Ray Robinson fought more champions than any fighter in history, he also fought 108 top 10 ranked contenders, his quality of opposition is damn near second to none. The fight with Burley was supposed to happen in 46. Im sick of people saying ray ducked burley, it was possible for them to fight, there was a small window of oppurtunity, however ray was a welterweight and Burley a middleweight, and they were not obligated to fight & when ray won the title, burley wasnt even ranked in top 10 any more

Murderers' row!!!

This man Knocked Out Archie Moore in his prime and won his last several fights before retiring unrated (imagine that?) at like 31 years old. 5'9" middleweight who twice went the distance with the future heavyweight champion of the world. Without being forced by the boxing commission, what champion in their right mind would fight this guy?

Beautiful use of the lead foot by Burley. He was constantly controlling Smith's movement with subtle steps of his lead foot, and using the extended high guard (with use of the regular high guard in close quarters) to keep Billy Smith at bay. He always made sure his head was off the line of attack by selling feints with in and out movement using his upper body and stutter steps and his, once again, lead foot keeping Billy Smith from creating his own attack and forcing him to back up and reset.

Burley's former sparring partner "Blackie" Nelson thought that a young Roy Jones reminded him of a prime Charley Burley.

Great clip! What came immediately to mind for me is that Burley's great style, at least as as demonstrated in this fight, was used in a very similar fashion decades later by Ray Leonard -- especially in Ray's fights vs Duran 2, and vs Marvin? Specifically, mastery of distance/range, lateral movement and angles, use of the jab from long range, and counter-rights? Agree, or am I off base on this?

Charley Burley was never stopped in any fight and was only ever knocked down once - in over 100 pro fights.

Archie Moore referred to Charlie as the toughest guy he ever fought. I was always curious about that statement as at the time I had never heard of or seen Charlie. Thanks for the post.

Uppercut to the body is NEVER used today. Burley makes it look easy, when it is not. All time great.

Burley looks like a very fast skillfull defensive boxer, something about his style reminds me of Roy Jones Jr. I think Robinson was slightly better but that Burley would have given anyone a run for their money and would have been champion of the world if given the chance

my opinon is like the guy ricochetshotz says,burley was a bit before srr time.and if there was a small window of opportunity sugar ray saw it to fight an lesser oponent for more money,I cant blame him I do the same..both fighters are true hall of fame boxers.

People forget that Robinson was also a feared and avoided opponent, he didnt even geta title shot until he was 73-1 and had beaten all the lightweight, welterweight and middleweight fighters, contenders, champions and HALL OF FAMERS was SRR was on his way up to chase the middleweight crown, Burley was descending the ladder and dropped from the rankings, when Ray won the title, Burley wasnt even ranked and shortly after he retired. Burley was avoided, but not directly by SRR, simple as that

I can see why this man never got a title shot.

The thing with boxing is, you need to punch to score a point. Charley is the definition of perfect boxing defense. But, if he fought Ray Robinson in his prime, Charley would loose. Ray Robinson was the perfect offensive fighter. If these two fought, the fight might go to distance with Ray winning by UD. Or, if Ray can catch him( that's if Charlie makes a mistake) then Ray would finish him!

Is Burley the black trunk please?

@1SugarRayRobinson1 he didnt fight him because there wasnt enough money in the fight, kind of like sugar ray not fighting aaron pryor

Charley Burley & Willie Pep, ahead of there time, sweet science skills.

@truthseeker215 ....That was an Excellent book!

I...guess. You see what you see. I see what i see. I see a similarity in Armstrong and Frazier no doubt. But i see absolutely no comparison in style in Burley and Jones Jr.. Not on offense or defense. Another thing people seem to judge Burley's style on this lone footage of him. The man could do it ALL. He simply chose this strategy for Smith. Burley was a freak of nature and of mind. He could do whatever he wanted. Jones defense has always been a joke. He never had it,only his reflexes.

Ray Robinson is often chided for not boxing Burley. Robinson shined against guys who attempted to tear his head off. Also, Robinson knew that the paying public craved excitement and he needed KOs. A bout would have been a chess match that would have bored audiences to death. There was no way to sell this bout which had nothing to do with race but styles.

