What if the color line lasts until 1980? How does the boxing landscape change?

The 90's would've been even greater and the new millennium would be even more competitive and fun

 

Hard to say what I might have thought at the time, especially since I can't unsee the actual fights between these guys that took place, but I think I would have favored Ali & Frazier over Quarry for sure. Frazier was more explosive, and Ali had the speed and physical advantages over Jerry.

I've wondered the same about how guys like Sullivan, Corbett, Prime Jeffries, & Fitz would have fared against the Colored Heavyweight Champions of the time. The 100+ years of data we now have has me thinking that the Colored Champions probably would have wound up the World Champions if given the chance, but we'll never know that for certain.

 

Rocky Marciano would still be champ today if the color bar lasted today. What a long rein, 1952-2025.

 

Schmeling rules the heavyweight division in the mid 30s until someone like Nova, Farr, maybe even Bettina or Conn, beats him as he ages out. Maybe Maxim and Savold grab the belt in the late 40s?

Quarry would hold the belt for awhile, so would Cooney. Does this color line also apply to Eastern Europeans whose whiteness was debated for most of American history?

 

Cooney for sure, assuming he gets through Coetzee. He'd probably be champion until Morrison comes around if he keeps the partying under control.

 

Fitz did win the title, so in some ways whites consider him the first "color" heavyweight champ lol.

 

So, Larry Holmes ends up the first black world HW champ? First time they put him in front of a mic, the color line would be put back up.

 

Cooney? Color line ends here in 1980. That means it ends when Larry Holmes is coming right into his prime. There's no outcome that doesn't result in Holmes becoming champ. Which doesn't bode well for Cooney.

The one who benefits here the most has to be Quarry.

 

yep. And he doesn’t have to get past a Holmes who grew up in a world where Ali is champ; no, he has to get past a Holmes who grew up in a world that made him even angrier and saltier.

Holmes hated three things: disrespect, racism, and being poor. Give him a world where he’s the first black HW boxer who can defeat all three? Yikes. Look out.

 

Jerry Quarry makes the Hall of Fame.

 

In a way, I feel, this is both the most relevant and the most irrelevant thing I can post here today:

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