If you've spent any amount of time here, you have been subject to a lot of information about a lot of different fighters. I know I came in here with a lot more preconceived notions about certain fighters through the years, and have had a few of my own opinions change. Seeing Youtube flower into the indispensable information source it's become since I signed on here has certainly helped of course, but a lot of it too comes from discussions here. Which fighters have you changed your opinion about over the years? What prompted the change? Which fighters do you think more of and less of over time, compared to years ago?
I see the futility in trying to include the smaller HW men in h2h rankings unless they're done at a CW limit. Totally changed the way I rank fighters full stop tbh. Stopped caring about lineal championships, now no just defer to TBRB. The man who's suffered most since my time at ESB is Ketchel, he's gone from top 5 MW to unranked. Same with Fitzsimmons. The man whos improved most is Mike Gibbons. Footage shows him to be a god. More than anything though, learning about the sport in its heyday makes me resent the sport today and I have pretty much converted to UFC
Great reply. Interesting to have completely dismissed Ketchel. Not sure I disagree, as I have painfully little knowledge of anything that far back, but most old fogeys rate him quite highly. Totally hear you on the modern game though. Not seeing why anyone would watch it. Saw the Ward-Kovalev thing the others day finally, and was underwhelmed. Modern boxing is just a couple of relatively unskilled guys loping forward behind a jab, then falling into each other clumsily. It looks like a completely different sport than watching older fights, it really does.
Part of the fun of studying boxing history is to evolve to positions that you never expected. John L Sullivan turned out to be everything that I thought him wasn’t. Instead of being the last of the dinosaurs, he was the father of gloved boxing, and of modern boxing techniques. James J Corbett turned out not to be the transitional historic breakthrough that I had always thought him to be. Indeed many of the transitions towards what we call gloved boxing technique happened before the introduction of Queensbury rules, not after it. Bob Fitzsimmons and Sam Langford were the heavyweight monsters, that I had assumed to be artefacts of hyperbole, despite their diminutive weights. Harry Wills evolved from being a contender that Jack Dempsey missed, to a forgotten colossus who straddled the division. Gene Tunney was not the fleet of foot defensive master that we saw dismantle Jack Dempsey, but a much more offensively orientated fighter, who had been forced to adopt a style alien to him. That is enough for now!
His lack of technique is striking on all film I watch. Modern boxing has no infighting any more. Jab, clinch, run zzzzzzzzz
I have sometimes used Ketchell as an argument against film evidence. If I showed you film of him and Tommy Burns, and the only thing you knew was that they were contemporary, you would say that Ketchell would not make a decent sparring partner for Burns. Obviously we know that Ketchell did better vs. common opposition. The film obviously isn’t telling us something!
The film tells me his power and relentlessness was enough to see him through. Not sure it would be that easy today.
Could it really just have been his power an relentlessness though? Wouldn't O'Brien have flattened him on that basis? Wouldn't sending him in against Langford have been cruelty to children? To my mind the least that can explain Ketchell's success, is to make him a middleweight Marciano type figure.
His defence on film does not match Marciano's. His attack is incredible but his technique looks awful.
