I was rereading the excellant book 'Charley Burley - The Life and Times of an Uncrowned Champ' By the recently deceased Allen Rosenfeld. Now this is my favrouite boxing book. But I will get to the point. In the book he briefly speaks about the historical standing of these 'Coloured Championships'. 'Few if any now remember these Coloured Championships. But thinking back ... I'm thinking that it is not entirely accurate to conclude that neither Charley Burley nor Cocoa Kid ever won a championship. These were extraordinary fights engaged by extraordinary fighters. ... The coloured titles should be in the record books, treated with a respect not totally different from that accorded the championships of Negro Baseball League.' Now I agree completly with this. And I do think these championships are overlooked. The champion of the title, in some cases, to the title as the 'real' champion did. And mostly these 'coloured' champions had a higher level of opposition and better title reigns. Although the world title was open for all races it could still be rascist as Charley Burley found out. So with mine and Allen Rosenfelds feelings told, do you not think we should try and record these Championships and give them there long deserved and due respect? The Coloured Heavyweight title has been given alot of attention on this board, so lets try and do something similar with the other weights. Does anyone wish to help me?
The coloured title didn't hold anything like the status of the real title, now or then, but yes, the guy who held these titles often was the very best in the world. The Calafornia State middleweight title was also passed around amongst some truly exceptional fighters.
I agree with this. But surely due to the quality of the contestants of this title, we need to look back and give it it's due respect. I'm not saying we should look back and say this title was vey important and that the holder was by default the best in the world. Not at all. I just think it deserves more respect than it is getting now. The fact that these titles are hardly even documented is a disgrace IMO. Because the fighters contesting them were some of the best. And I agree the Californian State Middleweight title really has soem great fighters contesting it also.
