How often did late 1800s/early 1900s fight people see the greats of their eras?

It seems like there was a strong effort for boxers at the time to expose themselves to the best of the sport.

Willard for instance was immediately recognized as a talent, and so he was recruited to Carl Morris’ camp. Camps would travel around the country for fights and would participate in other training camps with great fighters so there was a pretty decent amount of exposure.

Jess Willard and Jack Johnson trained together when Johnson was champion. Jess also sparred with Fulton, and other big names.

If you were serious about boxing at the time, I don’t think you were averse to hopping on the train to go to where you need to be for the action.

 

I think that's why they had so many fights against random nobodies, people would be happy just to see a great boxer box, even if it was against a no-one, plus exhibitions etc. With the legal situation meaning locations were often secret and it being harder to travel too.

 

Many people attended heavyweight championship fights wherever they were held. A lot of top fighters were traveling around the states giving exhibitions and meeting all comers (including visiting small towns). Many sporting writers were exchanging mails with others writers/managers/boxers/sporting people in general, on a regular basis, in addition to reading all the wire reports (which were pretty detailed for big fights).

 

Can you imagine how mind blowing it would feel ,if you had a distant ancestor that had actually being in the crowd to watch a Dempsey or Johnson fight?
Even more so an important one such as Dempsey v Willard or Johnson v Jeffries ?
Happy to have that link to history but gutted because great grand pa Fred was no longer around to tell you first hand stories !

 

My Grandmother (actually it may have been great Grandmother) was at Johnson v Burns. Quite interesting, because according to Klompton (usually right) there were no females allowed. So i am not sure if there is a bit of fibbing involved but it was a family story when i was young.

 

Very

Very interesting story. Who knows ?

She may have being there ,perhaps the record s of no women were wrong .Makes you wonder with a story like that passed down, how it first came about ?
Nice little interesting nugget though Boilermaker .

 

I recall Dan Daniel of The Ring magazine writing an article on Jack Dempsey in which he designated Dempsey the greatest he had seen. In the article he commented that he had only seen Dempsey live once, against Willard.

Now I suppose he might have watched the same films we watch today, but "live" and "at ringside" just the Willard fight.

While Daniel was a mainstay at The Ring, it seems he was primarily a baseball writer.

Tom Meany, another top sportswriter of the era, mentioned in his autobiography that he never saw Dempsey and Tunney at all, but had seen Louis.

 

I shall confess right here I've only seen most greats of my lifetime on the television/internet etc.

 

(Dan) Daniel Margowitz started writing for New York Press no later than November 1913 (signing his articles as "Daniel"). He was in Toledo for the fight, his pre-fight write-ups appeared in New York Sun daily.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-07-06/ed-1/seq-17/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-07-05/ed-1/seq-8/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-07-04/ed-1/seq-13/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-07-03/ed-1/seq-17/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-07-02/ed-1/seq-19/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-07-01/ed-1/seq-19/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1919-06-30/ed-1/seq-19/

 

About as often as they saw their presidents in person.

Maybe once in their lifetimes, if they were lucky. Otherwise, never.

Not until fights were filmed and distributed to movie houses ... which wasn't often.

Unless you lived in a fight town and had disposable income, you probably only saw a champ if he appeared at something like a State Fair signing autographs or going a round or two with a boxer he traveled with or some local guy.

 

Obviously not. A top level boxer is far more likely to come into contact with a "great boxer of his era". He might even fight one, or several.