the history of boxing should be an elective course at harvard and every serious academic institution. it is an important yet overlooked part of american history.
The row was the most talented set of fighters of their time and I rate them very highly. Burley and Williams are 2 of the 50 greatest fighters ever with Cocoa Kid, Eddie Booker and Jimmy Bivins right behind him. Marshall was no slouch himself. Every single fighter in the row would have been a multi division champion today.
Its really unfortunate that the so-called "champions" at that time (Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Fritzie Zivic, Billy Conn, etc) were too spineless to risk their titles against the guys on the black murderers row. If they had, boxing history would be totally different! '"
It's never that simple... it all has to do with money and politics. If it was about race they would've never gave Joe Louis or Ray Robinson a title shot either. It's the people behind the curtains who run the show and pull the strings on who fight who and who gets title shots. It was at the time where boxing was completely dominated and ran by the mob of the 40's-50's
SkateAndReview yeah and those fighters were glad the mob was running the show when it came to fighting guys like Charly Burley. He was a real fighter that would bring it to anybody.
Not sure why you make such comments when good fighters come in all races but there are blacks showing great skill in all areas of combat sports today. Domination isn't necessary. Skill is still very evident.
@tw69hands2 yep! It's one thing to be ducked by one Supposed Great Champion. but to Ducked by almost the entire Era? WOW! He had to have been a Super Great Fighter.
Charlie burley was the man ,Back in his day with 2day media technology just imagine what he would've of acomphlish .Too old to late but hey they were the real, 2day boxer cant say shit , They might or would not last a day in those day the world of mix culture was jst beginning it was that era .
@Robstailey Yeah, its a lost art. Most try to learn to attack without learning the basics. If you look closely though, guys like Toney, Bhop and Mayweather will age much better than your average fighter because of this. I think McCallum is another great fighter who was able to benefit from a proper grasp of the basics (criminally underrated and avoided by the Big Four of his time).
in the cartoon at 1:26 what zivic are they talking about becuase Fritzie Zivic fought charley 3 times and won the first one, charley zivic didn't fight him
burley was a genius, especially defensively. james toney, bhop, and mayweather are probably the only contemporary fighters who are almost that unhittable.
Langford was great in his archaic time. Burley would kill Langford. From the scarce film of Sam i see MANY flaws that guys in CB's day would exploit with very bad intentions.
Dude, these guys are great fighters and your vids are great, but Burley's style has nothing to do with "Black"! It's the classic English style used and explained by the great British fighter, Peerless Jim Driscoll, and many others. I'm sure these fighters were avoided, in part because of their colour, but that doesn't mean that their style was a Black American thing. The Klitschkos fight using a variation of the English style right now, but what credit do they get?
