Heavyweight Champions from Ancient to Present (WIP)

I don't want to say too much because I don't want to give away his hook, but yeah, I've been working with Escudo who is writing about it presently.

If you search the forum, or I will if you like, you'll find I did a medieval russian boxing thread sometime ago. I did that thread in response to being told Russia never boxed pre 1990 not even pre Union, which is bull****. I won't go into more detail until escudo's released his book or the chapter of it then I already had in that thread, again I don't wanna steal no thunder or nothing, but yeah your assumptions are pretty good.

Boxing never left Christendom it just went underground. We know this because of the way Christians wrote about the sport. So while we know it existed we can't know to what degree. In Russia, not being a member of the Pope-Church, they were boxing considerable differently and more openly. I believe it's covered in that thread so I'll say it like this; I trust you know the story of david and goliath? Pretty much the same. Think two armies, a selected champion to rep each, to the winner goes the whole battle. Sometimes they did a team thing with multiple fighters.

Actually the last time I checked in on the Wiki it wasn't half bad. Couldn't hurt you to start there, or ask escudo if he's willing to release a teaser from his book.

I'm not respecting escudo's timing just to be a good dude, I mean I wouldn't betray his trust anyway, but he did put together a whole team and put in some real work for this so I'm expecting it's pretty dang good and worth waiting on.

 

Ever since I first chanced across the story of Euthymos I've kind of secretly hoped I'd find one. Legend has it during Odysseus's journey one of the crewmen from his ship was left behind in a small village that Euthymos walked through on his way home from Olympia. The sailor had been up to no good and Euthymos put an end to him.

The Odysseus connection is hard for me to just let go. I seem to want to believe somewhere in the annals of sword and sandal I will see the battle between Ghost and Champion. If I ever find anything I'll be sure to mention it to you.

 

Perhaps, there are few men from that era I feel atm should be added but have reserved adding them because they're not new to the discussion. They've always been part of the story and were never champion, I'm not sure if I agree or disagree having not yet gotten around to looking explicitly.

I do lean toward inclusion and leaving the reader to their own opinions so I'll probably add him. In the meantime, if you're interested, a man called Bill Gretting should probably go between Pipes and Taylor as well.

 

Yeah, I read the early end of Boxiana and Pugilistica last night. Didn't get to Broughton, but I am prepared to add Gretting and Sutton. The only reason I can find to exclude them is they were the wrong man to win.

I've gone over that before I'm sure, but in short, in the oldens they used to have championship matches that were declared unfit for championship material after the match was won. The only use I've ever read for this was to avoid the wrong man from winning the belt.

I didn't break that mold first. Acknowledging men who fit the bill today that didn't fit the bill in their own time is a practice that has long been in history books. Figg is usually discredited, Whittaker added, then changes stop. I don't get that. Ned belong in the convo if Bob does.

Besides that, I'll do all the organizin', all youse gotta do is read, and youse can decide for yaselves if you like Sutton or Gretting or Peartree for that matter as champs.

I imagine when I get to colored champs it'll get all sorts of controversial. Especially the white champs, not to be confused with the lineal whites who drew colorline. Ned and such ain't as big a reach, they'll get added next edit.

 

No problem bud, it is a pleasure.

 

Again, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but seems to me you've misunderstood. It really doesn't matter who beat who or who was seen as what. The question has more to do with the sudden shift in attitude. Old lists would reflect your final thoughts much more so than a new list does. These new lists seems to have the aim of academia, or at least acknowledging who had what belts at what time rather than a list of names until you hit the WBA/WBC years.

If you didn't notice I did take the time to respond inside your quote. It just seemed like the easiest way to address each thought. It was an interesting read, but honestly either I misunderstood the point for you post or you did mine.

 

My own insecurity was more the issue.

I just want to be very clear, I know I come off as an *******, like a lot, but I honestly don't mean to. I knew when I wrote most of it it was coming out real jerky that's why I kept insisting that I meant no disrespect. I'm really not much an apologetic person by nature, and I realize a lot of people say no disrespect then proceed to not even try to be respectful but I honestly didn't know how else to word things. So really bud, if you felt like I was just brushing you off or being disrespectful I really tried not to be I was just trying to give an honest response. You didn't bother me at all, I bothered myself trying to communicate my thoughts in a respectful manner and felt insecure about my inability to perform at a level I myself respect.

That said, I do believe I understand your stance better. If I have you, your first point is The World champ would have less breaks than a Colored champ given from their crowning forward the World champ would have mostly to exclusively championship matches whereas the Colored champ would still have mostly non-title fights with the odd title defense sprinkled in? I'd say that's fair, but I don't think it's enough for me to not want the best black fighter in the world noted as such during the color line era. It's not meant to discredit the World champs of the color line era any more than they discredit themselves. I mean, it's sort of a case by case basis and largely a personal opinion as to whether each World champ was racist or just appeasing a racist audience or even afraid of what might happen if they did fight a black man.

The Savold thing - Honestly pal, color me stupid I just don't get it. By political what do you mean? I don't myself see like I have the authority to say "nah the WBO is wrong". I mean, sure I can form opinions just fine but I don't feel like my acknowledging WBO champs is a political move of any form so much as my hands are tied because the WBO is too massive to argue. I'm just using WBO as an example, I don't honestly have a favored sanctioning body, nor do I have very strong opinions about them I just see it as fact of life in the boxing community. The bodies say X is champion, we can all say no but they have they belt, they're in the books, they're on the magazines, everywhere you look they are called champ. I'm just struggling to see it as something people have a choice in the matter.

The star bit - I'm sorry that I made you feel like you might have crossed me in some way, nope, I quite liked your post actually. I just struggled with it a bit. Anyway, the latter about Joe, that's what I'm kind of talking about in the paragraph preceding this one. The idea that Fury, Wilder, Joshua, and Parker are claimants rather than Lineal, WBC, WBA-IBF, and WBO champions respectively is just totally alien to me. I want to say things I know you know like "but they have the belts though" Or Fury beat the decade long reigning champ. I guess all I can do is ask for some clarification. You speak in a manner I'm more accustomed to being exclusive to a conversation about Lineal champions in discussion about all champions. That's not meant to be an insult or praise just an explanation as to why I'm unsure how to take your meaning.

Finally That they did. It's kind of amazing really. You get these rankings, and everyone knows half the names on there don't really belong and if you condensed all the rankings down across the four bodies to just one then you'd have enough decent names on one ranking system to fill out a top ten without any counterfeits. Instead of really protesting anything all we do is make our personal lists. Personal rankings with personal champs and rather than using those to prove to the bodies we might argue over who is 5 and who is 8 but we all use more or less the same ten names while they try to sell us on obvious counterfeits we get too caught up in arguing if x is 5 or 8. Before you know it they'll either have a new division, or a new body.

pleasure speaking with you.