How Good was Gunboat Smith?

Senya's news report on the first Smith v Langford fight.


http://senya13.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/1913-11-17-gunboat-smith-w-pts12-sam.html

 

An article on the "Gun Boat."

http://thecomeback.com/queensberryr...day-gunboat-smith-outpoints-sam-langford.html

 

Info on the GunBoat.

https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025138/1913-05-02/ed-1/seq-9.pdf

 

Truth is O'Brien was never a threat to Johnson, or Kaufman either. However, in 1909 Kaufman was perceived as the greater threat.

 

Weird that McLaughlin (or McLaglen as most know him) is given credit for over 30 fights and treated as a more than a footnote.

 

Several of his brothers boxed.
This is one of them.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Fred_McKay

 

Well, some primary sources felt O'Brien was the better in a 6 round match over Johnson so I'm not sure how he would not be perceived as a greater threat. O'Brien's quick feet and jab clearly frustrated Johnson, who really didn't like to chase people around the ring.

If we are talking 1909, you could argue a green GunBoat Smith was a top white hope as he TKO'd Johnson in a 4 round expiation match.

Kaufman was pretty poor, and didn't win a round vs Johnson.

But O'Brien won a few rounds in a short fight, and Smith's result in the 4 round exhibition match should not be discounted either.

 

Mcvey,

It seems like you trying to say O'Brien wasn't very good in 1909 or a threat to Johnson.

Okay then why do primary sources say that he was the better in their 6 round match vs Jack Johnson? Keep trying to tear him down, it only makes your idol look worse!

 

Johnson had O Brien down 3 times did you know this?
Did you further know that Johnson was fat and had not trained for O Brien?
Even O Brien, who was in tip top shape according to himself [the best shape of his life]said ,"Johnson had not trained but that was his fault".
Nobody gave O Brien a serious chance with a trained Johnson in a title fight that was staged over 10rds or more.

Smith's 4 fight record when he sparred with Johnson.

Joe Collins 0-0-0 .W
Denver Ed Martin20-7-2. L
Soldier Kearns 0-0-0. W
Jack Cavin 0-0-0 .W
Sailor Matt Turner 1-2-0. W

Based on his record, by no stretch of anyone's imagination could Smith be described as a White Hope in1909!

Why do you insist on calling Smith's sparring match with Johnson an exhibition?

For your information Johnson had boxed three other spar - mates before boxing Smith whom he hadn't met Johnson was talking to his manager in the last of the 4 rds in sparred with Smith and Smith threw an overhand right that put Johnson halfway through the ropes.He wasn't ko'd. I was on another site the other day and Klompton gave some good info on the sparring match . Smith himself never claimed he tkod Johnson he said he put him halfway through the ropes.Its all in his interview in Heller's In This Corner and I've posted it loads of times but you continue to make these silly statements which you yourself know are untrue! Its completely baffling!
Do you think we have all forgotten?
In December 1909 Smith drew with Jack Burns 3-4-0.Burns record is 6-10-1!
You really are making yourself look very foolish by persisting with your hate campaign.
Didn't you ask me when Johnson offered to fight Luther McCarty?
It was via a telegram sent to Tommy Burns,then promoting in Canada ,on April the 14th 1913 and also sent to the Edmonton Journal.
Johnson then inFrance,offered to defend his title in Calgary against McCarty.Burns who was promoting Arthur Pelkey and had just fought him wanted McCarty to fight Pelkey and made the following statement as an excuse for not promoting McCarty against Johnson.
"There is absolutely no reason why I should make this match.Johnson has not conducted himself in a gentlemanly manner at all since gaining the title,and now that I am a match maker I am only putting on matches which are between men of good character and clean living fellows."This was published in the Calgary Daily Herald.and can be verified. Instead McCarty was matched with Pelkey on the 24th of May 1913 and the rest is history.
I should charge you for the education, but you'll ignore it and continue to say Smith tko'd Johnson in an EXPIATION match [lol,] and therefore should have gotten a title shot.

