A Re-assessment Of Gentleman Jim Corbett

I don't have Pollack's Corbett book. Do you know what he lists?

With the laws on the books and the necessary hijinks to skirt them, records were certainly more of an interpretive science in those days.

 

I know I have an old Champions of the Ring reprint that does a profile of Corbett just after the Sullivan fight and lists him having 40+ fights. Again, who knows which of these were declared exhibitions (but real fights) or "real fights" but glorified 4 rounders...

Still, I don't think Kimbo is doing anything with him in a boxing ring. Maybe in an alleyway... but Corbett was a bad @ss and had mean streak, was strong, obviously quick and athletic, and was used to punching with subpar protection to his mitts.

 

Corbett’s record has lost a bit of lustre over the years.

It relies heavily on fights where he looked good in a draw or a loss, while Fitzsimmons and Jeffries resumes are built solidly on wins.

Even so, it would not do to underestimate him.

Nobody was really able to outbox him.

His losses were almost invariably by stoppage, and the only fighters who had any success against him on the cards, were swarmer’s.

You would be on fairly safe ground saying that he was the best technician that his era produced.

I also think that his early opponents are being dismissed far too quickly.

 

I think that Corbett might be a victim of his own propaganda here.

He liked to portray himself as a pioneer of boxing technique, and the more I look at the previous generation, the less the claim holds up.

If you look at some of Corbett’s early fights, he was dropping newspaper decisions.

He was better than them, but they were still sometimes posing a technical puzzle for him.

This makes me think that they were not all crude, and that there were some good technicians among them.

 

Many people assume that Corbett and Fitzsimmons styles originated with them.

I see them more as superior exponents of a style that had gone before.

Early in Corbett’s career you had a veritable buffet of styles, which included people who were essentially bare knuckle fighters with gloves, and people who would not have looked out of the ordinary in Jeffries era.

At this stage the question of which style, and indeed what rule set would prevail, was very much up in the air.

Essentially, I think that the cart came before the horse.

 

He looks as a Colossus who bestrides upon the land. The greatest fighting talent any century has seen.

 

Kimbo was a nothing. A zero. A nothing and never was who had rank amateur skill level. Get serious.

 

I know that you respect several black champions so I'm not accusing you of anything but do you realize that you use your "nothing" slur exclusively (almost exclusively?) regarding big black heavyweight fighters? Not accusing you of anything but it stands out, to me anyway. Seems like a very, very disrespectful thing to say about a fighter...much worse even then calling someone a bum.

 

Another idiotic statement by the king of idiots.

Seven out of my top ten ATG hwt champions are black. My favorite fighters are Ali and Louis.

You really need to grow a brain. You are a joke.

 

Here I was trying to be polite so that I could extract a substantive response out of you! Oh well. The fact that you respect the same black heavyweights that almost every other boxing fan accepts as legends does not mean that you don't have troubling reactions toward other black fighters. I'm sure plenty of people who are uncomfortable around most black people still love Obama. You need to do some soul searching, brother.

PS - I only put up with your "idiot" name-calling because I feel sorry for you. You are one of the dumbest posters on this site, and completely incapable of any kind of original thought or critical ****ysis. Do you have a single original thought about boxing? Something that goes against the cliches and conventional wisdom...?