This video shows that the guy was a slickster. No doubt about it but he is not committing to inflicting a lot of damage here. A full assessment would need more video. In the meantime, we can look at his record which is very good but certainly not unblemished. I could see a hard nosed pressure fighter giving him trouble. A lot of people are saying that Robinson avoided him. The fight didn't happen but that could be because of money, syndicates and/or other reasons. Burley seems to have been an honest guy and that could keep one out of a 1940s title shot no matter what your skin colour. I don't see why RR would be afraid of him. RR routinely fought middleweights, who did at times give him real trouble. (e.g. LaMotta knocked him down and beat him and arguably should have been given a second decision and Abrams who Robinson edged in a VERY disputed decision and a tough fight. Abrams had earlier fought a draw with Burley in Burley's home town.) It is also been said that Robinson avoided quality black fighters. If that is the case, how is it that he fought Gavilan twice including a title shot? My conclusion is that people are almost deifying someone that we cannot make a full assessment of. He was very good in an era of many good fighters and it is a shame he didn't get a title shot. We can say that about a lot of guys.

just by watching this fight..Charley is very good defensive fighter with excellent head movement

CB was very quick with that back hop.

it had more to do with their skills then their color, Robinson was champ a bit after this, he, like floyd and leonard, made many requierments to make a fight

@TheGreatA Good observation. Roy was a great, but it's a popular thing to hate him. fuck what any Roy hater has to say. When I watch Burley he actually reminds me of a young James Toney or Mayweather.

@expressivechild Actually, that would be Sam Langford.

Burley un fenomeno

You made this comment a long time ago but I thought it was funny. And a quick note, I think the proper phrase is "Sam Hill." I remember my dad saying it.

Ray would have beat burley if they met. Burley was an oldman. Ray was near the peak of his powers

@itsabird its easy to see why eh? and how. this guy shows the future of boxing in this clip... the sweet 'science' we know today. and this was in the 1940s LOL. 70 years ago. truly one of if not the first master of the sport. its no wonder sugar ray robinson said he was THE best. barely anyone was fighting this 'smart' back then.

charley burley was great

@swiffstep eddie futch said the same thing, best all around fighter he ever saw in his 80 years of experience.

He was fighting between the 2 at the time but he did not officially move up to middleweight until 1950. In that time you could fight people in other weight classes with out moving up. Ray did it often against Lamotta, the first time it was 160 to 144. That doesn't mean that the welter weight champ should have to go out and fight every middle weight out there. I don't blame him for that. Now it would be a problem if Ray was the MW champ and still didn't fight CB but CB had retired by then.

U KNOW YOUR BOXING!

I do know burley did say he would not have risk the title if he was champ against sugar, it was in response to a question to why ray never gave him a shot. My opinion is that it was a statement of respect to sugar ray, that was made in an interview in the late70s. robinson also made similar comments of burley. Burley was a few years before ray.As to Mrifari I never recall SSR fighting Billy Conn if he did someone tell me when & result.SSR fought Joey maxim and came up short.

And Joe Frazier was no Henry Armstrong, doesn't mean there aren't similarities stylistically. Look at the unorthodox left uppercut that Burley throws, the same punch has been used by Roy Jones in many of his fights.

@ celticbanner18, sugar ray and burley where at the same weight, read the black murderes row. they fought on the same card once burley was trying to get a fight with sugar ray. Burley was only really a blown up welter cause he couldnt get any fights. He tried get Henry Armstrong in the ring, but armstrong said he was giving welter up but he never did. He tried to fight billy conn who fought louis at heavyweight but he never wanted a fight with burley, he was too risky for better ranked fighters

Somebody help me out! Is my volume off???

Good, but keep trying to get better because i assure you your opponents will [if you do things right]. Also, it may seem easy to talk crap about a legend but like people say in my island ''no es lo mismo llamar al diablo que verlo llegar''

I didn't. From what I see it's still there.

