Tommy Loughran : Does anyone rate him down for "drawing the color line" ?

He grant, Yes Flowers had mileage on him when he fought Harry Greb in 1926...But Greb had 299 fights in their 2 bouts, while Tiger Flowers had 157 fights...Greb had 143 more fights then Flowers, for the record, against much larger men, and with the use of only one eye, I might add...

 

Norfolk also outweighed him by a good natural 15 to 20 solid pounds of muscle. Flowers didnt have nearly the mileage Greb did having turned pro at least three years later, being younger, having vision in both his eyes, etc etc. Jeez Grant I never figured you for a racist but the more you talk the more I wonder how impartial you are. Especially when you take things completely out of context. Yes, the 40s and 50s boxing field was more open to blacks but it also coincided with an era that saw whites move into the middle class in numbers that were far unprecedented in the history of the world. You dont think that could have had ANYTHING to do with it? Nothing to do with the fact that since the end of WW2 which coincided with the rise in economic wealth of white america and steady drop in white fighters populating pro boxing? Yes Flowers was fast but the eye witness accounts make far more mention of how ring worn and aged Greb looked in those fights and not how much faster Flowers was. Give it a rest, there is no subjective or scientific evidence to give weight to the argument that skin pigmentation has anything to do with athletic prowess, whether that be speed, strength, or anything else.

 

Klompton, Kudos to you...Racism works both ways..The oppressed given enough time,often becomes the oppressor, it seems to me...And so with the holier than thou,attitude, methinks....

 

Considering there are about three times the number of black heavyweight champs to white ,through social and economic reasons,I would be surprised if they did not out number the white champs in your list.

Fast handed white champs
Greb
Delaney
Sharkey
Conn
Tunney
Slattery
Corbett
How do you measure hand speed anyway,its subjective?
You contend that the colour of a man's skin can determine how fast he is at boxing.
I contend that is a racial streotype, like all blacks have rythmn ,absolute rubbish.
Please stick to boxing , basketball is a different discipline.
ps.
You still haven't named all these black, fast handed boxers that Loughran avoided.

Loughran fought 5 heavyweight champs , and nine other champs ,at different weights multiple times.
Numerous contenders multiple times.


Please provide a LIGHT HEAVY CHAMP, who has a deeper resume than Loughran.

 

Burt Greb defeated many lefties along the way ... the reports of the fight I have read and they are many state Greb was fighting a mirror image of himself, a lightning fast , non-stop punching machine.

 

Klompton stick the racist comment up your ass and get back on your medication ... I clearly wrote go by the numbers and make your own deductions. You want to believe that white flight and not a level playing field upset your apple cart then that's your gig but to me the people that have to hide behind such revisionist logic are racist. I travel all over this country and there are still a ton of very poor whites.

All of a sudden we feel bad for Greb for fighting a larger man in Norfalk? His whole legend is built on how he dominated much larger men. I've seen you make arguments time and again that Dempsey ducked him and Greb deserved a title bout. Can't have it both ways.

For the record my initial point here is one of a level playing field and styles . Flowers is a perfect examples. He was knocked ut many times in his career by fighters who are rated below Greb today but gave Greb fits because of his speed. That was my whole point to begin with.

 

Burt, let's simply go by math.

In the past sixty plus years a talent pool representating less than 11% of the population has dominated the sport from welter to heavyweight ... this is simply fact. Your thoughts on why ?

 

he grant,

how do you explain the dominance of the Ukrainians/Russians?Belorussians etc. in the heavyweight division nowadays ?

Do you believe it's simply due to the boxers in those countries being allowed to enter the pro game ?
Or do you think that a large part of the explanation is because the American kids just aren't getting into the sport in the numbers they used to ?

 

Its a well know fact that Eastern Europeans have intrinsically faster handspeed than North American whites.

 

[quote=he grant;6457696]Burt Greb defeated many lefties along the way ... the reports of the fight I have read and they are many state Greb was fighting a mirror image of himself, a lightning fast , non-stop punching machine.[/quote]

So did Loughran.

 

he grant,I believe that the less white youngsters enter into boxing,as today, the more black fighters will dominate boxing...With an education today, what sensible young man would consider boxing as a career ?Very few, such as Pavlik,nowadays think of the ring as a way to make a living...It is the minorities who have less options, regardless of there reasons , that now enter boxing today...When I was a boy for example ,almost every block in my area had a pro boxer, aspiring to make a living in boxing. They flooded boxing by the numbers and the white population at that time contributed the most top fighters then...There was no welfare then, no food stamps then,we had to do virtually anything to make a living at that rough time pre world War Two...There might be other factors involved in our topic, but it is all additional speculation too complicated for me,at this time..Let's enjoy what we have at the moment, I say...

 

Like a lot of racist tenets,drawing the colour line was disgusting. Loughran was far from alone in this. Names like Sullivan,Dempsey and Jeffries are the most obvious that come to mind. Jeffries only came out of retirement to fight Jack Johnson because of the racist establishment begging him to do so. Disgusting ? Yes,definitely ? Can we blame these people as individuals,though ? They were products of the era in which the lived,sadly.

 

They were products of the era in which they lived? So does that mean that I should walk around calling women "b*tches" and giving the finger to everything decent because of the prevalence of the hip-hop mentality? Of course not. Not everyone has a gangsta mentality. Not everyone was a racist. Those who were have no excuse.

Loughren and Tunney and Dempsey, et al. were wrong in their attitudes. That's their problem and has no effect on legacy. The actions springing from those attitudes do effect their legacies. The fact that they allowed their attitudes to deny worthy black fighters opportunities means that their legacies are less. They need to be held accountable. It's as easy as that.

 

No doubt there is validity in that statement ... who knows ? It's definately not racist to ask or point out facts ... we are all entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts ...

 

No but it is racist to say that whites, by virtue of their skin pigmentation, are slower than blacks...

Youve obviously never taken a first year biological anthropology class or you would know how ignorant that statement is. Then again most racism is born of ignorance.