Sam Langford was already a great fighter by the time Walcott fought him to a draw. It was only two years later that Langford was able to go 15 rounds with future heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, and went on to become the most feared fighter in the world, knocking out nearly all the top heavyweights.
Three weeks after fighting Langford, Walcott fought lightweight champ Joe Gans to a draw. That is the equivalent of Delahoya fighting Felix Trinidad and the winner facing Shane Mosley within a month. Two weeks later Walcott badly injured his right hand in the aforementioned gun accident, yet he still was able to defeat many top fighters.
Walcott was just under 5' 2", and never weighed more than 148 pounds. His long reach and Herculean physique gave him tremendous power. He had great durability that allowed him to absorb the kind of punishment that would have finished most fighters.
He was also an accomplished boxer who studied and learned from the likes of George Dixon and Bob Fitzsimmons. His success against men of much higher weights leads one to believe that no modern welterweight could have gone the 20 round distance with him.
Perhaps the Chicago Herald-Examiner wrote a fitting epitaph on August 22, 1932 when Joe was hospitalized with a heart attack: ‘Some veteran boxing experts rate Walcott as the greatest fighter of his weight the ring ever knew. Only a ‘heavy’ lightweight, Walcott earned the sobriquet ‘Giant Killer’ by the easy manner in which he topped light-heavyweights and heavyweights’.
Joe died on October 4, 1935 after being struck by a car in Manssillon, Ohio.
Both Nat Fleischer and Charley Rose rated Joe Walcott the # 1 all time welterweight. Walcott finished #4 in the 2005 IBRO (International Boxing Research Organization) poll of its members. Cox’s Corner considers him among the top 5 all time welterweights. Cox’s Corner online article, ‘Joe Walcott: The Barbados Demon: The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall’
[8.6] CHARLEY BURLEY 98-83(50)-12-2-1 [Middleweight & Welterweight]: Boxing News online -
On This Day: The fighter who was too good for his own good, Charley Burley, was born: For years Charley Burley was more or less a forgotten man – now he’s rightly respected as one of the finest boxers of his or any other time.
Burley was too good for his own good: a classy, economical boxer who knew how to feint an opponent into making mistakes and then punish him. He was one of a group of avoided black fighters in the 1940s – Holman Williams, Eddie Booker, Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, Elmer Ray and others – and Burley was a genuine master of his craft.
He was inconsistent, temperamental, but in nearly 100 fights, nobody ever knocked him out.
When Burley outpointed future light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore over ten rounds in Los Angeles in 1944, Moore was knocked down four times. ‘Burley gave me a boxing lesson,’ he said. ‘He kept his punches coming at you like a riveting gun beats a tattoo on a rivet.’
Moore was to say later: ‘He was the best fighter I ever fought, and the best fighter I ever saw.’
Born in Bessemer, Pittsburgh on September 6, 1917, Burley fought between 1936 and 1950. At any time in the 1940s he could have justified a shot at the middleweight title, but the war years and then the trilogy between Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano kept the championship in limbo as far as anybody else was concerned. (Zale had won undisputed recognition in November 1941 by outpointing Georgie Abrams, but had not boxed because of war service for almost four years.)
Jimmy Bivins outweighed him by 7lbs and beat him on points in September 1940; Ezzard Charles, then a brilliant young middleweight, twice outpointed him in the summer of 1942, which is a measure of Charles’ talent. Mostly, though, Burley was too good for whoever they put in front of him. Between the Bivins and the first of the Charles fights, he won 20 in a row, including a decision over the graceful Holman Williams.
He could also have fought for the welterweight crown – his roughhouse Pittsburgh rival Fritzie Zivic beat Henry Armstrong to win that in October 1940 – but Burley had won two out of three fights with Zivic before that. Again, the welterweight title was in abeyance while Zivic’s successor, Freddie ‘Red’ Cochrane, was away in the war.
Sugar Ray Robinson won the welterweight title in 1946, but he avoided Burley, one time doubling his price demand, knowing that in doing so he was making the fight an impossible business proposition. Either writer Walter Winchell or the legendary trainer Ray Arcel (depending on your source) suggested Robinson fight Burley and the great man replied: ‘I thought you were my friend!’
Gradually Burley lost interest – and the public did too. By 1950 he was appearing in a small ballroom in Pittsburgh in front of hundreds, instead of thousands of fans. He had his last ring outing in, of all places, the Peruvian capital of Lima in July 1950.
He won 17 of his last 18 fights and was still only 32, but just gave up on boxing, taking a job in his home city’s garbage collection department.
Burley died in October 1992, aged 75.
Burley refused to compete in the US trials for the Berlin Olympics of 1936 because of his objection to racial and religious discrimination in Nazi Germany.
