Who wins, Max Baer Vs Young Stribling?

Probably Stribling by decision. He was very good defensive fighter who was almost impossible to KO. Schmeling did that because he outboxed him and outsmarted him. Baer wouldn't do that.

On the other hand, Maxie could overwhelm him and win by decision due to agressiveness and pressure. Stribling wouldn't hurt him, that's for sure.

55% to 45% fight for me and I don't see KOs here

 

Why do you say that? The newspaper writeups I saw tell a different story.

 

If Baer shows up serious and in condition I see him making a late round KO comeback

 

Baer is too big and strong. Stribling just didn't seem to have it in important fights against top echelon fighters. Baer was too big and punched too hard. And the Baer who fought Schmeling was motivated and focused.

 

What story?

 

This. Stribling would most likely decision Baer, since Baer would have a hard time landing clean on Stribling just like he had a hard time landing clean on Jim Braddock and Loughran. Baer would be eating counters all night.

 

I've never seen anything suggesting that Schmeling outmarted or outthought Stribling. The story of the fight I'm familiar with is that Stribling was outboxing Stribling early but quickly ran out of steam and didn't have the power to hurt Schmeling or keep him off of him. He had nothing to offer the second half of the fight but he took a prolonged beating because Schmeling didn't have the power or "finishing abilities" to get rid of him. But the articles I read were from before people decided that Schmeling was a brilliant boxing genius...

 

In limited footage we have, Schmeling outboxed him. Outlanded him, call it whatever you want. He looked like a better fighter, that's simple. Of course I haven't seen the full fight though.

People were always high on Schmeling, he was smart and tough fighter. I don't like calling boxer a genius, but he was definitely smart boxer who could outsmart many opponents. It's not my fault that you don't like him for some reason.

 

This. Schmeling was a very smart fighter despite also being very inconsistent.

According to my former Trainer, who trained under Stribling’s mother Lillie in his youth in the early 50’s and seen footage of the whole fight Stribling couldn’t neutralize Schmeling’s timing and absorbed a lot of punishment in some of the rounds that weren’t shown in the clip on YouTube.

 

I don't dislike Schmeling. But the talk about how extraordinarily smart and skilled he was seems largely revisionist and highly exaggerated to me. I could be mistaken (I'm not an expert) but as far as I can tell, he was mostly seen as a tough, game bruiser with decent skills during his career. And for obvious reasons, he was seen by many as a pretty marginal champion (until decades later, when he started making top 10 lists).

I'm going to look into this some more.

 

Are you talking about Salvadore Villa?

 

Was he? I'm far from expert either, but he looks really good on the tape. Smart, patient and very accurate. Good defensively too. Maybe I'm wrong but he does look like really good technical fighter. His style is unorthodox, but it's not important because he wad effective.

 

He was definitely a patient fighter--he picked his spots and placed his punches better than the seek-and-destroy sluggers and crude maulers. But in the many articles I've seen from the 1930s, nobody who followed his career in real time describes him as especially smart or skilled or whatever. A number of people even downplayed those aspects of him.

He was probably just barely the best of the vey unimpressive post-Tunney crop of heavyweights around 1929-1932. After that, his record gets very spotty against his top competition.

And the recent talk of his right hand being some kind of ATG punch also seems completely revisionist to me.

 

Max for me, Stribling was eventually worn down by Schmeling's power.Baer was not as patient or as polished, but he hit harder than the German..