"Charley Burley,One of Boxing's Great Unrealized Talents", by Bert Sugar

"One of the boxers I had not heard about until treading the forums, is this man. And although he was name-checked, I realised that did not have much of an overview of him, so I dug out Bert Sugars "Boxing's Greatest Fighters"(isbn 1592286321).Rowley has also touched on the subject of "the colour line" recently,so seemed a good time to share Sugar's chapter on Charley Burley .He put him at number 59 out of a hundred, by the way.Sugar seems to annoy some fight fans, but I think he is a darn good writer,and a pleasure to read( it must help not having to look at him or hear his voice).



Those few boxing afficianados who know the name Charley Burley can be entered on the head of a pin.But for many who saw Burley perform in the late thirties and into the forties share the opinion of venerable Eddie Futch,who said,"Charley Burley was the finest all-round athlete I ever saw..."
And Archie Moore remembered his former ring opponent as "the toughest of them all..a fighter that I could identify as being slick as lard and twice as greasy".Why then is Burley the forgotten man?
The answer,my friends, is written in the times,times when bigotry was a going concern and "For Whites Only" sections still abided in many areas.Even Joe Louis was unacceptable to many of the closet bigots behind boxing's leather curtain-one of boxing's then reigning landlords mentioning Louis to writer Lester Bromberg in a sneering, "Who wants him?He's just another one of those n*****s!".
But if boxing champions like Louis and Henry Armstrongwere still relegated to the back of boxing's bus for as long as possible,until talent won out and became their ticket of admission to the front,others were denied entrance to the bus entirely.Those members of the rank-and-file were boxing's second-class citizens.And tragedies.

One of those second class citizens was Charley Burley,a dazzling young welterweight out of that fistic hotbed knwn as 1930s Pittsburgh.A past master of the art of boxing, Burley's style was a style almost beyond appreciation,his moves purring like a sleek and well-fed cat.He could do everything;He could punch,he could box,he could adapt to his opponent's style,and he could think on his feet.The only thing he couldn't do was change his colour.And so,denied access to boxing's sanctum,Burley was reduced by his colour to fighting in clubs of dubious distinction.
Still,Charley Burley might have survived the neglect fate had mandated for him because of his complexion had he not been so good-"Too good a fighter for his own good",in the words of promoter Tex Sullivan.Every time he was offered up as an opponent,other fighters would politely cough and turn their heads,suddenly remembering something else they had to do.
The fighters who turned Burley down as an opponent would make an honour roll of boxing's best.George Gainford,the manager of the peerless Sugar Ray Robinson,admitted he bypassed,ie ducked,Burley because "his style was such he would have counteracted Robinson's " and asked Ray Arcel,"Can't you get me someone besides Burley?"Johnny Ray,manager of the fearless Billy Conn,who had fought such man-eaters as Fritzie Zivic,Solly Krieger,Babe Risko,and Oscar Rankins,shouted at a matchmaker Art Rooney,who had proposed Burley as an opponent for the annual Dapper Dan show,"No!No!No!I don't want Burley.Never mention his name again."
And Freddie Zivic, who had suffered from his nearness to Burley,losing two out of three,had his manager,Luke Carney,take over Burley's contract to insure he would never have to face him again.

Avoided by all, he was consigned to boxing's last mile,a group of Negro middleweights called by Buss Schulberg "Murderer's Row",a den,pride,herd,and/or siege of similarly dispossessed lionsand tigers who had been denied the right to lie down amongst the lambsand, in self-defence,had to seek out each other's company.Their names, while hardly household names even in their own household,included some of the deadliest practitioners of the "sweet science" ;Lloyd Marshall,Bert Lytell,Holman Williams,Oakland Billy Smith,and Joe Carter.And of course,the clean-up hitter in Murderer's Row lineup, Charley Burley.

Burley took them all on,not caring who, when or how much they weighed.He fought Holman Williams several times,Bert Lytell and Ezzard Charles twice,Jimmy Bivvins and Lloyd Marshall,and even an up and coming oldsternamed Archie Moore.What he did against Moore, boxing's all-time knockout recordholder,was testimony to Burley's ring skills:There were four knockdowns between them;Moore none and Burley four as he won an easy ten round decision.Unable to get fights with any middleweight or middleweight who even faintly recognised his name,Burley fought light-heavyweights and heavyweights.The only ones who could beat him were bigger scientific fighters like Ezzard Charles,who outweighed him by fifteen pounds.
The closest he ever cam e to stardom came in 1942,when,after having been ranked welterweight contender for four years,he came to New York as the second-ranked middleweight contender.Unable to get a fight at Madison Square Garden, he took one at St.Nicholas Arena against "Showboat"Bill McQuillan, a good journeyman.In a little over a minute,Burley knocked out McQuillan,effectively ending two careers.A victor by victory undone and now untouchable,a boxing leper.
Fame has been called a crazy old lady who hoards swatches of fabric and throws away plates of food.In Charley Burley's case,it threw away one of the great unrealized talents in the history of boxing".

Cheers for this Andy as one of Burley's chief cheerleaders on here I always welcome anything I have not previously read on the man and this falls into that category, other names to be added to this list of those who turned down Burley as a dance partner are La Motta, Zale and Cochran. Apparently as well as Futch and Moore Joe Louis was also quoted as saying Burley was the best fighter in the world, three opinions that to me would seem worth listening to.

Yes, those testimonies do tend to knock the "old boxers/no-one can verify them as good or not" argument into a cocked hat.
(*Am hoping that this article will smoke out a few other old-timer fans, always liked it when Windy would say something like, "You're quite right ,Dave." In my mind he sounds like HAL from 2001.*)

I got the book for Christmas from TIMC, if you can get past the repeated clichés and blatant errors then it is a really good read.

I met Bert Sugar once, reasonably nice bloke in real life.

I'd take issue with the term unrealized - unrecognised would seem fairer. His talent was mighty - and was fully realised - just ask Zivic/Moore. However - he never won the recognition he merited. Otty's book is a classic on Charley - the man comes to life in the book - and he bestrides its pages like a Hellenistic deity, surveying the mortal realms from Olympus.

You know you're good when you're too good to be given a world title shot despite men as good as Robinson and Armstrong were given the opportunity.

I read a while ago that Bert Sugar was one of only two men that had been expelled from the Boxing Writers Association. Could never find out why though.

I've always found Sugar to be massively knowledgeable, as well as strangely entertaining, but his bias on certain sibjects his ridiculous. I wouldn't be all that surprised if he'd been running the D4 account all along for example.

I can't fault his writing here though. I'm not sure if I've ever read a negative account of Burley as a fighter. The only negatives I know of are things like being "safety first" and refusing to bow to the mob, both of which are commendable in some eyes.

Like you JBW have not read too much negativity about Burley beyond his style on occasions not being too exciting but for me that is more than outweighed by his point blank refusal to enter into any fight or arrangment that was not completely on the level, to sacrifice your place in boxing history and chance at a world title on a matter of principle, albeit it one that is correct, speaks volumes about the man and is a stance I am not too sure many of us can honestly admit we would take so unwaveringly.

Seems to be something instilled from a young age given his refusal to compete in the Berlin olympics when he was only a young guy who'd barely been outside of Pittsburgh.

Mob connections hardly seem to have tarnished the legacies of Sugar Ray or Jake Lamotta though...

Yeah John the Olympics thing is staggering, for a young person to turn down such an opportunity on moral grounds would be remarkable now but for a black person in those times to deny himself such a possibility to lift himself out of poverty is hard to believe, but everything does suggest his decision was purely made in disgust at the regime in place at the time in Germany.

Certainly plenty of realising on these boards...