Russ Anber on Marciano.

Its funny also how people relate valdez to marciano, when in fact valdez was a top ranked challenger during floyd pattersons reign and challenged floyd patterson countlessly, and Cus Damato refused to throw patterson in the ring with the high ranked big cuban, and instead fed patterson unrated softies

 

Foreman was a given a WBO Alphabet shot. Morrsion was never the #1 champ. If Walcott got a shot after losing to Layne, it is for shame. But then again Walcott had plenty of chances at the championship. A bit more than he deserved if you ask me.

Intersting stuff OLD FOGEY. Good find! It appears giving title shots to guys on a .500 streak or worse happened more than I intialy thought in the 30 to 60's. Its still pretty rare though.

 

I am reading the Ring Magazine anual rating for 1954:

The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings: 1954

Heavyweights [url]Rocky Marciano[/url], Champion

1. [url]Nino Valdes[/url]
2. [url]Don Cockell[/url]
3. [url]Ezzard Charles[/url]
4. [url]Bob Baker[/url]
5. [url]Earl Walls[/url]
6. [url]Heinz Neuhaus[/url]
7. [url]Rex Layne[/url]
8. [url]Tommy (Hurricane) Jackson[/url]
9. [url]Charley Norkus[/url]
10. [url]Jimmy Slade[/url]

The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings: 1953

[url]
[/url]Heavyweights [url]Rocky Marciano[/url], Champion

1. [url]Nino Valdes[/url]
2. [url]Ezzard Charles[/url]
3. [url]Dan Bucceroni[/url]
4. [url]Roland LaStarza[/url]
5. [url]Earl Walls[/url]
6. [url]Don Cockell[/url]
7. [url]Clarence Henry[/url]
8. [url]Tommy Harrison[/url]
9. [url]Bob Satterfield[/url]
10. [url]Coley Wallace[/url]

The Ring Has Vlades as the #1 rated person in 1953 and 1954, not Charles. I think Vlades deserved a title shot during this time line, but Marciano never gave him one. Perhaps that is where the confusion lies. It appears Ring Magazine moved Charles up to #1 ( for a month or so according to SuzieQ ) just because Marciano picked him for a title fight.

The truth is Charles only fought once in 1954 vs Satterield. If you watch the fight, Satterfield was close to producing a knock down in round one. Charles got to Satterfield first, but it was a shaky performance for Charles.

To move Charles ahead of Valdes based on the Satterfield fight does not seem very ethical or honorable. Indeed Charles was 2-2 in his last two fights, with one of those fights being a clean UD for Valdes. Valdes cleanly beat Charles. The most rounds won Charles had on any card vs Vlades was 3 rounds won. Meanwhile Valdes was on a roll, and #1 ring rated for two anual years.

 

The Annual Ratings are the ratings for December. In December of 1953 and December of 1954, Valdes is #1. I don't think he should be, but he is. He lost his rating because Charles defeated Satterfield. Whatever you want to say about Charles' performance against Satterfield, it was much better than Valdes' performance in 1955 in which he lost badly. There is a certain twilight zone quality to these ratings as Johnson, who had beaten Valdes and Charles is not rated, and neither is Moore, who had defeated Valdes and Johnson. Both are restricted to the lightheavy ratings.

You keep saying 2-2 but they didn't care that much about the Johnson defeat because Johnson was better than Valdes and they knew it. Valdes had beaten Charles, but that was his only impressive accomplishment. Charles had been a top fighter for years. Why did not Valdes just accept the elimination fight with Charles and leave no doubt? As Marciano-Frazier put it, why does he try to parlay his one win over a top contender into a title fight, hopefully avoiding not only Charles, but Moore and Johnson? I think anyone who looks at his 14-10-1 run knows the answer.

 

Are you sure those "annual" rankings aren't only just what the rankings looked like at the very end of the year, Mendoza?

Just asking because the ratings listed previous to the Valdes/Neuhaus fight looked like this, and were released in an AP report dated Oct 30th, 1953;

C: Rocky Marciano
1: Roland LaStarza (Fleischer explained keeping him here by being impressed with LaStaza's first six rounds against Marciano)
2: Ezzard Charles
3: Nino Valdes
4: Dan Bucceroni
5: Heinz Neuhaus
6: Don Cockell
7: Karel Sys
8: Tommy Harrison
9: Coley Wallace
10: Harry Matthews

Like I said, that was the rankings released and made public on Oct 30 of '53, and a couple weeks later Valdes had a nice win over Neuhaus (who, based on the rankings at the time of the Valdes fight, wasn't just a "borderline" top 10'er), which bumped him up next time Ring Magazine released their rankings on Dec 1st, 1953;

"Big Nino Valdes of Cuba became the first foreign heavyweight in years to be ranked as top contender today when he was listed No. 1 in the Ring Magazine monthly ratings." - AP printed in many different sources on Dec 1st, 1953

The last month of 1953 was the only time Valdes was listed in that spot in the rankings, so it's only the one month when he was listed there in '53, and of course, as has been pointed out by a few in this thread, Valdes lost that #1 spot three months later (as explained in the papers dated Mar 2nd, 1954) because of a "narrow" and "unpopular" spilt decision victory over an unranked, Archie McBride, in Valdes' home town.

