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

Firstly, maybe you're talking about Ring magazine ratings only. The NBA had Graziano listed first among its "logical contenders".

Also, Graziano was the biggest draw in boxing bar Joe Louis.
It was the fight the public wanted. It was by far the biggest fight for Zale. A no-brainer.

In fights the public wanted.

Well, that was my point, he fought the RELEVANT names to get himself universally recognized.

No one's shown any evidence that Zale "ducked" anyone, yet.

Yeah, I stand corrected. :good

 

Graziano was a bigger draw. It's a no-brainer. The public didn't all flock to see Graziano because they thought he was "not threatening".

Cerdan was considered by many a better fighter than LaMotta. And he still is considered a better fighter by many.

Anyway, I thought LaMotta said he was frozen out for so long because he wouldn't sign himself over to certain managers, and had to take a dive to Billy Fox before even being in the running for a title shot.

 

I gave a list of fighters that Zale never met ,his foremost contenders in each year are among them what more do you want?

Since when did the NBA's ratings take precedent over the Ring's?

Graziano had no wins over rated middleweights when he challenged Zale he was a protected fighter , his wins are over an aging Zale who was past his best, and blown up welters . Lamotta, Williams, Burley. Moore , Charles, Belloise, Lytell ,all deserved title shots, before Graziano, and none of them got them. I'm a fan of Zale's, but one with his eyes open. Zale was past it when he put up that courageous fight against Cerdan , but its also possible Cerdan was on the downslide too, he had been rated for 5 of the 6 years prior to getting his title shot,a consequence of Zale and Graziano playing pass the parcel and defending just once a year. imo, Graziano was competitive with Zale ,only because Zale was over the hill.

 

:good

 

I agree with you M for the most part,but-
I saw Graziano in his prime as a small middleweight. I loved his rock and sockem style but all the above fighters would have beaten Rocky I believe.
2- The only reason Graziano / Zale was so competitive was because Tony Zale was way past his best after a FOUR YEAR layoff and was going on 34 years of age when he fought Graziano the FIRST time in 1946.
3-Zale at almost 35 years of age after a 4 year layoff of Naval duty was way past his best in 1948 when he fought Marcel Cerdan who kept BUSY
EVERY year of WW2 ,and was THREE years younger than Tony Zale in their bout...Big difference. I saw Marcel Cerdan against the truly underated Georgie Abrams in MSG in 1946, win a close decision over Abrams. It was Cerdan's first fight in America...He was a great swarming fighter but prime for prime I take the harder punching Tony Zale over Cerdan...JMO.

 

He was at war for most those years.
In 1941, The Ring magazine went from declaring the middleweight title vacant to proclaiming Zale the world champion .... so he must have been fighting the right guys !
At end of year Abrams was #1 contender, and Zale had just beat him.

In 1942 Zale went in the navy, after going 12 rounds with Billy Conn early in the year, just 3 months after beating Abrams.

If you want to insist he ducked some middleweight - (say, a rematch with Abrams) - to fight Billy Conn (who had recently 'almost won' against Joe Louis), then go ahead. It wouldn't surprise me, because that's how loosely the 'ducking' accusations get thrown around here.

I never said they did. They were reported as official ratings in the papers at the time.

Graziano was the challenger all the fans wanted to see.
That's not hard for me to grasp and I'm sure you understand it too.
He was a massive box office star, and he was rated in the top 3 or 4 as you said (RING magazine ratings).
It wasn't some conspiracy on Zale's part. He got out of the navy and Graziano was established as the boxing office fighter of 1945, so the match was a natural.

Opinions on how good these guys were in relation to one another is another matter.
I just don't see why people are so keen and trigger-happy with these "ducking" accusations.

 

The Conn fight was an over the weight bout and as such meant nothing .
In 1945 , WHEN ZALE WAS BACK FROM THE WAR , Zale's contenders were

1. Willams
2 . Burley
3.Lamotta
4.Graziano
Zale by-passed the top 3 and fought Graziano.


In 1946 the top contenders were.
1.Lamotta
2.Burley
3.Belloise
4.Lytell .

ZALE FOUGHT NONE OF THEM.
Zale defended his title once that year in 7 fights. Zale fought just ONE of the "Murderers Row ,"the lesser regarded Nate Bolden ,and was beaten. great fighter Zale , but as I said ,too many names missing from his record.

