That was my response when I was pulling the rankings posted above from
The Ring. How did Sylvester Perkins wind up at number six in the world? I did some research, and I still don't have an answer!
Well here it goes. The guy was pretty much a "fighting fool". His career ran from 1947 to 1954 with a total of fifty-three fights. But thirty of those bouts were during the first twenty months of his pro career (1947-1948)
On paper, he didn't look too bad, putting together a record of 24-5-1 and stopping eleven opponents. He did a lot prelims in Chicago, but by the middle of 1948 he was pretty much fighting ten rounders.
He beat some of the familiar names of the day like Tommy Yarosz, Pat McCafferty, and Ossie Harris. Still none of this should have placed him so high. Yet as 1948 drew to a close,
The Ring ranked him at the sixth spot!
Things went downhill quickly for Sylvester in 1949. He dropped a ten round nod to Bert Lytell, lost ro Yarosz in a rematch, and was stopped by Artie Towne. Later that year he found himself facing Bob Satterfield who decked him four times in a match that was halted in the second.
From what I could find on him, he had some skills as a boxer, and despite the slaughter at the hands of Satterfield, he had the ability to hang in there--he was only stopped six times and three of those came in his final four fights.
He really didn't have much in terms of power. Of eleven of the twelve early round victories took place against unheralded stiffs during those hectic first two years of his pro career.
After 1948, he slowed the pace a little, and "only" fought twenty-three fights until he hung up the gloves in 1954. After his intial two year "whirlwind" he settled in to a 13-9-1 record. You get the strong impression that he was pretty much used up in his latter years. He stopped getting the ten rounders and finished up fighting six and eight round undercard matches.
All that said, I felt that I needed to rate him and use him against Papp at some point. So here's a rating and a photo.