Where Do You Rank Joe Gans?

I'm sure that older fighters had many fights that were not recorded by newspapers of the day, but I fear that those would be considered no more than amateur bouts or street fights today instead of a meeting of two professionals. Guillermo Rigondeaux claims a record of nearly 400 amateur victories with only 12 losses but he's only had 11 pro fights. The kind of competition that the old time boxers would face ranges from the good to the downright pitiful.

John L. Sullivan fought hundreds of "exhibitions" but is credited with 42 professional fights. Most of his "exhibitions" consisted of him beating up drunks at your local bar, and riding a train around the country beating up farmers rather than actual contests with other ranked heavyweights. Even in Jack Dempsey's time, who the hell is Tony Drake? He's just some big cowboy who'd been boxing for two months and he never boxed again. Dempsey broke his jaw in 11 seconds. Dempsey has a gang of fights just like this on his record, which was still acceptable in 1919. These aren't ranked contenders. They should really be rated as nothing beyond sparring partners.

 

The illegality is partly my point. How many professional level athletes can an illegal sport support and how many legitimate match ups are they likely to have when their livelihood is prohibited? Everything is set up in the late nineteenth century to discourage people from boxing, so how deep could the money or the talent pool be?

 

I'm pretty sure, there are hundreds of bouts that were held in Philadelphia and New York every year during late 1890s and early 1900s, which are not in boxrec database. I was too lazy to be entering them when I was an editor, but I saw a lot of preliminary bouts that were not listed at boxrec, in Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Record, and several New York newspapers. Local newspaper often reported not the full card, but only several bouts, the other newspaper could list the ones that were not mentioned in the first paper. That was common thing, we'd need to go through several local papers instead of one or two, to get the full card. Gans in particular, there were bouts held at Baltimore on an almost daily basis, sometimes at several venues on the same day, which were not in the boxrec. I have done the best I could to list all I found in Baltimore Sun during 1894 to 1896 if I remember, but after that, I only edited or entered Gans' bouts, not having the time to list everything else.

 

Nice video. For a second, I thought someone had colorized one of the early fight films, but there wasn't enough wrestling.

I do not doubt that there are fights missing from important fighters records. What I am suggesting is that those missing fights are not important to judging their abilities at the highest level of competition. Whenever a John L. Sullivan fought a James J. Corbett we are likely to have a record of the fight.

 

Dealing drugs is illegal in the united states, yet that does not stop it from being.a lucrative and profitable industry. Prostitution is illegal, yet rampant, and tolerated like boxing was. Despite its illegality there are tons of hookers and back then there were tons of boxers; not every madame is the everleigh sisters and not every boxer was Joe Gans which does not man there weren't tons of both.

 

While there is indeed money to be made selling illegal drugs and sex, I'm not convinced that boxing has ever been as popular as the former commodities. Nor are they known for attracting the best and the brightest. Illiterate, unprincipled thugs are more likely to thrive in that climate like a Capone or a Bugsy Siegel rather than a Rockefeller, a Ford, a Carnegie, a Gates, a Vanderbilt, an Astor, or a Steve Jobs who flourishes in legitimate business.

 

I'll take Capone over Rockefeller to run an illegitimate business, as would David Halberstam. And while boxing might not have ever been as pervasive as prostitution, you certainly make money, and the participants don't exactly overlap.

 

Charlie lost in the most embarrasing way to one of the worst glass chinned guy ever.

 

Edit:
Okay, what the living, bleeding, muppetfunk is pinterest and why are there "pin it" buttons next to three of the comments on this page?

 

It's not humanly possibly to be ten times better than Joe Gans. But it is possible for the depth of competition to be ten times as large, and there is a statistical likelihood that whoever sits atop the pack of that ten times larger talent pool (all other things being equal) is a greater fighter. This does not mean that every fighter in a busy time would be better than the best fighter of a less busy time. Philip Holiday held a piece of a discarded title, but the depth of the division at lightweight was impressive in the nineties. We saw Julio Cesar Chavez, Pernell Whitaker, Oscar De La Hoya, and Shane Mosley move through it during that time.

Billy Holiday starts boxing in 91' becomes champ of the IBF (when De La Hoya vacates it) in 95' and loses it to Shane Mosley in 97. In those years there were

1991 12428
1992 13017
1993 14162
1994 13621
1995 14144
1996 14170
1997 14694

fights; so between four and five times as many as during Gans era. And what do you know, we have four very good fighters during that time, probably all as good as Gans. Of course, this is an average estimate, and does not account for outliers. You could get the greatest fighter in the weakest time. It's just less likely. And we are using blunt tools in estimating here, since the numbers are spread over multiple divisions, and not all divisions rise or fall as one.

 

I'll get crap for this, but...

I say he's the greatest lightweight in history, and the third greatest fighter P4P in history, behind only Robinson and Armstrong.

 

That was a classic. Up there with Leonard-Hearns I in my book.