Burley was a great boxer - but he was dull, That's why fighters like Burley were avoided - given there's a good chance they'd beat you and you wouldn't get a good pay-day. Boxing really is show business more than a sport. Nobody wanted to see consummate ring generalship - especially back in the day. And especially when said ring general was a black guy.

I READ ABOUT THIS GUY YEARS AGO. HE WAS ONE OF TEN FIGHTERS IN A RING MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON OLD GREAT FIGHTERS THAT COULD HAVE BEAT ROY JONES. THIS WAS WHEN ROY WAS UNBEATABLE IN HIS PRIME. THEY SAY THAT ROBINSON DUCKED HIM AND ARCHIE MOORE CLAIMED THAT HE WAS THE TOUGHEST MAN HE HAD EVER FOUGHT. HE WAS AN UNCROWNED CHAMPION. KINDA LOOK LIKE ROY JONES. UNORTHIDOX STYLE BUT EFFECTIVE. STILL MADE IT TO THE HALL OF FAME OF BOXING. WHY DIDNT RAY ROBINSON FIGHT HIM? WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT FIGHT.

Personally I don't think the likes of Lloyd Marshall, Holman Williams, Jimmy Bivins and Eddie Booker should be rated below him. I also think that Robinson would have beaten him, "duck" or not, but it would have been a tough fight. I guess we will never know.

I don't think he's necessarily overrated, it's just that the other members of the so-called "Murderer's Row" seem to be forgotten.

you make a good point but just cause a naturally bigger and highly skilled Ezzard beat him doesn't mean he's easily beatable...

@Mowglieboy69: Gosh I made a mistake man! I meant Nasim Hamed!! Now who in the hell is Sam Hell???

Burley fights in style of Tommy Loughran.

@rjjfan That's your opinion.....One thing is definitely clear however and that is this - SRR didn't have the 'stones' to take on Charley Burley for ANY amount of money and preferred to fight easy opponents for next to nothing rather than risk his reputation, health and title(s) by fighting Burley! When SRR found out his manager accepted the terms for a fight with Burley, SRR said to his manager 'I thought you were supposed to be my friend' and refused to honour the agreement.

If you mix Floyd Mayweather jr and Roy Jones jr together, you'll get Charley Burley.

Wow...Eddie Futch was right....He does fight like Roy Jones Jr.

I read s r Robinson said to his trainer at ring side of one of burleys fights "I'm to pretty to fight burley" suppose he was a bit wary of burleys style

Plus Smith looks a lot bigger than him. Burley is an excellent defensive fighter who is always ready to counter.

Robinson Had a fight with a member of murderers row Sugaree knocked him out in the third round can’t remember his name well it’s in Dave Anderson’s book called sugar Ray

Based on what exactly? Not disagreeing on the whole, but are you basing that on this footage or how highly he's regarded in comparison to other Murderer's Row members like the ones TheGreatA mentioned? I'd agree on the second point, as I don't think he was actually better than any of them, but if you're basing that statement on this footage, I have to disagree. Not only is there very little footage to judge him on, but I personally think, given the proper analysis, he looks excellent here.

his styles lke mine.

@swiffstep That is not true, he said he did not want to risk such a tough fight because he had nothing to gain. There was no incentive.He never called him the best.

The original RJJ

Andre ward fights like this guy.

Throws like srr but moves more defensive.

Ya'll say he remind ya'll of Roy Jones but to me he fights more like Nasim Muhammad. Watch how it's extremely hard to hit him because of his riding the punch and being extremely elusive. Roy Jones is waaay faster than Burley but Roy's defense is no where near Burley's. However when you're as fast as roy and as devestating a puncher, you could keep the other fighter on the defensive. I would have to say that Burley is a defensive wizard!

the row were a bit before his time. the only member of the row he could have fought was burley, and you need to check the dates, because by the time ray became a middleweight, burley wasnt even ranked, and by the time ray won the middleweight title of lamotta (who was ALWAYS ranked higher than burley)...burley had been retired for years !!! its not like they were both in same division in their primes for years (pac & floyd) and then still fight never happened cos that would look suspect

Burley had Smith scared to death.

