Who was the better heavyweight Tami Mauriello or Elmer a Ray?

All irrelevant!

The rankings are based on who navigates their way to the top, not who looks better over their career, or in a men's health magazine!

Who should have been ranked over poor little Mauriello, after he defeated Bruce Woodcock, and why?

 

Lets look at recent events here.

Mauriello had recently creeped above Bivins anyway, and was keeping his record fairly clean, then Bivin's suffers a significant loss.

That arguably just makes Walcott the Glazkov of the era at this point!

The man who beat Jesse James!

 

Below is my shot at ratings from the period,
Note positions of Ray and Mauriello. I feel Ray is getting a tad overrated and Tami maybe underrated in this thread, but as pointed out it's marque wins versus deeper resumee. I think Unforgiven's posts are pretty even-handed, might have been a good fight between the two, Ray and Mauriello that is, not Suzie and Unforgiven!
Louis
Marciano
Liston
Charles
Walcott
Sharkey
Schmeling
Patterson
Johansson
Moore

Loughran
Baer m
Johnson
Bivins
Maxim

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Folley
Machen
Conn
Pastor

Carnera
Thompson
Murray
Schaff
Henry
Poreda
Baker
Farr

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Godoy

 

Just on size of opposition, Mauriello fought 17 fights against men who weighed over 200 lbs out of 96 total. I don't think that is at all an unusually low number for that era. I think his percentage of over 200 lb opponents would be the same ballpark as that of Joe Louis.

Mauriello fought 7 men who weighed over 210 lbs. Again, I think a very respectable number.

Some of the over 200 lb. men were name fighters. Here is a list of wins and losses against the name over 200 lb fighters--

wins

7-14-1942-----Tony Musto (207)
12-11-1942----Lou Nova (204)
9-29-1943-----Gunnar Barlund (203)
2-2-1944-------Buddy Know (207)
6-25-1945------Lou Nova (203)
9-17-1945------Gunnar Barlund (207)
2-5-1947--------Freddie Schott (211)

losses

2-25-1944------Joe Baksi (211)
9-18-1946------Joe Louis (211)
3-14-1947------Johnny Shkor (220)

Overall, Mauriello went 14-3 against over 200 lb fighters, an 82% winning percentage. His overall winning percentage against all opposition, going all the way down to welter, was 85%. Not a significant difference.

The heaviest man he fought, Shkor, at 220, he lost to. The biggest man he beat was J D Turner at 219.

The most one could say against him is that his record against men 210 or better is only 4-3, but Joe Louis distorts things. If Mauriello had fought the 198 Louis of the 2nd Schmeling fight, he would have lost also. It was more than just size in that case.

So he beat a number of men who were rated at one time or another who weighed above 200 and one who was above 210. He didn't fight any giants, but Buddy Baer and Abe Simon retired in 1942. What good giant was out there? Not many for certain.

Bottom line--this is getting into an any stick will do to beat this dog thing, but this size business strikes me as a totally worthless criticism, whatever else is said against Mauriello.

 

When Mauriello beat Woodcock he had lot lost since his 1944 meeting with Lee Oma, and had twelve wins on the trot.

During that time frame Bivins had drawn with Bettina and lost to Waloctt.

Walcott had lost to 11-14-1 Johnny Allen.

Elmer ray had beaten nobody who was even in the class of Woodcock.

Conn had been given his day in court and lost.

It seems eminently fair to me that Mauriello be given the #1 ranking, based upon his run of consistent form.

 

"It seems eminently fair to me that Mauriello be given the #1 ranking"

I agree.

If one is going to hold the close Bivins losses years earlier when he was a teenager against Mauriello, why not hold the KO losses to Ettore and Simon against Walcott, or certainly the bad loss to Allen.

I don't know if Mauriello was an unquestionable #1 pick over Walcott in the summer of 1946, but I do think he was a REASONABLE #1 pick over Walcott at that point.

Why Mauriello was rated #1 by The Ring over Ray at the end of the year is much more questionable to me.

 

Again, in hindsight.

 

For us today it is hard to get Walcott's later accomplishments out of our heads, and see him through 1946 eyes.

People at the time would have known him as a guy with a mediocre pre war record, who had lost post war to Allen.

Initially his wins over contended would have done as much to diminish them, as they did to enhance him.

I suspect that it took most people a while to figure out that they were in the presence of an exceptional contender.

 

Thanks for doing this list.

What jumps out at me. Rex Layne has wins over the #4 and #5 men but doesn't even make the list. He is one guy who always gets put down.

Still, a good list on the whole.