I've never did a all-time P4p list but Fitz would certainly be a contender for me. I think his light heavy win has merit as Fitz, O'Brien, Root, Gardner and McCoy were probably in the top ten heavyweights around that period and Carter, Choynski and Hart were active in that mix circa 1902-04.
Ive been moving so my access to internet is limited but let me jump in here on my phone as ive seen a couple of points that stick in my craw: first and foremost i wasnt piling in on anyone. i was agreeing senya in principle because his point is absolutely legitimate. period. BUT lets get real here anyone pretending to be historian and acting like a large quantity of wire reports somehow trumps actual ringside accounts is kidding themselves. also, i dont care if you have 10,000,000 non first hand sources it still doesnt trump first hand accounts and when ANY author relies so heavily on those secondary sources that are easily available online as opposed to first hand sources that "werent available" or "couldnt be acquired" well, i call bull****. thats plain lazy and a cheap, easy, substandard substitute for good old fashioned research. period. lets call it what it is. finally, and this is the only comment that peryains specifically to chris: if you have a fight in philly but use a source from wilkes barre saying "i didnt use the source from philly because its a copy of the source from wilkes barre" youve got it wrong and backwards. the philly source is the primary and the wilkes barre source is the wire report (copy) unless you have a byline line specifically illustrates otherwise. the problem with flooding your work with such wire reports is that even on those rare occasions where they differ you dont know if they are derived from the same primary source but were reworked or paraphrased giving the impression of multiple point if views when in fact your multiplying the weight of one single source. its just bad history and bad research. not saying you specifically fell into this trap but there it is.
Fitz has achieved an incredible amount being the best man from mw to hw and everywhere in between. The first 3 division champ. If he looked better on film I'd rank him higher.
Fitzsimmons-Gardner was no fix. The vast majority of those who saw the fight thought Fitz used his experience, guile, boxing skill, and power to intimidate Gardner, who fought tight. Gardner threw more but never was really willing to fully commit because Fitz would counter him on occasion with powerful blows, which made Gardner not want to step all the way in with his punches, and Fitz was able to move a bit, keep the pace slow, land the harder more effective blows on occasion, decking Gardner here and there to obtain the decision. Think of it as a Hopkins-like performance, with pockets of low activity by Fitz, ineffective misses or barely lands by Gardner, combined with some real power punches and knockdowns scored by Fitz thrown in. (Maybe sort of like what Tommy Hearns did to Vrigil Hill, though without the knockdowns?)
I don't see how it was a fix.I've read Fitz floored Gardner in the 4th with a right to the jaw, followed by 2 sharp lefts.Gardner was down for 7 ,and again before the round ended. Gardner was down for 9 in the 5th,and cut around the right eye in the 6th.After coasting a couple of rounds Fitz began bleeding from the mouth in the 10th but upped the pace again to have Gardner down in the 13th & 14 thrds.After this rally, Fitz tired and Gardner finished strong, but there was only one winner, the Cornishman. Fitz said he was handicapped by blistered feet that filled his shoes with blood,and that he drove the first two knuckles of his right hand back inthe 4th rd,hitting Gardner's head, splintering the bones. Fitz scaled 168lbs Gardner 170lbs well that's the info I have. I'm sure you have much more detail of the fight, but I wanted to post what I have to illustrate, like yourself that it wasn't a fixed fight.
That is because there is a huge difference between doing it in an era where there are multiple title belts, and doing it in an era where there is only one in each weight class, and only eight weight classes. This is also why you should not consider these to be more impressive accomplishments. Furthermore, some transitions are easier to make then others. Quite a few welterweight have gone on to be champions at middleweight, and quite a few middleweights have had success at super middleweight and light heavyweight. Virtually nobody since Fitzsimons has started as a middleweight, and got anywhere at heavyweight, much less become undisputed champion.
I really don't know. All time great p4p lists are hard to construct and no matter what one comes up with, there is always an argument for rearranging it. One thing I do feel though is that Bob Fitzsimmons is one of the p4p giants. Maybe not top five but easily top 10
They were using 'light heavyweight' around that time quite frequently I believe. In Adam Pollack's book on Marvin Hart you see that they put Hart in among the crowd at 'light heavyweight', including Root and Gardner in that crowd.
This content is protected This content is protected Either way it doesnt matter, because they didnt do it, he did!