Maybe so, but SRR fought many of the same guys repeatedly and never gave a shot to a fellow black fighter like Charley Burley, who could have really appreciated the big purse. As for the weight difference - SRR fought light-heavyweight Billy Conn, so I don't see why fighting Burley would have been a problem. I'm not disputing the fact that SRR was a great fighter, but history will only tell half the story, because there were many talented pros that never got a shot at the big time, ie. C.Burley

Imo, he would have given Ray Robinson some trouble but he wouldn't have beat him.

@jesusneverexisted300 It's "Naseem". Jesus, guy.

only because no one studies anymore everyone just thinks they know shit about boxing, and one thing i can tell you is if you are the bigger fighter strenth dont mean nothing if your not as condiontioned as the smaller opponent, i learned this the hard way trying to be like tyson and fighting way too fast only to gas out and get tagged to the body later!

And by the way, one quote that DOES exist is burley stating ray was the greatest of all time and he wouldn't have risked his only title shot on someone like ray !! Again, do your research and you'll see that quote is real !

how ironic is it that it was actually burley who said ray was the greatest and he wouldnt have risked his one and only title shot in a fight against ray robinson and that is a FACT

Serpentine upper body movement, quick feet; no wonder Sugar Ray's manager kept him away from dude.m

easily beatable in regards to a fight wit ray robinson, if they fought a trilogy at the time they were expected to fight i would anticipate ray winning atleast 2 out of 3 simple. this whole ray ducked burley thing is a myth, do the research, check the dates & you'll see there was no "ducking" or fear by ray & still to this day NOBODY can find this so called quote where ray said he was "too pretty" to fight burley, yet people reference it like its fact, but burley called ray the greatest...fact !

I see y he was avoided

Burley was fighting at middleweight when Robinson was a welter. By the time Robinson started looking to the middleweight division, Burley was at the end of his career. It doesn't look to me that Robinson ducked burley- why would he? He never ducked anyone else.. That is not to disrespect Burley- It is just that he and Sugar Ray never were logical opponents. Robinson never fought Archie Moore either, for example. The weights were just wrong.

A talented fighter with not enough credibility to bring the money in at the time... Champions all over the years have ducked this kind of fighter it doesn't make him the most feared fighter of all time. His timing isn't great, average jab not the best combination puncher either,hands low, good stance tho and good head movement and an excellent ring general thts the most I can say 4 him, he's no robinson.

damn wow i wish boxing stayed at this level. i hear trainers say so many times today that the young guys dont want to learn. i dont mean this as an insult to the older trainers and old school guys but i feel more like they dont wanna teach. the old trainers were so easy to find and listen to. i would just watch a guy like virlgil hunter train and pick his brain for hours

sugar ray robinson said that charley burley was THE best

burley and mayweather are similar, burley woulda kicked sugar rays ass brah

Burley was great no doubt fought guys heavier than him all the time He had to often he was outweighed by 10lbs or more. rumor has it he knocked out Jersey joe walcot sparring SRR didnt avoid him but he didnt pursue a fight with CB either!! burley was never KOd in 90+ fights ATG Ezzard beat him twice thats true seemed to have his number. read Burleys book guys 500 pages of amazing history!! The Black murderers Row were about 7 guys nobody wanted to fight cause they where that good!!

actually?

Ray Arcel and Sugar Ray had a conversation about Ray giving Burley a fight and Ray responded by saying, " Ray I thought you was my friend", Sugar Ray knew that Burley would beat him

No reason to rank Booker ahead of Burley. Booker did less well against a slightly inferior class of men. Guys like Marshall, Bivins and Charles were better, but also bigger.

