Who would you pick to outbox Cocoa Kid at 147?

Kid couldnt have been too shabby, apparently Armstrong and
Ross didn't want to meet him.

 

Burley was campaigning for a title shot against Henry Armstrong and was number 1 ranked welterweight contender. He had 2 fights with Zivic, the first a contencious SD loss, the second a dominating win. Zivic's manager bought Burley's contract and essentially forced him to move upto middleweight. Burley complained in the press how he was the worthy challenger to Armstrong over Zivic to little avail. Zivic won and wouldn't give Burley his title shot.

In 1942 Burley said if WW Champ Cochrane faced him for the title that he'd donate his purse to charity

 

I believe that Kid was the number 1 challenger, and Zivic number 3 at the time? Armstrong chose Zivic.

 

Sparring stories definitely don't inform pro fights, even amateur fights don't inform pro fights and SRR could be dropped, and was even dropped by Bell. Over 10, 12, 15 rounds though I have SRR outboxing him relatively decisively.
The Kid was out boxed by Izzy Jannazzo

 

You mean the first one that two newspapermen picked for Cocoa but did so by the margin of rounds they scored even and admitted that the crowd agreed with the decision? Or the second one which was called a decisive win for Jannazzo?

 

Burley was not the #1 contender when his contract was purchased and he wasnt forced to move up to 160. Theres been a lot of misinformation spread about Burley and a lot of it started with Burley.

 

The NBA ranked him number one for Armstrong as noted in this article:

[url]https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19390511&id=OJFRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3GkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1618,3990339[/url]

There was no reasonable reason for Armstrong's management to duck Burley over Zivic who dominated him once and likely deserved the first fight. There was also no reasonable reason for Zivic to duck his strongest welterweight challenger who'd dominated him.

 

The problem here is that this article was written in mid 1939. It was over a year later that Armstrong lost to Zivic. And frankly it wasnt Armstrongs management that ducked Burley. Armstrongs management doesnt make matches. Mike Jacobs did. Mike Jacobs matched Armstrong and Zivic specifically because he considered it a bigger draw. In fact immediately after this article was published Burley was bumped down to #2 in favor of Lou Ambers who had just beaten Armstrong. Burley was never rated #1 again at welterweight. Not while Zivic was champ, not while Cochrane was champ, and not while Robinson was champ. Burley was only briefly rated as the top contender at WW. Combine that with the fact that he was box office poison and you have your answer as to why he didnt get a title shot. A champion can have the best intentions in the world of defending against everyone but if a promoter doesnt think the dollars make cents then its not going to happen and thats exactly what happened with Burley. There was a perfectly logical reason for Zivic not to fight Burley: He had a MUCH more lucrative rematch on the books with Armstrong, the former champion who was now rated #1. After Zivic beat Armstrong again Kaplan and Jannazzo were rated #1. Pretending there was no reasonable reason for Armstrong to not fight Burley during the short period he was the top rated contender ignores the fact that Armstrong had bigger fights for bigger money on the books than throwing Burley a bone.

 

This is a post I made at boxrec last year during a similar discussion which sheds more light on the real reason why Burley didnt get a WW title shot as opposed the BS idea that everyone was ducking him:

Burley was never the top contender at welterweight during the period you mention (Note: this post was in relation to Zivics reign). Milt Aron was the top contender for most of Zivic's reign. Zivic had a non title fight with him during this period and lost. Burley was such a minor player he fought the walkout bout and coverage of it was limited to one sentence in the Boston Globe. Burley was probably rated higher than Zivic when Zivic got the title shot but the Zivic-Armstrong fight was originally made by Pittsburgh promoters Rooney and McGinley to be held in Pittsburgh. They wanted the biggest local draw in the division to fight Armstrong and that was Zivic not Burley. The match was moved to New York because Armstrong had previously posted a forfeit to bind his next title shot in the city and he was forced to honor it. Immediately after Zivic won the fight Burley had a fight in Pittsburgh and it was noted in the local papers that Zivic was keeping an eye on the gate, the implication being that if Burleydrew well they would stage a title fight. Burley's fight drew less than $400. It was the worst gate in Pittsburgh in recent memory. Zivic signed to fight Armstrong and I doubt anyone at the time would have preferred Burleyto Armstrong. That means that essentially the title was on the shelf for a period of three months. During this time Burley got into a dispute with his manager which further hampered his ability to get fights. He blamed his manager for his lack of opportunities (not his boring performances). As a result his manager sold his contract to Irwin Silverman in March of 1941. Some have speculated that Silverman was a front for Zivic/Carney who supposedly purchased the contract to keep Zivic from having to fight Burley. Even if that's true the supposed conspiracy didn't have an opportunity to accomplish anything because Mike Jacobs had dibs on Zivics next defense and he had already signed Freddie Cochrane. Zivic signed two weeks after Burley's contract was sold and Zivic lost his title in that defense. So that entire theory is pretty bogus. The war started five months after Cochrane won the title and during that five months Cochrane had one non title fight against Jenkins who was a much bigger draw than Burley. So no, Burley wasn't screwed and he wasn't a victim of a conspiracy. He was a victim of bad timing, poor decision making, bad luck, and his own boring style. In a perfect world everybody would get a title shot immediately every day of the week but we don't live in a perfect world. Fans need to understand that matches aren't made by fighters. They are made by a promoter who is willing to put up the money because he thinks hes going to turn a profit. The two most critical fights here: Zivic-Armstrong 1 and Zivic-Cochrane 1, were put together by promoters who specifically wanted Zivic and then Cochrane as the challenger, Burley wasn't in the mix because he wasn't a draw. People have just taken all of the hyperbole around Burley's inability to get a title shot and run with it without ever really trying to look at the context in which all of this stuff went down.