JOHNNY BRATTON TYPICAL 50S WELTERWEIGHT

a few years ago i read a well written article about the great welter divison of today-at that time-compared favorably to the great welter divison of the 50s..i agreeded no doubt the top ten of a few years ago indeed was worthy of that comparrison..but thats where it ended..after the top ten a void.in the 50s it went almost 30 deep in talent..one of the guys i liked was jonny bratton..a tyical 50s welter..he held briefly the title and in every fight even at the end of his 11 year career he gave it is all.
see back then if you had abilty or were a top prospect you HAD to fight tough guys.you could not pad a record cause that divison was 30 deep..bratton ended with a 60-24-3 record but who beat him..i know every one of thses fighters and they were dam good..marble may surely know of them also but seeing them live was special..bratton lost to.del flanagan rocky castelanni twice beau jack gaviln twice holly mims sammy angott ralph tiger jones jonny saxton ike williams twice and gene burton...those 24 losses dont look to bad now..who did he beat.joe brown willie joyce twice gene harrison bobby dykes fusari del flanagan dauthurelle langlois miceli and a draw with gaviln plus a half dozen other formitable foes..
johnny was one of the 30 deep..if you were a propect with talent then welcome to the club..you better learn your craft because your going to get tossed to the wolves soon..there were another dozen guys just below the top 30 that lol was your test market..thats where you developed...
litterly if a contender was 42-3 that record was earned not padded.....soo when you hear that a few years ago the welter divison compared to the 50s think again..yes in the top 8 or so..beyound that well....well since johnny was a typical welter back then the typical weter of today is a far different breed..

Agreed..back then you had one champ & a long list of contenders behind him fighting it out for that number one spot so he could get a title shot. Nowadays we have so many belts, boxing looks like the men's clothing section at JC Penney.

flapanther2001 wrote:Agreed..back then you had one champ & a long list of contenders behind him fighting it out for that number one spot so he could get a title shot. Nowadays we have so many belts, boxing looks like the men's clothing section at JC Penney.

...mens dept at jc penny..great comparison..and true.

i agree with you. i think thats the difference really with now and then. there will always be really good fighters that are very special, but the depth of the weight classes is really the true difference.