Les Darcy vs Harry Greb

Examples include. ie are not limited to.


Newspaper clips are a great source of information, usually the best. But they are not infallible. I can show you contemporary sources for John Ls fight with Peter Jackson. It never happened. You cant find a contemporary source for Jeffries v Griffin. It did almost certainly did happen. there are dozens of examples like this, in fact more. the reality is that fighters were always usually the best of friends and always used the media to suit their own agenda. Media always had been paid and manipulated. you have to be cautious with contemporary reports as much as with old yarns and tails which are often embellished.

With this particular private fighte or sparring session, whichever it was you need to consider the following:
1. Both fighters were managed by Hugh Browne, and were his two main draw fighters for his promotions at madison square garden.
2. The fight was in private behind closed doors put on for Darcy to impress the big wigs of the sport since darcy wasnt allowed to fight and their were sceptics.
3. A big win for Darcy needed to be suppresed by Browne and Fulton because it would have meant that he lost his no 1 contendership and a proposed mega money pay day (which ultimately didnt work out anyway).
4. A win would have done little for Darcy. He was not angling for the Heavy title yet. All it would have done is shortened his odds, which would presumably wouldnt have helped him find backers or helped the money situation.
5. In short, why would Browne want the story leaked and also why would any self respecting journalist write a story about it. they were invited to a private session, in confidence. If they wrote against the wishes of the promoter in those circumstances, they can say goodbye to any future scoops from the man who ran madision square garden.

 

The sum of Les Darcy's legacy seems to be a sparring session with a HW which may or may not have happened and which is pretty much irrelevant anyway :think

 

first thing i thought when i saw this thread. not to be melodramatic, but you had to be REALLY careful with what you said at that time :bbb:hand

 

can somebody post what they consider primary sources? i've found very little in newspapers except mentions of it but not from anyone that was there. (why am i doing this...after the **** show last year i should just keep my mouth shut)

 

Whether or not a sparring session had ever taken place is not the main area of contention. It is whether or not Darcy stretched Fulton.

 

Flattening someone in sparring means nothing in reality. How many stories have we all heard, of the great (insert name) being KO'd in sparring or getting owned in the gym. It's all highly inconsequential. So Darcy may have sparred a big HW and possibly even gotten the better of him. Or laid him out cold. But so what?

For decades the story of a 14 year old Tony Ayala making a fool of Pipino Cuevas was put forth as fact yet I think it's been proven that at the time of the alleged spar Cuevas was nowhere near where it was supposed to have happened

 

I'd have thought his wins over McGoorty, Clabby, Chip,Smith, Crouse and Dave Smith and winning national titles from middleweight to heavyweight despite weighing no more than 165 pounds at his heaviest and all before turning 21 is a much more lasting legacy than the Fulton sparring session.

This sparring session which was once a minor aside to the Darcy story seems to have taken on a life of its own in recent years which is nonsense. Darcy had already established his bonafides as a fighter many times over and a sparring session with Fred Fulton should neither add to or detract from this one little bit.

 

This...The Chip beat down is most impressive. Darcy was the real deal...

 

It's a pity Darcy didn't have a stack of fights in the US because one of the criticisms levelled ahgainst him was the fact that fighting at home meant he had numerous advantages

 

I already mentioned historiography, it's a complex science that includes source study as one of its courses. A source being primary by definition doesn't mean it's always true, it is carefully/critically evaluated from all sides to assess its credibility.

In this case we haven't got a primary source in the first place.

Next-day or several days after reports? 'Contemporary' is too loose a word here.

American media was still neutral to good toward Darcy at the time he sparred with Fullton. At least somebody would have mentioned it if Darcy indeed had done such things to him. After all they did report on their being in the same training camp and their sparring, ie they weren't completely secret/behind the door affairs, where nobody but the fighters and their managers were allowed.

What fight? I only have heard a story about sparring.

Typical conspiracy theory. The facts are you can find a lot of stories where leading contenders were reported to have looked bad in fights or sparrings, stories leaked out immediately/quickly. In this case nothing was heard until considerable time after their sparrings had taken place.

If the story were true, it would have helped Darcy's reputation a lot. He was gradually tarnishing it (on his own) and people started doubting whether he was as good as they were told by Australian media or his record.

The situation with Browne and the MSG has already been talked about in prior thread. Promoters and boxers' managers are different people. Besides, it's not as big a deal as you are making it out to be. MSG at the time wasn't the same MSG had had been before or had become later. A not particularly popular venue out of many within New York city, it only held shows very irregularly.

 

Luf,You're the same piece of dirt from the Marciano/Klitschko thread. If you were to make an ACCUSATION like that you better have proof or I would be suing for slander/defamation.

Obviously a ****** like you does not know the difference.


The end of the day,Darcy was a great fighter.

 

op

 

careful, just WATCHING the thread unfold last time got some posters banned