Real Assessments on Stanley Ketchel

As I am reading this, I am eating breakfast and, from this restaurant, I can see the place where Stanley Ketchel lived and worked. He was a bouncer/bully/thug in a saloon/brothel. The building burned down in the 1970s.

 

Ketchel was a proto Mike Tyson. He came along seemingly out of nowhere when the division was in turmoil because of the retirement of Tommy Ryan. Ketchel filled that vacuum by cleaning up the fractured (but weak) division in hurricane style bringing excitement and flash to the middleweights. This has lead him to become somewhat overrated. The only other guy in the division that had talent and was well rounded was Papke who had risen and made a name for himself at the same time as Ketchel. The two were quickly headed for a collision course. When they finally met it was a terrific fight with ebbs and flows but ultimately Ketchel won the decision. Papke complained that when the bell rang he went to shake Ketchels hand, was hit and dropped, and never recovered. Somehow over time that story was twisted to Ketchel being struck on the shake in their second fight. Fans were eager to see the two best fighters in the division settle their superiority over a longer route so they were rematched again over a more decisive route. This time Papke made it a point to refuse to shake and gave Ketchel the beating of his life to win by stoppage in the 12th round. Ketchel turned the tables two and a half months later stopping Papke in 11 one sided rounds. Eight months later the two fought again in a bout that was much closer than history remembers. Indeed it was so close that many felt that Papke won outright or deserved no worse than a draw. But the Papke fights, the brutal knockout loss to Jack Johnson in his next fight, and his wild personal life had seemed to take its toll on Ketchel. He was no longer the same fighter and readily admitted it in confidence. He complained of terrific headaches and generally felt his health had been wrecked. He had difficult fights with Frank Klaus (which sent him to the hospital) and Sam Langford and was implicated in a scheme to fix sone of his fights in New York. All of the above left him resolved to quit the sport and invest his earnings in land in Missouri which he hoped to clear for lumber and then retire to ranching. While working on the plans for this he was murdered at the age of 24 by a prostitute and a drug addict on the run for desertion from the navy who were attempting to rob him (not the jealous husband of a wife Ketchel was making moves on). It is my opinion that the general weakness of the division and Ketchels young death combined to give people a rosey impression of him. I think had he lived you would have seen him start to lose with greater frequency. The division was just starting to burst with talent as Ketchel died. Guys like Houck, Gibbons, Clabby, McGoorty, Dillon, Klaus, Langford, etc were right around the corner and every one of them was at least as good as the Papke Ketchel struggled with so mightily.

 

Are there any good songs on Stanley Ketchel?

I feel like he'd be a great subject for one

 

Well, impressive read from the Klompton, must have done a huge research cacth up on Stan ( or Steve as his friends called him ), a couple of niggles, must be honest, in no particular order, you refer to the 1st fight as terrific, have not read that myself, ok might have missed the article
so fair enough, on the subject of who hit who prior to the handshake ( the spoken word from the ref " defend yourselves at all times " is said to have been introduced after this fight ) I agree that there is a body of opinion ( small I would say ) that think it was Kecthel that struck Papke in the introduction stage, but in the decades since they fought, I have read more articles in varouis mags, that it was the other way round ? Also the fight with Langford, once again going by what I have read, was not as you say difficult, but was a fairly tame affair, the feeling at the time was , they took it slightly easy with each other, the scribes of the day were said to be a tad dissapointed.
Also didnt know about the headaches, fair play to you to uncover this, would agree he was not the demon fighter he has been painted as down the years, a shame because he was one of my favs, but with the advent of You Tube we got to see him, and well, he didnt look that good did he, lots of lunges, missed punches, running away at one point ( Johnson fight ) so agree with your assessment wholeheartedly. my minor gripes aside, great post. keep well.

 

The magazines you have read in recent years are wrong. Period. Go back and read the fight reports of their first and second fights. In the first fight they came out of their corners and Ketchel dropped Papke with the very first punch of the fight. Afterwards, and before the second fight, Papke claimed that Ketchel struck him when Papke went to shake hands after the bell had rung. You can verify all of this independently. There are several sources which PREDATE the second fight that have Papke complaining about this. The first hand sources present at the second fight make no mention of any foul punch opening the fight. In fact they make note that Papke made it a point to refuse to shake hands with Ketchel because of the result of their first fight and that in reality it was Ketchel who went on the attack first and landed first, not Papke. No first hand account of the second fight mentions Papke punching Ketchel either first or on the handshake or foul resulting in Ketchel losing the fight. Dont take my word for it and dont believe what you read in modern magazines written by people who werent there. Go read what the people ringside wrote.

It was difficult in the sense that Ketchel didnt win and while, largely because of the short duration, it wasnt the whirlwind affair people hoped for from a longer bout being discussed in California there was still plenty of heavy leather thrown and Ketchel certainly didnt come out on top.

 

Bumped.

 

How about Hugo Kelly?

I know very little of the era or these fights. Just wondering what your views were on him seeing as he seemed to have held his own with the likes of Klaus and McGoorty.

 

Ive never really thought much of Kelly. He was a good contender but he didnt really rise to championship caliber. He was the type of guy who could spring an upset but couldnt win the big ones. When he fought Klaus and McGoorty both guys hadnt quite hit their prime.

 

Have an Elite chin,
Tough
Have heart & brave for challenging HW johnson

 

His skills look poor on the two films we have to view. Just terrible on defense, on offense no jab or creativity at all.

His power was very good at 160, but which heavyweight did he ever stop?

He lost to the best three he fought, and drew with arguably the 5th best man he fought.

His record is very inflated, especially early on.

He had guts and was pretty durable for 160 pounds.

He's 0-2-1 vs Maurice Thomson

I have seen his height listed at 5'7" tall.

The 1910 draw with Klaus makes me wonder on his ability.

I'm still not sure how such a wild swinging fighter beat Jack O'brien twice.

IMO an over rated old timer, who's style fit the times and looked to be on the slide ( competition increased ) when he died young

 

Very overrated IMO. Looks poor on the limited film we have. Doesn't have the actual achievements to match the top ten middleweights ever.