Fun fact on Robinson/Burley

[billeau2]

Burley name was a monthly feature in The Ring Magazine ratings for WW/MW during the early 40's.




If your oldest friend is 79, he would of been 15 when Burley's career was already over.

very nice work actual research done in place of anecdotal information always a winner



An 18 year old boxing fan in 1962 never hearing of Burley is not exactly surprising considering he went under the radar to American fans when he was active.



The Ring Magazine, May 1942:

Very nice work... Actual sources in place of anecdotal information... Always a winner.

[billeau2]

An example of why i find the book so contradictory. Here is a excerpt from that book.
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"Burley eventually left Carney and new promoter Tommy O***8217; Loughlin attempted to gain Burley a championship bout. After coming to California, Burley beat almost everyone in front of him including heavyweight J.D. Turner as well as Holman Williams. (The exception being Ezzard Charles.) Burley***8217;s people challenged current champions but the pleas were ignored. While searching for a title shot, the 150 pound Burley fought heavyweights Ezzard Charles, and other heavier fighters including Lloyd Marshal and the Hogue brothers. J.D. Turner outweighed Burley by 70 pounds but was busted up within six rounds by the lighter fighter."
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Heavyweight J.D.Turner... Turner cannot be compared to anyone within my memory, because his record is so poor.

Heavyweights Ezzard Charles... The author has clearly set out to deceive the reader and to glorify Burley by claiming him to have lost to a heavyweight Ezzard Charles. The truth being Charles was a middleweight in 1942

Ray Robinson won the welterweight title only days before 1947, Burley was beaten only weeks later by Bert Lytell. i cannot see how Robinson would be avoiding Burley. i cannot see Burley being a contender for Robinson's welterweight title in 1947. my opinion is the the writer/relative who wrote the book, used Robinson to glorify Burley. in fact my honest opinion is Charley Burley was a good fighter, just like hundreds of other fighters at that period in time. But he was nothing special.

There is nothing wrong with this author having a minority opinion of burley but, under the circumstances just add extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary proof in science, it requires more than one source to cast aspersions on Burly. A reasonable explanation might be amazed to grind.... Or some agenda. Just watch Charlie work and one can see how he was a great talent and black fighters at the time often got the short end of the stick...especially fighters from Pittsburgh which seemed a veritable breeding ground of guys like burley.

[Humean]

I don't agree with all that Galileo is saying but I do think Burley, and indeed the rest of those fighters labelled as part of the murderers' row, have went from a long period of being grossly underappreciated to a point where they are now considered far greater than they were. Burley does however deserve to be placed around the same category of greatness as fighters such as Zale, Cerdan and LaMotta.

There is nothing wrong with this author having a minority opinion of burley but, under the circumstances just add extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary proof in science, it requires more than one source to cast aspersions on Burly. A reasonable explanation might be amazed to grind.... Or some agenda. Just watch Charlie work and one can see how he was a great talent and black fighters at the time often got the short end of the stick...especially fighters from Pittsburgh which seemed a veritable breeding ground of guys like burley.

Unless there is more footage than I aware the sum total of surviving footage of Burley is one of the Oakland Billy Smith fights. Not a lot of evidence really although you can see in said footage that he had a very slick style and was very talented.

[Galileo]

no axe to grind or agenda. i never knew Burley or any of his family, i live in the U.K. as i explained earlier, i am querying why/how fight fans both sides of the Atlantic failed to know who Burley was. This is a quite straight forward boxing query. Yet you in your opening post are claiming, i have an axe to grind, an agenda and also putting it down to racism against fighters. I would be better satisfied if you would address my queries above if you know so much on the subject. The Anecdotal information above, does not specify, which title or who the boys in the division are.

1/. How the book deliberately misleads the reader on many occasions, ie Heavyweight Ezzard Charles. J.D. Turner.
2/. When exactly during his career did Ray Robinson avoided Burley?

[Galileo]

joeandthebums.. excellent piece of research, which i enjoyed reading. i agree 100% with your assessment.

Humean.. i am of the exact same opinion of Burley as you point out.

Thankyou to both of you guys.

[billeau2]

no axe to grind or agenda. i never knew Burley or any of his family, i live in the U.K. as i explained earlier, i am querying why/how fight fans both sides of the Atlantic failed to know who Burley was. This is a quite straight forward boxing query. Yet you in your opening post are claiming, i have an axe to grind, an agenda and also putting it down to racism against fighters. I would be better satisfied if you would address my queries above if you know so much on the subject. The Anecdotal information above, does not specify, which title or who the boys in the division are.

1/. How the book deliberately misleads the reader on many occasions, ie Heavyweight Ezzard Charles. J.D. Turner.
2/. When exactly during his career did Ray Robinson avoided Burley?

Not you!! the author who wrote something about Burley that was different than the generally accepted opinion. And never said the author was a rascist I said that Black fighers in Burley's time were treated a certain way and that there was a proponderance of talent in the area where Burley came up.

[billeau2]

I don't agree with all that Galileo is saying but I do think Burley, and indeed the rest of those fighters labelled as part of the murderers' row, have went from a long period of being grossly underappreciated to a point where they are now considered far greater than they were. Burley does however deserve to be placed around the same category of greatness as fighters such as Zale, Cerdan and LaMotta.



Unless there is more footage than I aware the sum total of surviving footage of Burley is one of the Oakland Billy Smith fights. Not a lot of evidence really although you can see in said footage that he had a very slick style and was very talented.

I don't remember who it was he was fighting but I saw footage of Burley, it could well have been Oakland Billy Smith.

[joeandthebums]

I don't remember who it was he was fighting but I saw footage of Burley, it could well have been Oakland Billy Smith.

That's the only footage available of Burley at present.

[billeau2]

That's the only footage available of Burley at present.

Here is that footage with commentary.

http://www.charleyburley.com/page10.htm

[Galileo]

Here is that footage with commentary.

http://www.charleyburley.com/page10.htm

i Laugh at the heading on the above page claiming Burley to be "The UNCROWNED Welterweight & Middleweight Champion of the World.....talk about fictional books