If he had done ,which of course he didn't and, if he deserved a title shot on the basis of putting Johnson halfway through the ropes,then Toxie Hall should have received a title shot against Marciano for flooring him in a sparring session in the lead up to the Cockell fight.[Hall was far more experienced than Smith and had defeated John Holman and Marty Marshall and a few months later would beat Charles] do you think it would have been a credible match?
Raphael Butler and Travis Walker should have gotten title chances for flooring Vitali Klitschko in sparring.
Greg Page should have gotten a title shot from Tyson after flooring him. Daniel Dubois should receive one after flooring Joshua in sparring, and so on ,and so on .

It is patent nonsense and I can only think that you know it is,even if you cant bring yourself to admit it ,or to drop this ridiculous stance!

 

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I have the accounts for the O Brien fight Johnson is described as hog fat and untrained by none other than his opponent! I don't just go by Box Rec.
Turner's fights in the Navy were amateur ones and with under the counter cash being awarded the winner.
He had just 6 pro fights winning 2 against nobodies with records of 0-1-0 and 0-0-0!
He lost his other 4 fights .
No matter how you wriggle and squirm you cannot make a case for Smith being a credible White Hope in1909!

I could provide plenty of testimonies that Johnson was untrained and fat for the O Brien fight and by the way he did not weigh in.
But what is the point ?I am talking to a bigoted and closed mind ,a mind I have no desire or interest in attempting to educate.
You just keep on hating, you've turned this into another hate on Johnson thread whereas I have provided information about Smith's fights for the OP which is what he asked for.
Nobody has any interest in reading another , toxic diatribe from you about Jack Johnson ,this is a GunBoat Smith thread take your venom elsewhere. Your act was tired and boring when it first surfaced, now its just a spite filled crusade of sad and petty lies and mis-information.

 

The funny thing is that Gunboat Smith actually was friends with Johnson and also considered Johnson the true World Heavyweight Champion, after Smith had won the "White Heavyweight Championship".

 

Yes indeed, there is the famous taped quote." White Champion yes ,but there was Jack Johnson!"
When he came to London,Trevor Wignall tried to get a commitment from Smith that he was actually pursuing a Johnson fight,Smith ignored the question twice ,when Wignall repeated it a third time he testily replied ",oh Johnson will wait,and the longer he waits the better."
Doesn't sound as if he was too keen to meet him does it?

 

6"5 210LB?
From the 1800's?

Nah, fake news.

 

Victor was 6'3"

This is little Victor with JJ.

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Studio shot below.

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Another brother Leopold was 6'6"

https://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=31181

Leopold was a master of BS and I don't mean Bushido.

"Leopold had served in the Boer War, underaged though he was, after which he married Gladys Rose in 1905. Shortly after the birth of their daughter the following year, she filed for divorce claiming cruelty. He denied it, but the divorce was granted on the basis of adultery.

It was after the war that, by his account, he set up- as a jiu jitsu instructor. But then came the extraordinary matter of what happened in Milwaukee.

The McLaglen brothers were athletic types with showbiz ambitions and one of them, Victor, had become a seriously good boxer who in 1909 taken on the mighty heavyweight champion Jack Johnson.

"He never knocked me down . . . but he sure beat the livin' be-Jesus out of me," Victor once said.

Imagine the surprise of readers in the Milwaukee Free Press to read in 1911 that Victor was now a downtown doorman who, apart from his boxing credentials, had been a Boer War hero, a former British intelligence agent, member of King Edward's personal guard, and a soldier of fortune. And, as he'd be willing to demonstrate, the "champion broadswordsman of the world".

The boxing.com website recounts this, only to reveal the boaster was not, in fact, Victor but his big brother Leopold, who had stolen his identity.

After a display of broadsword fighting proved more distasteful than exciting, at least by press accounts, Leopold-as-Victor turned to the boxing ring, to be knocked out by "Fireman" Jim Flynn.

The real Victor saw the advertising for that bout and wrote to the local paper.

Without identifying the culprit, Victor wrote: "This man is an imposter and . . . he is taking my name. I am now in vaudeville, playing the interstate circuit . . you would do the public and myself a lot of good if you would expose this imposter. . . "