Who would you pick to outbox Cocoa Kid at 147?

Which pretty much the emphatic answer to the thread question.

But back to the thread question, we don't know because we don't know enough about Cocoa Kid.

 

Bull****. Firstly in recent decades you've always had to weigh in at the limit for eliminators.

And in this era Burley dominated Zivic yet wasn't number 1 WW contender. Robinson beat Angott and wasn't no1 lightweight contender

 

I never claimed there wasn't racism or even that he wasn't adversy affected by it. It's one thing to look into biases. It's another to just turn boxing history into hagiography and apologetics. I like Burley I rate him highly, but some of this stuff is just absurd.

And there were top white boxers who didn't get title shots#, Jim Driscoll, Packey McFarland, and Joe Goddard.

 

Yes my position is you can't make an accurate fight prediction without footage. Perhaps if you had a whoscored version of boxing with all the relevant boxing statistics you could make some predication about boxing outcomes but we certainly don't have that

As for how they coped, IMO they were worse at boxing or at least predicting boxing. Even going back to Schmelling, he studied Louis to beat him by looking at the film.

 

What's absurb? Burley being the best welterweight up until Robinson isn't. Burley being ducked certainly isn't. He was.

Jim Driscoll, Packey McFarland, and Joe Goddard aren't of Burley's era. But if you'd like to make a thread about them I'd be interested to hear their stories.

If we're looking at boxers of Burley's era loads of useless white boxers got all the shots at the big time while most of the top black boxers were maligned to the murders row and never got their shot. This is exactly what systematic racism is. Regardless of whether a handful of black boxers got their shot across all divisions, it paled in comparison to the shots other boxers should have got

 

You can get a slight idea from reports but you don't get the full picture. Bare in mind you can't trust the reporter to know enough about boxing to know what they're talking about.

Even if you goto HBO commentating, which is their main job, they don't really understand what they're seeing. It takes a Steward or Foreman or Jones Jr to explain what's going on.

 

Sure, it had nothing to do with the fact that Burley was considered a boring, passionless fighter who couldnt draw flies if he covered himself in ****. His box office numbers were pure garbage the vast majority of the time. He hamstrung himself by constantly bitching about his managers and relocating. In Pittsburgh on the verge of getting a Robinson fight he up and leaves. In Minneapolis, same thing. He fights on a card with Robinson designed to showcase them for a future match Robinson gets paid more, receives more press, and better post fight reviews and Burley up and leaves town. He and his apologists can ***** and moan all they want about racism or conspiracies but the elephant in the room was that fans didnt give a **** about him so there was no demand to see him so promoters werent going to put up the money to front a big fight for him. Burley wanted to be treated and paid like a star without actually having to do what stars do: put asses in the seats. That was a truism throughout the entirety of his career. The numbers dont lie, go check the gate receipts. He only drew a handful of decent gates and every time he was matched tough to do it but the guy is demanding title shots etc when the most he could do was be rated (during the time frame you put forth) #1 for three months. WOW. I hate to break it to you but the sport is called PRIZEFIGHTING and if a fighter doesnt deliver or show he can draw fans I dont care how good he might be, hes got a tough row to hoe to get a title shot, particularly back in that era. The color of his skin didnt have jack **** to do with it. NOTHING. Case in point is the fact that two better fighters than him who terrorized multiple divisions got numerous title shots. If anyone was going to be ducked it would have been Robinson and Armstrong but guess what? Those guys delivered the goods and had huge fan bases so they got big fights.

 

And pretending Burley was "clearly" the best welterweight is just bull****. He split two fights with Jimmy Leto. The first being a clear cut decision and the second being a boring slow fight. Yes he beat Zivic two out of three but you could easily argue that Zivic was nowhere near the best fighter in the division, he was simply a bigger draw than Burley hence why promoters wanted him over Burley for a defense. So he was winning and losing to guys who were at least in contention meaning he was in the mix but pretending he was head and shoulders above everyone is just more of the same revisionist garbage youve been spouting.

 

Wasn't that the fight Burley took apart his opponent brutally and Robinson saw it and decided the match up was a bad idea?

Yes racism was a major thing of the time. Black boxers didn't get anywhere near the amount of title shots they merited. You're an apologist for the racism of the time.

As for Burley being 'boring' to who? A Harry Greb fan? There's some irony there when you compare the video footage

You know full well Burley was easily the best of his era

Let's not pretend black fighters in 1930s AmeriKKKa were getting fair decisions. If it was an SD or considered close loss you know for a fact Burley beat him

 

Yeah its amazing. Can you imagine if Joe Louis, SRR, John Henry Lewis, Chalky Wright, and Georgie Pace had been black. They would have never been given title shots... oh wait.

 

It's wonderful listening to the apologists for racism citing the few examples where blacks got a fair shot versus the majority of the time where they didn't

'It's okay we'll be fair to you once or twice while we'll be racist ****s the majority of the time'

 

You mean when Robinson came back to Pittsburgh the following spring to build up the fight and Charley left town? yeah, see Burley apologists are great at leaving off the ends of whatever story they are trying to paint.

I never once said racism didnt exist. But it certainly wasnt the reason Burley didnt get a title shot.

To the fans who refused to pay to see him. When Robinson and Armstrong are the two biggest draws south of Joe Louis (another black fighter) your excuse that people wouldnt pay to see Burley because he was black doesnt wash.

I know nothing of the sort. I know revisionists would love to paint that picture but there were other great fighters in the sport at that time that not only have a shout out for being the best of the time but also for being the best in history.

Ok, sure, every fight a black fighter lost is suspect. Good luck with that theory. God forbid a black fighter lose or especially lose to a white fighter... have fun in fantasy land.