Mike Gibbons Appreciation Thread

Definitely not what I'm trying to do. Only to get to the bottom of it all :smoke

 

Thanks, Senya. Much appreciated.

Question though- you've seen the footage. Who did you think took it? Is it odd that all the sportswriters from Chicago (Packey's hometown) gave him the nod in this? Which reports relay most accurately what we see for ourselves on film, the NY papers or Chicago?

Not trying to steal any thunder from McFarland, btw. I admire the guy tons. Just want to get the record straight.

 

Just got this email from Klompton-

"Ive got the complete film of the fight and cant see how anyone picked mcfarland. He was defensively clever but gibbons made the fight and threw and landed far more."

I figured that Senya might have the entire fight as well and could give an opinion.

 

Good question. Probably O'Dowd. But I see him doing clever things in there in both fights. Been awhile since I've watched them though. Time to dig through my collection again

 

That's what I'm saying. There has been so much talk and controversy throughout the years among historians over who won this bout. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that it was a boring bout between two defensive masters.

 

Yeah, ol' Bat thought Jess Willard was the greatest HW ever. An odd sportswriter with an inflated "kill" record as a gunman.

 

I wired Jake Wegener. He should know if any Minnesota newsmen made the trip to NY.

In the meantime, it's always interesting hearing Klompton's thoughts, especially on this era, which he has put a great deal of study into:

"I think there are two factors that influenced people against Gibbons. 1. He was expected to win the fight, he was the bigger guy, he had been more active, etc. I think the fact that he didn't go out there and really assert his dominance hurt him.

The fact is that a couple of years earlier Gibbons had a highly publicized fight with Eddie McGoorty at Madison Square Garden. The fight was billed as being for the middleweight championship despite Gibbons barely being over the welterweight limit at the time. The fight was greatly anticipated and was sort of seen as a Trinidad-De La Hoya or Trinidad-Hopkins fight. Gibbons was the master boxer and McGoorty was the banger with a left hook from hell. Prior to the fight some of the press pissed Gibbons off by saying McGoorty was going to knock him out the first time he landed that left hook. So Gibbons went out there and really put on a stinker. He admitted he just wanted to prove that McGoorty couldn't hit him much less knock him out. The press was livid and the fight got really bad reviews. I think when Gibbons and McFarland turned in a somewhat tepid performance together Gibbons bore the brunt of the criticism with the McGoorty fight still on the press' mind.

Its pretty strange though because a lot of people thought it was a either a draw or a win for McFarland. A draw I can understand because in that day and age if a fight was unsatisfactory they often called it a draw regardless of whether one fighter or the other seemed to be ahead. But a win for McFarland I just cant see. John Ochs visited me last year and we sat and watched a ton of films. That was one of them and he, like I, was mystified that anyone thought McFarland won. To my way of thinking you would have to be generous to give him even a couple of rounds. I'm not saying Gibbons whipped his ass or anything but McFarland was just very, very inactive and extremely defensive. Gibbons was always pressing, always moving forward, and despite being weight from making weight he was the one throwing the punches and landing. He got criticized for going inside and clinching by the press but he was working in the clinches too so I don't really see that as a valid criticism.

I don't know. Its perplexing. Id be interested in knowing how popular McFarland was in New York. I don't know much about McFarland but those sportswriters in the Big Apple played favorites. They may have liked him better but Gibbons was relatively popular as well so its hard to say."