Why isn’t Jimmy Bivens considered a member of “Murderer’s Row”?

Jimmy Bivins doesn't belong, since unlike the guys you mentioned Bivins was a huge attraction, so he didn't have problems getting fights with other popular fighters. If the title wasn't frozen Louis would've definitely defended against Bivins, since Bivins sold tickets.

For example guys like Burley and Holman Williams were both amazing fighters, but neither of them were big attractions, so other top fighters had little incentive to risk their title and reputation for a small purse when they could fight a less dangerous opponent for more money.

 

Bivins was a character. Fans either found him funny or hated him. He was very good at getting the attention of major newspapers even as an amateur and was great at making the fans of popular fighters hate him to the point that fans would pay money to see him get beat, so even guys that didn't want to fight Bivins still fought him because of the payday that came with fighting him.

Here is a piece with a matchmaker talking about Bivins being able to draw crowds.

Matchmaker Larry Atkins, the Midwest's only real rival to Dan Cupid, announced today he would like to find a good heavyweight to play the villain for Cleveland fight fans.

In other words, Atkins explained, he would like to find another Jimmy Bivins, who attracted the biggest crowds here because most fans wanted to see the desultory Negro's block knocked off.

Before the Army laid claim to Jimmy's fighting ability, the 23-year-old Negro blasted aside every challenger to his unofficial title of the world's No. 1 heavyweight out-side the armed forces.

His last victim was Lee Q. Murray, hard-punching Norwalk, Conn., Negro, whom he decisively defeated Feb. 29 to finish his civilian boxing career for the duration with a string of 15 straight victories.

"Bivins was a nice fellow outside the ropes but when he got into the ring he somehow managed to incite the wrath of the fans," atkin remarked. "Perhaps it was because Jimmy always seem so confident."

A good example of Jimmy's standing with the local fans was the reaction to the announcement of his winning his first fight with Murray after having suffered a gashed left eye which bled profusely.

Although the ringside consensus was that Bivins had won the battle clearly on his aggressiveness despite the eye injury, the crowd bellowed when the verdict came over the loudspeaker. The return bout was a "natural" and drew a capacity house.

But capacity houses will be forgotten history unless Atkins can develop a fighter with the unusual drawing power of Bivins, someone who can be successful in the ring without being popular with the fans.

The Match maker's last headliner here brought together Tommy Bell, sensational Youngstown, O., Negro welterweight and Maxie Berger, veteran New Yorker. The bout drew less than 8,000 fans.

Atkins said he believed he may have a good drawing card in Lloyd Marshall. Cleveland-born Negro light heavyweight who now resides in Sacramento, Cal. A Marshall-Jake LaMotta match perhaps?

Say, "If that fight can be arranged," Atkins exclaimed, "we would see another capacity house! You can bet your life on that."

https://imgur.com/r0dC0z3

 

Because he got an oppurtunity to fight for the duration world title and was double champ at HW and LHW. Lloyd Marshall was duration champ at LHW after Bivins.

He also fought Louis when I think he still had the BBBC belt. So thats another title shot there.

 

It was a situational belt for WW2 so its hard to say. Unlike most alphabet belts it was the number 1 belt at the time it was being fought for. The thing that stands out the most is unlike most HW/LHW champs and claimants he was holding both belts at the same time.

"Duration" is an old world way of saying "interim". "in the interim" and "for the duration" are basically the same phrase. So it was basically the official interim belt which was set up because WW2 was expected to last longer then it did and the old champs never returning was a real possibility. While the US expected to win they did not expect the Allies to win as quickly as they did in late 1942 Germany and Japan controlled much of Europe and Asia. During the summer of 1944 when it was becoming clear the war was going to end soon and Louis and Lesnevich would be back the concept was gradually abandoned.

Also after Bivins went into the military in 1944 the duration belt was now basically an "interim interim" title. While Bivins was gone less than a year by the time he returned it was 1945 and his titles weren't restored. While he still had the status as clear number 1 at HW because of his winning streak this streak ended before Louis's return in late 1946. After his 4 year winning streak Bivins lost 3 in a row taking him out of contention. How would you rate Frazier if he took a losing streak before Alis return? Bivins titles should be viewed like that.

Maryland and Ohio recognized an alternative duration lineage but in his final 2 fights before leaving for the military Bivins unified this claim by beating Lee Murray twice. The first fight was considered a robbery but Bivins came back and beat Murray in the rematch. After Bivins left Maryland and Ohio gave this title back to Murray in June for beating Sheppard before it too petered out. Illinois gave Baksi the duration title for winning the trilogy with Lee Savold in August 1944. This is the latest record I can find of a duration title in either division. I did a thread on the subject and thats how I learned about that one. But unlike Marshall who won the LHW duration belt in January neither Baksi or Murray got recognition as Bivins successor. This makes sense because this was right after D-Day and Bagration and right before Leyte Gulf.


Yes thats the one with Lee Savold. Between beating Lee Savold in June and losing to Marciano in October Louis beat Bivins and Cesar Brion in August. The belt was not transferred to Marciano when he won but it doesn't seem like it was stripped before the Bivins and Brion fights. The BBBC didn't recognize a champ until Marciano beat Walcott the following year(at the end of linked article). Given they didn't feel an undefeated Marciano was a viable alternative to Charles its doubtful they'd have given Bivins the belt either given he had 4 losses to him. Bivins did have a great win over Charles but it was at LHW.

either. https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-b...mbering-world-heavyweight-champion-lee-savold

 

Jimmy was bigger than the Murderer's Row gang was. They weren't heavyweights. Bivins was, like Elmer "Violent" Ray. Beyond that, Jimmy was an east coast competitor fighting out of Cleveland. Geographically, the Murderer's Row members fought primarily in California, and they were black middleweight contenders.

Murderer's Row is generally considered to have been primarily, from Budd Shulberg's original list:

Charley Burley
Eddie Booker
Jack Chase
Bert Lytell
Lloyd Marshall

Secondarily:

Holman Williams
Aaron Wade
Herbert "Cocoa Kid" Lewis Hardwick

Archie Moore definitely would've been counted among their ranks, except he simply outlasted everybody else, freakishly. Despite being even older than ALL his Murderer's Row opponents, he dethroned Joey Maxim for the LHW Title after ALL the members of Murderer's Row had retired. (Burley was actually four years younger than Moore, Lytell 11 years younger, Holman Williams a year younger, Cocoa Kid a few months younger, Jack Chase also a few months younger, Tiger Wade three years younger.) Moore was a great historian and patron of the Murderer's Row legacy, as Ezzard Charles would've been with a similarly long healthy life


Lloyd Marshall clearly enjoyed a measure of recognition and popularity after his postwar peak. We have footage of him beating Freddie Mills by knockout after scoring many knockdowns, Tommy Farr and Dietrich Hucks via knockout, showing an exciting competitor who was only frozen out of a world championship by WW II. (Tommy Farr was his final win.) Charley Burley was great, but not very exciting, as the footage of Oakland Billy Smith II shows. Marshall was a colorful combatant, who could be going for the kill one instant, get wobbled the next, then recover to proceed back on the attack.

 

All of the above, great insight from @Anubis and especially @HistoryZero26 on the interim lineage.

Plus, Bivins never kilt nobody (as far as we know).

 

A tremendous quality of research contribution by @HistoryZero26 which I greatly enjoyed reading. He knows his stuff. I was concentrating on my own post before reading it, as I'd previously posted years ago in touching on the subject of whether or not Bivins should be included with Murderer's Row.