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During the immediate post-World War Two period and throughout a good part of the 1950s, air travel was not as common as today. As a result, intra-state boxing attracted a considerable degree of attention.

State titles, particularly on the West Coast, were highly prized and often produced intense rivalries between fighters. Such was the case with Esau Ferdinand and Charley "The Chiller" Green during the mid-1950s.

Ferdinand and Green met a total of six times, fighting for both the California light heavyweight and middleweight crowns. Although both were tough sluggers, they differed in style. Nevertheless, they were evenly matched, each walking away with three wins.

Although neither were contenders for a world title, you could usually find them among the top twenty or so of their respective divisions. In essence they functioned as divisional "gatekeepers"---very tough gatekeepers!

BoxRec Ferdinand as a light heavy and Green as a middleweight. In reality, both fighters fought at an "in-between" weight, so I rated them as super middleweights to be a bit more realistic. If you fight them up or down in weight class, you might want to allow an adjustment for weight differences.

Esau Ferdinand: A slugger who won by wearing you down rather than knocking you out. In forty-eight wins, he only stopped eleven opponents. His up-close, in-your-face style limited a boxer's mobility and reduced a slugger's punching room.

Although a young Floyd Patterson picked up a unanimous decision in their first meeting, Ferdiand gave the future heavyweight champion some problems as indicated from this account that appeared in Sports Illustrated:

"Esau Ferdinand was different. He walked out in the first round and hit me in the eye with a left hook. I couldn't see for a minute, so I went close to him. I didn't want him to know. But I couldn't do anything with him. He bullied me in the clinches. Kept on bullying me in the clinches all through the fight. He'd get me close and hit me and say nasty things to me. I was a boxer up until then. I couldn't fight inside. He'd say, 'Why don't you punch me, why don't you punch me?' I got the decision, but the next morning I went to the gym and I started trying to learn to fight inside—get my feet on the floor and slug."
Patterson stopped Esau in the final round of their second meeting which was a rare finish for Ferdinand. He was only stopped twice in his seventy-four bout career as a professional. Green had stopped him several years earlier in a contest for the California state middleweight title. So Esau's punch might have been somewhat weak, his chin was very strong!
Besides his fights with Patterson and his series with Green he was in the ring with the major West Coast boxers in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, and he wore the state championship crown in both divisions.
In a career that spanned from 1948 to 1959, Ferdinand compiled a record of 49-17-2.

Charley "The Chiller" Green: Green's career lasted a little more than seven years (1950-1956). Yet he was quite active and ended with a record of 38-21-3. His nickname. the Chiller, was given in recognition of his punching power. Of his thirty-eight wins, twenty-eight ended early.
Born in Chicago but settled in San Francisco, all of his matches were fought in California. While most of his contests were against fellow Golden Staters, he did face some outsiders who were well-known in the boxing world. He took a unanimous decision from Milo Savage and lost on the scorecards to both Holly Mims and Spider Webb.
In addition to a potent punch, the Chiller had a pretty hard jaw. He was only stopped three times, and those came at the very early stages of his career.
Green held the state middleweight title twice and dropped a twelve round split decision to arch-rival Ferdinand for the California light heavy crown.