''Tony Zale Was A Greater Fighter Than Sanchez, Spinks, Jones Jr, Harada, Pryor.....

utter Rubbish just look at the difficulty Jake had with Robert Villimain, the Welterweight, Zale was fit for Jake at anytime in their careers.

 

Then maybe Zale should have fought his number one contender instead of a unending string of bums, an overrated and overhyped Graziano, and another welterweight named Cerdan who wouldnt go anywhere near Villemain.

Villemain had actually moved up to the middleweight division a year before his first bout with LaMotta and anyone who had actually seen him fight would not dismiss him so easily.

The bottom line is that Sam Piam and Art Winch wanted no part of Jake LaMotta they knew he would beat Zale and thats a cold hard fact straight from the mouths of people who knew them. Zale was a nice guy but he had a massive ego so he probably believed he could beat Jake but he couldnt and people who better judges of his ability than he was kept that fight from happening.

 

Freddie Steele is better than any of those.

 

LaMotta,had his troubles with Robert Villimain and Laurent Dauthille, 2 fine fighters who a prime Tony Zale kos. These two fine fighters would be cat-nip to the top middleweights of the pre WW2, such as Tony Zale, Freddie Steele, Fred Apostoli, Al Hostak, Ken Overlin, Marcel Thil, Georgie Abrams, Teddy Yarosz,Billy Soose,Charley Burley, Eddie Booker, etc. And the pre WW2 Tony Zale H2H was a terrific bodypuncher, and tough as nails, hence the appellation," the man of steel". And I still believe that if a Robert Villimain and Laurent Dauthille could give a prime LaMotta such trouble, a peak pre WW2 Tony Zale outpunches LaMotta for a decision. IMO...

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl

 

Greater than all those named by Sugar? No. Top 100 P4P all-time? Yes.

 

I agree with Burt Sugar on that. Zale fought in era when Boxing was way more competitive. With the exception of baseball player, every kid in America wanted to be a boxer. There were way more, I mean 100 times more, boxing gyms in this country. Around world the sport was also popular, and had fighters coming from all over. Golden Gloves entire were so plentiful, fighters would fight several times in one night in some cities, and in New York and Chicago gloves, multiple bouts would be on at once in preliminary rounds. By 1980 golden gloves had died out in may cities, and places like New York moved bouts to smaller arenas due to lack of attention and participants.
Even now, boxing in America would be dead if Iron Curtain countries were still banning fighters from turning pro. Zale competed and excelled at time when sport was filled to capacity with guys dying to be champ. The less participants in a sport, the easier to be at top of it, the more, it's tougher.

 

No

 

Certainly not Harada, Spinks, Sanchez, Jones Jr (in that order) but Pryor? Yeah.

 

Danman, very perceptive post ! A few points...
1As a youngster we would [my dad] go to MSG to see the semi-finals and
Golden Gloves finals. There were THREE rings operating at the same time
and some of the contestents fought several bouts that SAME NIGHT.
2-These finalists as all others wore no headgear...
3-If I [with many exceptions] favor the fighters of the 1940s over "modern" fighters of today it is for the same reason that the best overall fighters of the 1930s and 1940s were from America, such as Joe Louis, Ray Robinson,
LaMotta, Kid Gavilan, Ike Williams, Beau Jack, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, WILLIE PEP,Chalky Wright, Manuel Ortiz, Charley Burley, etc. It was because all these fighters above fought in an era when there were so many, many, many more fighters and small fight clubs, trainers etc, that to
get to the very top, these fighters usually had over 100 bouts,against stiffer opponents than their European counterparts...And the reason most American fighters beat the best European boxers were because the more fighters in the pool,the better the top guys were...Experience, facing all styles often usually rules the day...Of course there are exceptions to every rule.
4- So if by and large the best USA fighters beat their European counterpart
boxers, not because of their physical advantages, but because of the fact that the deeper the pool of fighters [at least 10 times more than today]
it stands to reason that the very top champions and contenders, fighting so often were BETTER than today's "modern" boxers, with a few exceptions
today...Cheers..

 

Well, for example Gomez was 18-0 (18 ) in world title fights at jnr. feather, and never lost at that weight.
Only loss in his prime was to Sanchez at featherweight and there is no shame in that.

I love Tony Zale, but he is a step (at least) below Gomez, imo.

 

He did, but man he would have been dq'ed outside of Puerto Rico for that final shot. Zarate was done before that shot, though.

 

Sugar was being silly saying such things. You could argue he was better/greater than Pryor perhaps though

Flawed reasoning given many of the best of the era were European or from other places, Schmelling, Randy Turpin, Cerdan, Ingo Johansson, Villemain. Ceferino Garcia learnt his boxing in the Philipines, Napoles, Cocoa Kid and Kid Galivan learnt their trade in Cuba

By your reasoning you should note, the talent pool exploding post-Dempsey, Dempsey himself documented this and hence Dempsey fought in a weaker era

 

Out of the hundreds of top fighters in those era's of course the great European fighters you cite,were the "exceptions" to the rule...But by and large the great majority of champions were from America...Not because they were superior physically, but the survivors from a deeper pool of boxers are usually better with certain exceptions of course...

 

When Zale came back from the war his contenders were.

1. Lamotta
2.Burley
3.Graziano.

Zale by passed the first two and took Graziano.


Zale never defended against his number one challenger

He and Graziano, tied up the title into the middle of 1948.

Being recognized as universal champion does not mean you aren't ducking contenders for whatever reason.

Dempsey /Wills, Patterson / Machen/Folley/Liston emphatically illustrated that.
Zale was not universally recognized as champ until he beat Georgie Abrams who was the NY holder,Zale was only the NBA champ prior to that fight.

Oh ,and Zale never went into the Army , he served in the Navy.