Ray Arcel said in an interview with New York writer Dave Anderson: ‘Charley Burley was the best fighter I ever saw who not only never won a title but never got any glory. In those days, if you were a good black fighter, nobody wanted to fight you.’ Boxing News online article 6 September 2018 Bob Mee
[8.6] JIMMY McLARNIN 77-63(20)-11-3 [Welterweight to Flyweight]: Daily Telegraph - Historica Canada online – International Boxing Hall of Fame online -
Jimmy ‘Babyface’ McLarnin: Durable boxer who fought his way to two world welterweight crows and invested his money wisely: Jimmy ‘Babyface’ McLarnin, who has died aged 96, was twice world welterweight boxing champion before retiring to enjoy an unusual financial security …
Few world champions were as talented or successful; in 1996 The Ring magazine rated him the fifth-best welterweight of all time. By the time he was 17 McLarnin had already established himself as a hard-punching fighter blessed with remarkable speed. He twice held the world 147 lb crown, and his trilogy of flight and Barney Ross drew large gates. Daily Telegraph article 28th October 2004
James McLarnin, Jimmy, boxer (b at Belfast, Ire 19 Dec 1907; d at Richland, Wash 28 Oct 2004). McLarnin was born near Belfast, Northern Ireland, the 5th child among 12. The family immigrated to Saskatchewan in 1910 and after one bitter winter moved to Vancouver. Jimmy was discovered and trained by Pop Foster, a longshoreman and former carnival fighter. As a 16-year-old pro in 1923-24 he went undefeated in 19 bouts, including a victory over Fidel LaBarba, the flyweight gold medalist from the Paris Olympics.
McLarnin abandoned the West Coast for Chicago and earned a title fight, which he lost at the Polo Grounds in New York. He won the world welterweight championship in Los Angeles on 29 May 1933 by knocking out Young Corbett III at 2:37 of the first round. McLarnin’s fame spread as the Irish Hero and his name became as well-known as his contemporary Babe Ruth. In three brutal fights against Barney Ross McLarnin lost the title in May 1934, won it back on 17 September of the same year, then lost it for good on 28 May 1935 – the last in front of a crowd of 40 000 at the Polo Grounds.
McLarnin fought only three more times and retired, his winnings intact, in 1936 with a record of 63 wins (20 by knockout), 11 losses and 3 draws. Historica Canada online
Jimmy McLarnin consistently fought the best fighters in the world for 13 years. Among the great opponents he faced are world champions from seven different weight classes, spanning a total of 48 pounds. In 77 career bouts, he met 15 world champions and five fellow Hall of Famers. On five occasions, McLarnin beat a reigning world champion in a non-title bout.
A gifted boxer and dangerous puncher, McLarnin turned pro in 1923 and the following year he decisioned and drew with future flyweight champion Fidel LaBarba in a pair of four-round bouts. His competition got better from there.
In 1925, he beat three world-class fighters in a six-month span – flyweight champion Pancho Villa in July, future welterweight titlist Jackie Fields in November and future bantamweight champion Bud Taylor in December.
McLarnin challenged lightweight champ Sammy Mandell in 1928 but dropped a 15-round decision. After beating the great Benny Leonard, McLarnin earned a title fight against welterweight king Young Corbett III in 1993. McLarnin knocked Corbett out in the first round. But his reign as champion was brief.
Barney Ross, who had held the lightweight and junior welterweight titles, took the title from McLarnin in May of 1934. He lost the crown back to McLarnin three months later but managed to reclaim the throne with a points win in May of 1935. International Boxing Hall of Fame online
[8.6] JACK BRITTON 344-239(30)-57-43-5: Boxing News online -
On This Day: Masterful welterweight champion Jack Britton was born: Jack Britton was a masterful, stand-up boxer who paced himself carefully and was able to campaign for 25 years before ending his career in 1930 at the age of 44. Billed as ‘The Boxing Marvel’, Britton is well known for his amazing series of 20 bouts with Britain’s Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis, exchanging the world welterweight title along the way. Most of these matches were officially No Decision bouts but in 1915, in their second meeting, Lewis won the 12-round decision to win the world welterweight title. There was bad blood between the rivals as they exchanged threats and refused the customary handshake before the bout.
For the next six years the two men monopolised the championship. The title passed to Britton in 1916 when he won a 20-round decision in New Orleans. Lewis regained it in 1917 but two years later Britton scored the only inside the distance win between the rivals when he knocked out Lewis in the ninth round to regain the title once more. Lewis later claimed he had climbed out of his sick bed to fight believing that the light-punching Britton would not be able to stop him.
Their final bout ended in a 15-round points win for Britton in 1921. Overall, Britton won the series by four bouts to three with one draw and 12 No Decisions. They were amazing times. In 1917 Britton and Lewis fought four times in a row in a five week period while a year later, between May 2, 1918 and June 25, Britton fought seven times which included two of his fights with Lewis and his first against lightweight legend Benny Leonard.
Britton was born William James Breslin in Clinton, New York in 1885 of Irish parentage and started his career in the small boxing clubs of Milwaukee and Chicago. He fought a classic three-fight series with the great Packey McFarland. The first was a draw but two ended in No Decisions. Ringsiders were treated to displays of great ring artistry seldom seen by the two fighters. Britton met another master boxer, Benny Leonard, in June 1922 and was clearly winning the fight after 12 rounds according to the gathered ringside writers.
In the 13th round Jack went down on one knee from a borderline body punch. The normally cool Leonard stepped in and cracked him with a left hook as he kneeled on the canvas and was promptly disqualified. Britton’s luck ran out in his next defence when he was floored three times and outpointed by Mickey Walker. Britton was 37, Walker a mere 21, 16 years his junior.
Jack continued to fight until 1930, when he finally retired after losing to one Rudy Marshall. He died in Miami, Florida in 1962 at the age of 76. Boxing News online article 14 October 2018