Originally Posted by professordp
As African-Americans began to dominate the division in the late 1950s and consolidated there preeminence by the late 1970s, there was a reemergence of the "Great White Hope". Jerry Quarry, Duane Bobick, and Gerry Cooney gave encouragement to those who sublimely were inclined the inject race into boxing.
Then, of course, were the faux "sluggers". Guys like Harley Breshears, Bowie Adams, and Terry Krueger (all if whom I've rated here who were essentially frauds, building high knockout rations beating up a lot of nobodies.
Yet, in my eyes, the greatest hoax was perpetuated by LaMar Clark.
Handled by Marv Jenson and a stable mate of middleweight champ Gene Fullmer, Clark, a Utah chicken farmer, ran off an impressive (on paper) string of forty-two consecutive knockouts from 1958 to 1960 without a loss. This brought him not only notoriety in the local Utah press but also garnered him some ink in The Ring and Boxing Illustrated.
LaMar was relatively small for a heavyweight, even by late 1950s standards. Only 5'10" and usually weighing in at the low to mid-180s, you to ultimately wonder where that power came from.
It was nothing more than a mirage.
The overwhelming majority of LaMar's "victims" had only one professional fight...their knockout loss to Clark. On several occasions he fought as many as five opponents in one night...kayoing all of them.
Guys like Kooey Garcia, Treach Phillips, Sain Thompson, and Ox Anderson laced up the mitts, picked up a paycheck, and were able to tell their grandkids that they once boxed professionally.
Alas, the clock struck Midnight, and Clark's carriage turned in to a pumpkin. He hooked up with transplanted Dominican Bartolo Soni, a fattened up light heavy who sported a record of 12-2-1 as a New York City prelim fighter. Clark led on all the judge's cards and even put Soni down in the eighth. But after that he had nothing left, an Bartolo kayoed LaMar in the next frame.
After a three month hiatus, Clark faced a less than peak conditioned Pete Rademacher. Looking for a workout, Rademacher floored LaMar twice in the first round and just with him for the next nine. In the tenth, Pete opened up, and the fight was stopped. Nat Fleischer of The Ring called the bout a "mismatch".
After a nine month layoff, Clark fought the unheralded Chuck Wilburn whom he knocked out in two. But the "magic" wasn't back for LaMar. He travelled to Louisville to take on Cassius Clay who was 5-0-0. Clark took a terrific beating for two rounds with Clay severely breaking LaMar's nose. This was Clark's last professional fight.
Here's a tape of the slaughter (in error, they display the "fourth" round as the final frame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1TBZXtFsAU
Forgive me for the wordy narrative, but I felt it necessary to challenge existing ratings of Clark by both the TBCB3 DB Team (Team) and the Day Council (DC). With all due respect, I feel that both fell prey the Clark's mythical punching power.
In the final analysis the Team and the DC are not that far apart. The DC makes Clark a little tougher. The Team gives LaMar a CF of 7/9 and HP of 8. The DC concurs with the CF, it raises his HP to 10.
Okay, what's the justification? Whom did he defeat possessing a CF of 7/9? More importantly, who were the "iron jaws" he kayoed to legitimize a HP of 8, let alone 10? Look at his record! There's simply nothing there to justify these high ratings.
Bartolo Soni declared that LaMar was the "hardest puncher" he ever faced. Looking at Soni's record he didn't face any premier sluggers. More telling is Rademacher's assessment after nearly ten round in the ring with Clark. When asked if Clark ever hurt him his response was "No". Clay/Ali was asked the same question and said he felt a "sting" once when LaMar punched him in the chest.
While there are other nuances, the major changes I made was to reduce Clark's CF to 5/6 and his HP to 5. I also raised his Endurance to 6.
I simmed all three of Clark's ratings against the Team's rating for Rademacher and Clay/Ali and found that mine was closest to reality.
In each bout with Clay/Ali I set both at Top Condition and used pre-prime for Clay/Ali with the career stage Beginning. For Rademacher, I gave Clark Top Conditon and Pete Undertrained.
With my ratings, Rademacher usually took Clark out in the later rounds while Clay/Ali stopped him most frequently between the first and third rounds. On occasion, Clark did kayo Pete and decked Clay/Ali for an eight count, but these were outliers.
Using the Team and DC ratings, LaMar had a better than even chance to kayo Rademacher. While Ali won, LaMar often put him on the canvas a couple of times. Moreover, Ali won he was beaten up by LaMar in the process
Chris posted a number of years ago that the Sub-Zero Template was inspired by the need to explain LaMar Clark.
Of course all this can just be dismissed as me being "anal". Then again, it does have something to do with ensuring that a game has some reasonable degree of accuracy. Some folks would be just as happy playing Downey's Main Event.
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