He was dropped in the ratings after that performance, but he was still being considered as a posssible title challenger to Marciano for later in the year, and even posted a cheque to the NYSAC in advance of that title shot. But, in his next fight, Valdes again failed to impress in a dull & drab affair with James Parker in mid March in New York, which, as the AP report dated Mar 13th of 1954 states, caused the NYSAC Chairman Bob Christenberry to return that advanced cheque back to Valdes and issue a statement saying "Off last night's fight we can't consider him a worthy challenger".

Ring Magazine thought Charles more worthy, the NYSAC deems Valdes unworthy, and Marciano and Charles sign contract Apr 6th, 1954 for their fight in June.

 

Great post Sam Dixon. The marciano Valdez fight was scheduled to come off in the fall of 1955 in Miami, as Weill and Gleason had agreed on but Nino Valdez lost a Title Eliminator to Moore ruining the proposed fight plan.

 

Very good research

 

Ah, but Valdes was 11-0 when he had the #1 ranking. Sure he had some ups and downs, but let's be fair here, so did Chalres after Maricano beat him. Indeed, Charles record after he was done with Rocky was 10-13, which is worse than Valdes 14-10-1.

By contrast, Nino had plenty left post 1955, and porved it by beating ranked guys such as Cockell, Bethna, Dejohn, and others. I'm too lazy right now to look up who was ranked when, but Nino beat some ranked guys post 1955. I beleive had Marciano fought Vlades and Ko'd him, the win would have more legs than the Charels fights do, simply because Charels was on the decline before he meet Rocky.

The key is who deserved the title shots in 1954. I beleive that Valdes deserved at least one of them. Chalres got both of them.

How can you say Valdes beating Charels was his only impressive accomplishment? I poitned out Vlades beat two other ranked contenders after he beat Chalres, but before he lost to Moore in 1955. They were Tommy Jackson, and James Parker. If Neuhas was ranked then, make it three wins over conteders with Charles being the 4th.

In closing, I think fans of Rocky don't want to look at the other side of the coin in terms of Valdes being worthy of a title shot in 1954.

 

James J Parker was NOT ranked.

 

Did Valdez deserve a title shot over harold johnson in 1954?

 

Well, he hadn't fought Jackson yet when the fight with Marciano would have been made for 1954. I concede though that the win over Neuhaus could be considered impressive, but he also had some unimpressive performances, such as McBride and Parker. Neuhaus was rated, as the reprinted ratings show. I have never seen Parker listed in any ratings, although he may have been at some point.

I have said before and will say again that Valdes probably should have had the shot Cockell got, although Cockell was a worthy contender if one compares him to other contenders over the years. He was on a 10 bout winning streak, had never lost at heavy, was 20-2 over his last 22 fights, and had beaten a number of rated opponents.

 

Are you sure Parker was not ranked ever? Ok--Neuhas was ranked then. I just checked. So Vlades beat three ranked guys in a row ( inclucing a win over the #1 ranked guy ) without a loss...and still not shot from Rocky.

There is an article titled, " Valdes can't get near Rocky not even in street clothes. " As I said before, some Rocky fans seem very rigid on this topic.

 

I am confused now. are you claiming marciano ducked valdez despite SCHEDULING a fall date in 1955 in Miami to fight Valdez? Plus additionally giving valdez a final title eliminator gauranteeing him a title shot if he beat moore?

Are you saying your not a rocky fan?

 

Good question. On that 1953 ranking, Johnson had beaten Valdes, the #1 contender-Charles, the #2 contender-Henry, the #7 contender-and Satterfield, the #9 contender. He had also beaten the lightheavy champion, Moore, and Jimmy Slade.

 

No he wasn't, not at the time of his fight with Valdes anyways and according to the papers the day of the fight;

"Ex-Canadian (was living in Paterson, N.J. at the time) Parker, former lumberjack, is unranked and unsung. But he has knocked out 22 of his 32 professional opponents. He has an awesome kayo percentage of .688, even though most of his victims had palooka pedigrees."