BURLEY SHOULD BE CONSIDERED THE BEST PROFESSIONAL WITH A WEAK TYPE OF NERVOUS SYSTEM OF ALL TIME. HIS TEMPO(DECISIONS PER SECOND), HIS REACTION AND HIS FITNESS PUT HIM WELL ABOVE THE FIGHTERS OF THE MODERN GENERATION, WHICH ARE OVERPUMPED WITH STEROIDS AND STAY ALMOST STATIC DURING THE FIGHT.HE WAS A COLOURED WELTERWEIGHT AND MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION AND DEFEATED SUCH BOXERS AS HOLMAN WILLIAMS AND ARCHIE MOORE(MOORE WAS DOWN 4 TIMES).HE FOUGHT FUTURE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD EZZARD CHARLES, LOOSING HIM ON POINTS TWICE, WHILST RAY ROBINSON FOUGHT SMALL ITALIAN-SPEAKING BOXERS,AVOIDING BURLEY, AS GOOD AS MARCEL SERDAN AND JAKE LA MOTTA. OAKLAND BILLY SMITH, WHO IS OUTCLASSED BY BURLEY IN THIS FIGHT, ONCE STOPPED FUTURE LHW WORLD CHAMPION HAROLD JOHNSON,A BRILLIANT PUNCHER HIMSELF

@Mowglieboy69: Whatever.

Charley fought killers. Have you fought some1 like Charles who killed a man in the ring? Have you fought multi-division universal champions like Archie? Whenever you step your game up fight better competition, you will get hit more, your ''heavy hands'' wont seem so heavy & hopefully you will learn when to hug & hold [before it's too late]. Every1 has to learn to hug & hold, just Ask Floyd Mayweather.

He fought Ezzard Charles 2 times when Ezzard was killing fighters in the ring. He beat guys that beat tony zale & billy conn, he beat heavywights, he beat archie moore, beat zivic 2 outa 3 he was robbed in the one with zivic.(zivic bought his contract so not to fight him again).KO billy smith in the locker room after this fight becaues billy was not convince.Burley vs Robinson is a tossup.Who would u fight lamota & gavilan or ezzard & moore.SRR was arogant & great,Burley was the truth & humbel.

You show me that quote, it does not exist. I'm talking about facts, the only one of the row that robinson could have actually fought was burley and when robinson was a full middleweight, Burley wasn't even ranked any more, that's a FACT. Lamotta was always ranked higher than burley and ray fought and beat him even as a welter. Burley was a great fighter but its bullshit and ignorance to say robinson was scared or ducked him !! Do ur research. Check dates and context and u will see the same !

sugar wanted no part of charley burley

Only to get today's nitwits interested in his old BOSS. I stand by my statement.

Booker's career was cut short at 26 years of age due to eye trouble which is why I wouldn't rate him above Burley. But he beat men like Archie Moore, Holman Williams and Lloyd Marshall and seemed to be coming to his own at the time he was forced to retire.

Jones couldn't make a good pimple on Charley's old ass, let alone in his prime.

@jesusneverexisted300 Who in the Sam Hell is Nasim Muhammad?

Dude get your facts straight, srr NEVER FOUGHT billy conn, and also there was only a very small window of oppurtunity for them to fight, when ray robinson became a 160lb fighter, burley wasn't even ranked any more, and when robinson won the middleweight title, burley had been retired for years. Don't believe the bullshit, burley was very beatable, if ezzard charles and holman williams beat him numerous times u think ray all of a sudden couldn't? Come on, ray was the goat simple as

Floyd and Jones plagiarized from this dude

Charlie Burley was overrated there’s not much film on him because he’s a boring boxer hey must’ve Fought A bunch of stiffs not much of a punch no combination punching every time he throws a jab he drops his right hand sugar Ray Robinson what does hit him so many combinations the fight would not have lasted long they could not make the fight between those two because it wouldn’t draw the crowd

Nothing at all similar. Get a clue.

SRR ducked Charley Burley every chance he could by raising his demands for a larger purse each time a challenge from Burley's mgmt came forward. SRR turned down $10k, then $20k, even when his manager accepted an offer for $25k, but SRR refused that too and then demanded $50k....when a group of investors offered $60k cash, SRR turned that down too! Burley never got a title shot because he was an honest man and would not 'take a dive' - EVER!

Skinny, awkward and unorthodox guy, he reminds me of Wilder.

there is talk that Burley was told to take it easy on Ezzard Charles to carry the fight and Burley was in the tank, Ezzard Charles was a mob connected fighter - lots of corruption in the sport