 

Graziano was the challenger the public wanted to see, by far.

Also, Graziano went into the first fight with Zale as a firm favourite to win, by KO.


To suggest that Zale was "ducking" and "protected" for taking such a fight seems absurd.

When in 1946 ?

But this is just revisionist stuff. It's VERY harsh criticism that ignores a lot of the surrounding facts.

IF he refused to fight these guys, just show the evidence. It might have happened but, as I said, no one has produced any evidence to this thread yet.


It's funny, there are certain fighters who lack lots of big names on their records and people jump to the conclusion, "yeah, he was ducked by everyone" .... and there are others who lack a lot of big names and the opposite conclusion is drawn, "he ducked everyone !"


Yes, he fought several no-name non-title tune-up fights after the war - he'd been off 4 years. His 4 years in the navy was actually considered a credit to him as a man at the time.
No one voiced the opinion that he was hiding out in the navy and stalling all these people's careers out of some opportunism or cowardice.
If anyone's career suffered it was his.


The first defence against Graziano suffered postponement due to injury, the second one suffered postponement due to Graziano's getting in trouble over not reporting an attempted fix bribe.
Otherwise Zale would have defended at a 6-month rate from 1946 on.
He defended against Cerdan THREE MONTHS after he regained the title.


And 1 defence a year isn't unheard of for an aging fighter.
A prime Willie Pep was defending his title at the same rate, and wasn't even old and had been active.
New welter champion Sugar Ray Robinson, in his prime, defended his title only 5 times in 4 years in the post-war years, so it seems very harsh to criticize Zale for a slow schedule all things considered.


All these accusations so far concern an old fighter returning from 4 years war service, who was looking for some big paydays and took fights with the VERY DANGEROUS and YOUNG Rocky Graziano for BIG MONEY.
He barely got past Graziano, who knocked him all over the ring, and then fought him again at great risk - and lost.

This isn't ducking, this isn't being protected.


I don't mean to re-hash the same points over and over, but that's where I stand on it. :good

 

Some great info here on one of the best middleweight eras ever. keep it coming guys. By the way whatever happened to that Beenstock guys thread?

 

I didn't say he refused to fight them, I said he did not fight them .


No one has accused Zale of hiding out in the navy ,or of cowardice ,certainly not me, I perceive him as a very brave fighter.

Many fighters careers suffered as a result of the War, including most of those I mentioned, and others,[ Bivins] , because their primes,[like Zale's,] were gone after the war when Zale returned to action.

Unlike Zale ,they did not get an opportunity to cash in on a title defences ,or even challenge for one.


Whether the public wanted the Graziano fights is neither here nor there,
that's why we have ratings , so the most deserving fighters get their dues. Who was favourite in their fights is also immaterial.
Would Graziano have been favourite to beat Burley, Williams, Lamotta, Lytell, Moore, Charles,Belloise?

 

And they all made money fighting during the war.

I was responding to claims that Zale ducked fighters, which implies he went out of his way to AVOID them, or refused to fight them.

We shouldn't equate "never fought X, Y and Z" with "ducked X, Y and Z".

To say "Whether the public wanted the Graziano fights is neither here nor there" is entirely wrong.
The whole business runs on the premise of attracting the greatest number of paying customers.

Also, RING magazine, the NBA and NYSAC did rate Graziano as one of the most qualified challengers.

It's not immaterial, when responded to the claim that Zale was "protected".
To fight a devastating puncher that the majority of gamblers favour to knock you out, is not being "protected".

I don't know. But I doubt it.

 

Let me put it this way ,and then we can agree to differ, Pian and Winch Zale's managers avoided/ ducked those I have mentioned.

Nice debating with you.:good

 

You list a few exceptions, a rare group does not make Europe an other places top spots. United States did rule back then, and through many years.

 

Then he took his medicine and went to sleep and woke up and said some more crazy old man talk and repeated the process every day afterward-the end.

 

here's a report about Zale's choices, it seems it was down to "Draw", money, bums on seats and Crowd favour.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AAAIBAJ&pg=6803,217356&dq=vince+hawkins&hl=en