Walcott and Charles, a resume comparison

This.

 

I think the term journeyman is a little harsh. Walcott had some cute moves and could certainly punch but where journeyman or sparring partner terminology could apply is in his mental make up. I just don't think he fully seized his moments at times. Fun guy to watch on film with his footwork and seeing him walk opponents into big shots but he had flaws including an average at best chin.

 

Do you feel similar about Greb for the second Tunney fight?

 

You then rate Tiger Jack Fox over Ezzard Charles, Rock Marciano, and Joe Louis. That is insane.

 

You can find articles bashing any champion and any era. Louis, Charles, Ali, Holmes, Holyfield, Foreman, Lewis, and recently Klitschko and Wilder have all been the face of a "horrible era." Sports Writers are sensationalists and cynics. We have decades of hindsight and are not moving papers, we should know better.

Logic tells us a fighter who boxed full time and cleaned out the top 10 and fought in 8 World Title Fights is not a journeyman.

Regardless of your opinion of the era, Journeymen do not have expectations of beating contenders, they are typically not regarded top 10. They are fed to them and rarely get title fights unless they pull an upset. Walcott pulled the upset but kept pulling them until they were no longer upsets. He performed well in title fights and kept getting them.

A dangerous Journeyman of this era would be the Hatchetman. He lost to all the contenders and didnt get within sniffing range of the lineal title. But he hit hard and was by no means a can.

 

I don't know that much about Chauncy Durden and the Richmond Times Dispatch,

still I am less than shocked that a Richmond sportswriter found Walcott and Agramonte lacking compared to the white fighters of the color line era.

I don't know but I believe it plausible that his is less than an objective evaluation.

 

Below you'll notice a little number crunching that was done for this fight based on http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Joe_Louis_vs._Jersey_Joe_Walcott_(1st_meeting)

So it seems odd to me, that you'd give Greb credit for essentially winning fights (where no winner was declared or the wrong winner declared) because of a significant number of writers seeing a fight one way. As you'll notice below, a significant number had Walcott winning and by big margins. Nobody had Louis winning by a big margin. Some writers had him winning by 10 rounds, 8 rounds, 7 rounds. Nobody had Louis winning by that. I believe you've even said that Walcott likely won that fight. Yet here, don't you think it's a bit disingenuous to say... it took him 5 times to win the title, when you full well know, it likely should've taken him one time? Just strikes me as odd to take the stance you have here, when you've done the exact opposite in other situations. What's worse, you seem to be counting it only as a loss, and not even giving him partial credit for anything.

 

One is also saying that the fall of the color line resulted in the collapse of the heavyweight division.

Look for example at the quality collapse wrought in the NFL by the fall of the color line. We went from Jim Musick and Doug Russell leading the NFL in rushing to rushing champions like Joe Perry and Jimmy Brown. One has to be really twisted to see this as a regression.

But boxing somehow did regress with the fall of the color line?

I say nonsense. Watch the film of Art Lasky and Steve Hamas in 1934, when they were the #1 and #3 Ring contenders, and compare them to typical fifties heavyweight fights, let's say Clarence Henry against Bob Baker. The improvement to my eyes is striking.

 

It is interesting to me that Walcott having a spotty record when not having a good trainer and being able to eat regularly leads to a once a journeyman always a journeyman conclusion.

Dempsey having a spotty record when not having a good trainer, etc, leads to his defeats must all be dismissed when considering him as an all time great.

An interesting double standard.

 

I think the people critisizing Walcott are also very critical of Dempsey TBF

 

This is an insightful criticism. I did lump Dempsey supporters with Walcott critics and they might not be the same people,

so I stand corrected. Many critical of Walcott's early performances might well also be critical of Dempsey's early performances.

 

No because there was nothing like the controversy before and after the Tunney fight in regards to Louis-Walcott. Plenty of experts said Walcott didnt do enough to win. I wont even get into the old adage about having to take a champions title. But the fact is that when the radio announcer is saying that Walcott put on the retreat from Moscow in the championship rounds, a la DLH-Trinidad, you are going to find people who would find it a tough pill to swallow taking a champions title away. There was debate about who won the fight but I dont recall a cascade of voices calling for an investigation into the decision. I dont recall Louis' people sending out threats to Walcotts family. I dont recall Louis training at Eddie Eagan's brothers mansion prior to the fight. I dont recall Ruby Goldstein scolding Walcott multiple times during the fight for scoring punches and forcing him to change his style. There were a lot of irregularities around the Greb-Tunney rematch that went far and away beyond a simple difference of opinion found in newspapers.

 

I dont see how you can extrapolate this from what I said.