black heavyweight to the next with only the two exceptions.

Each of us will draw his own conclusion on what the impact of the color line was during those 55 years.

As for Wlad and Vitali, their success doesn't erase the previous 65 years,

nor does it seem relevant to me concerning what happened between 1882 and 1937.

*The color line was not only denying championship matches to outstanding contenders, but eventually, between Johnson and Louis, discouraging black talent from even entering boxing or obtaining proper training. But this pushes into an area of an unknowable what-might-have-been.

 

Off history, which white heavyweight would you say got the rawest deal?

Also, who was shafting them? Wouldn't it be the establishment which was white?

 

Some of these champions might have been the best. The issue of which ones PROVED themselves the best is where the rubber hits the road. Unknowable is what talent was never allowed to develop because of the impact of the color line bias all the way down to the beginners.

 

The Peoples Revolutionary Committee long ago abolished all white champions as they were merely the product of a rigged system. Use the search function.