I suspect Machen could be favoured but if the fight was given Eliminator status it could have been a draw. Machen went 0-2-2 in world title elliminators. He could not win one. He was jinxed.
It wasn't a matter of "deserving." It was an issue of timing and what made the most sense at the moment for reasons that have already been explained.
Well I hope so because machen always seemed to lose his mojo right when he needed it. I mean when he was good machen was very good but when he was bad he was horrid. Four elimination fights resulted in a 0-2-2 record in key fights he was proberbly favoured to win 4-0 going into. There was quite a lot of unspectacular results even during his prime. Vargas was supposedly robbed. Then he had a run of tepid points wins over young Jack Johnson, Garvin Sawyer and was bood and cat called against tough but limited Willie Besmanoff who took him all the way. And remember Machen lost to Harold Johnson who Pastrano beat.
Ok but it still stands machen was the number 1 contender. You yourself admitted this. So machen deserved the title shot more
Actually it is and everybody here knows it If we took a poll of 100 boxing experts and historians I bet 95 of them would pick machen to win
How many experts fully expected machen to beat Harold Johnson, Ingmar Johansson, zora Folley and Cleveland Williams? Truth is as good as he was Machen would disappoint experts.
And Machen wasnt good enough to beat Patterson, deal with it. Neither was Williams or Folley. Valdez wasnt good enough to beat Marciano. None of them got ducked. The only thing all of these threads are doing is showing how obsessed you are and how little you know about this time period despite being a member of IBRO (Which anyone can be for a fee) and "reading a lot" about it. LOL.