Worst managed fighters

Great call! I think you may be the winner. To put Tate back into the ring as quickly as they did after the Weaver loss was incredible. I recall Emanuel Stewart say he should have taken a lot of time off, that his ko loss was a career changer. But, if you ever met Big John, you'd know the rest of the story.

 

Since the time that I wrote the quoted post, I have come to believe after much research that Charley Burley's main problem was not his management. The first big problem was Burley had a boxing style that was regarded as boring. The second one was that far too many of his bouts were considered dull or terrible by the writers of ringside reports and the fans.

It is little wonder that promoters and matchmakers were not breaking down the door to have Burley on their shows. As a result, Burley would have had trouble getting lucrative bouts or a world title shot no matter who was managing him.

Phil Goldstein, Burley's first manager, made a great effort to get him bouts from 1936 to 1940. Although not fighting very often for a boxer of that era, he was able to become a welterweight contender as early as 1938. But Burley still seemed to not get over the hump.

Burley's career really seemed to stall to a great degree when Luke Carney, Fritzie Zivic's longtime manager, managed him for a short period during 1941. There was an allegation that Zivic bought Burley's contract to keep Burley from being a threat to him. But Zivic had already won the world welterweight title from Henry Armstrong during 1940. It is very possible that Burley's career stalled at the time because Carney had trouble getting him bouts rather trying to sabotage him.

During the latter part of 1941, Burley quit a $10. a day job in a steel plant located in the Pittsburgh area in order to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota in an attempt to revive his boxing career. Tommy O'Loughlin, the promoter of the boxing shows in Minneapolis, would become Burley's manager sometime in late 1941 or early 1942. A hardworking and highly experienced boxing man, O'Loughlin made a great effort to get Burley over the hump with mixed results at best during the next several years that he managed him.

There would be a very indifferent response to Burley when he fought at the Armory in Minneapolis during late 1941 and early 1942. As a result, Burley would fight in other parts of the United States over the next few years, especially in California, the Pittsburgh area and New Orleans. Despite having some notable bouts during that time, it appears that Burley still had trouble making a good living in boxing. To supplement his income, Burley apparently was holding down a job in an airplane factory located in San Diego when he lived there with his family during World War II.

From 1944 to 1946, Burley had some bouts that drew gates over $10,000. in San Francisco and Oakland. After that time, Burley seemed to have an even harder time getting bout. He would begin working as a garbage man in Pittsburgh during the late 1940s.

Burley went through quite a few managers starting in the middle 1940s. They included Morris Slutsky from 1945 to 1946; Charley Rose, Lew Burston and Jersey Jones during the period from 1946 to 1948; George Armstrong from 1948 to 1949; and Harry Roth from 1949 to 1950.

- Chuck Johnston

 

How did he drop the ball with Bowe?

 

Fernando Vargas another fighter who was matched too hard,too often and he was done at a young age for a fighter.

 

Well that was > the brutal Weaver ko. Who thought he was coming back from that anyway? He'd already suffered 2 brutal amateur ko's and the Weaver one was worse. Damaged goods is what most thought and if you didn't think he was damaged goods, he was very very close to it.

So they put him in the ring 3 months later. And they take the fight in Canada against the Canadian fighter. It should have been a softie, much like guys he started fighting on ESPN > the Berbick loss.

 

Disagree with your conclusions.

 

Meldrick Taylor? Mike McCallum.

 

Marvis Frazier comes to mind, the way he was thrown in with Holmes and Tyson before he was even close to ready.

 

This is confirmed in Springs Toledo's excellent Murderers Row,highly recommended,Burley was seldom a crowd pleaser. A forerunner of Harold Johnson perhaps?

 

Jimmy Young was poorly managed, especially in the earlier part of his career.

 

Bruce Curry. BC in the 2nd yr as pro fought Wilfred Benitez and floored him 3x and
still lost the dec. His management arranged in rematch in NY and foolishly made him fight in Japan 11 days earlier. When BC a natural 140 lb had his only fight at 147 lbs they matched him with Thomas Hearns.

 

Kell Brook, The GGG fight was a suicidal choice.

 

Jeff Lampkin - after campaigning for 9 years he wins the IBF cruiserweight title and defends it once. At the advanced age of 31 he is finally seeing some money. However, that's not good enough. He decides to sign with Don King, who promptly tells him, "I don't have any dealings with the IBF, you'll have to vacate your title if you sign with me." And of course, he does so. As we all know, the money is with the title. But he sits out for 2 years while he should have been striking while the iron was hot and made gobs of money. At 33 he finally gets going under King, finishes 4-6 over his last 10 fights and never sees anything that he could have while he was IBF champ. This example is really a combo of bad management, bad advice and bad decisions on the part of Lampkin.

 

Rocky'S trainer Mickey remarked once "I never had no management". He's my pick.