Jim Corbett/Gene Tunney Sparring Story

[mcvey]

Originally Posted by janitor

It was not just Johnson who said it other sources have coroborated it.

It seems that Johnson did embaras Firpo in sparring.

Well ,I'm glad it was you who said it and not me other wise a certain poster would be on my case!
ps ,Did you know that a young Harry Wills was briefly a sparring partner for Johnson?
Johnson said he had to let Wills go because he wasnt up to it.
Which may have meant he was still very green ,or that Johnson in later years was still unwilling to give credit to another Black fighter, he was allways disparaging of Wills.
The only black fighter Ive seen him praise was Mcvey,and I think that was genuine, becuase he paid ,all the expenses for Sam's funeral.

[janitor]

[quote]

Originally Posted by mcvey

ps ,Did you know that a young Harry Wills was briefly a sparring partner for Johnson?
Johnson said he had to let Wills go because he wasnt up to it.
Which may have meant he was still very green ,or that Johnson in later years was still unwilling to give credit to another Black fighter, he was allways disparaging of Wills.

I know a bit about it.

From what I gather Johnson Wills was all but signed after Johnson got out of prison but the state athletic comision refused to sanction it due to Johnsons criminal record.

This fight was Johnsons one chance at getting back into the top league and it was taken away from him.

He might have been bitter about that.

The only black fighter Ive seen him praise was Mcvey,and I think that was genuine, becuase he paid ,all the expenses for Sam's funeral.

Johnson was fond of McVea and vice versa. They were often photographed together in evening dress. After Willard beat Johnson McVea offered to fight him for nothing.

Johnson praised Langford but only to selected audiences.

He spoke verry highly of Barbados Joe Walcott and they were close friends. When Johnson was a hobo Walcott took him on as a sparring partner and treated him well.

[cross_trainer]

Originally Posted by Seamus

Jim Corbett got muthafuckin skilz...

Holy shit. That roll of the fists into a jab you can see coming from another zipcode but those feints, the uppercut and right to the jaw are the shit. Makes me ponder what would become of a Corbett-Jack Johnson match-up.

Pardon the thread necromancy, but I thought this might be useful information. The "roll of the fists into the jab that you can see coming from another zipcode" is probably the consequence of the way boxers in Corbett's day held their guard. Rather than the fairly stationary guard you see today, they cycled their hands forward and backward (though not passing each other, according to most of the manuals), so the "pull back" part of the movement would just be a natural partof the hand cycling.

Sullivan's doing it here:

[OLD FOGEY]

Originally Posted by spittle8

Interesting, thanks for sharing. It doesn't look unsophisticated, just different. Any relation between Oriental striking arts and old boxing are worth noting.

I used to live in San Francisco and the Olympic Boxing Club in which Corbett trained is only two or three blocks from Chinatown. Interesting.