Was Charley Burley ever ranked number 1...

Mayweather's biggest PPV Pre-Oscar was 350k, against Oscar it was 2.2million, which was also Oscar's biggest PPV. Its the synergy effect of having a super star against another elite, the size of the fight is greater than the sum of its parts. The press would hype Robinson-Burley as a super fight, it would be seen as Robinson's biggest challenge. Robinson Galivan was huge because it was the best against the best, same here

It does seem hard to find gate values for Burley,the only 1 boxrec has is Joe Carter (who?) in '45 which did Gate: $13,693.65 - you'd expect him to do far more against ranked opponents like Holman/Marshall. He may have been a bigger draw than given credit for. If you have the numbers feel free to correct me

 

How about the promoter? Who was the promoter? A matchmaker? How about any one of the dozens of sportswriters who were a lot better plugged into the camps and promotions than guys like even Dan Rafael is today (who gets a lot of gossip himself). I mean thats the main point. Who was going to promote this supposed fight and were was the money coming from? That money doesnt just come from nowhere. Your comparison is a private deal and in no way mirrors the negotiations for a public event. If you wanted to buy my film to market then suddenly its similar. You say Ill pay you 50,000 for your film rights. I say where are you going to exhibit it. You say Madison Square Garden. Suddenly we have independant third parties involved who can verify that you indeed can make this happen.

O'loughlin himself admitted that Rays people agreed to the fight stating that Robinson would have to be PAID for it. O'Loughlin had to come up with backers and a venue but the fight died on the vine when O'Loughlin couldnt come up with either. Keep in mind that when Robinson and Burley fought on the same card they paid Robinson $1000 and Burley only got $150. How were they going to realistically come up with enough to make the fight worth it when Robinson could fight a similar headline event somewhere else and get paid REAL (not imaginary, pie in the sky) money. Burley simply couldnt generate that kind of revenue and neither could his backers.

 

This is the exact instance Im talking about. O'Loughlin could not come up with enough money, financial backers, or a large enough venue. The match literally disappeared. Robinsons people had agreed to it. Robinson's people noted that due to Burley's popularity in Minneapolis (which is funny because some of his fights there actually lost money) and their appearance on the same card it was only logical place to hold the match as New York was unwilling to pay much for a Robinson-Burley match in 1942. It fell through when the money could not be generated. Dollars make sense and this one didnt.

 

Then why didnt they? The press has been hyping up Pac-Mayweather for years now literally and yet there was no groundswell for Robinson Burley in 1942. You say that the fight was bigger than the sum of its parts, which i agree with, but you seem to think that means it will promote itself. It wont. In this situation being greater than the sum of its parts means that on paper it was a great matchup but one which nobody was yet willing or able to pay for. If nobody can pay for it that means they really dont expect a large enough audience to generate a return on investment or a high paying enough smaller audience to generate a return. Thus the fight had not yet matured and did not make financial sense. It would have been a great risk for Burley who was looking at it as a springboard. But what is Robinson's incentive? Why should he carry the promotion on his shoulders and risk his reputation for peanuts against a guy couldnt draw flies?

 

Im not saying they were "made up" per se. What Im saying is that they genuinely wanted to fight Robinson and genuinely made offers (at least in 1942) but that they couldnt follow through even by taking the short end. Down the road Im not sure about but in 1942 an offer was made, and more importantly accepted, but the offer was overly ambitious and there was no real substance to it. They hoped that it would grow legs and take off allowing them to get the financial backing but it never did.

 

I wasn't aware of that, this does sound interesting reading/data, thanks in advance for any tidbits Nemesis :good It does seem odd an obscure fighter would bring a bigger payday

 

Why didn't they make an offer, according to Burley's manager they did. The truth behind that, who knows? Maybe his manager was going to risk getting loans, backers. A business man sees the benefits in taking risks sometimes. Maybe the offer wasn't a 1 fight offer but a series, where they planned to lose money on the first fight to make it back in subsequent fights. Maybe he was certain Burley would win and he'd effectively have bought the title. Or maybe he figured he'd break even

The fight in a way does promote itself, obviously the promoters hype it to the press, give interviews, it gets coverage, people read about it and want to see it. Colored MW Champ versus WW Champ, Robinson against the best fighter he's faced to date. There have been many cases where a fighter who hasn't drawn before have been involved in big fights, when everyone knows its going to be a big fight. See Jones-Tarver 1, Hopkins-Trinidad

The bottom line is we will never know, but Robinson turning down an opponent certainly wouldn't be out of character. It's not to say he wouldn't beat Burley, he was just very hard to negotiate with after he saw his hero in Armstrong retire pennyless he vowed the same would never happen to him