Nat Fleischer's Top 10 Heavyweights

Fleischer was the sort of old reactionary who was too obtuse to acknowledge Ali's
greatness for various reasons such as politics.Those old-timers found it impossible
to be objective about Ali.
Besides,what the hell was going on with Fleischer rating all those guys above Joe Louis ?
You're right,Fleischer's list was indeed terrible.

 

Louis should be numbers one on that list.

 

Agreed.

 

Good point. I don't think he was a "political" reactionary as much as an "old timer" reactionary.

As someone who was around in the fifties and sixties, the idea that sports were better in the old days was very widespread across the board.

I think it was the impact of Pete Rozelle which began changing this perspective. He sold NFL football on the basis that the current players were better than those of the past.

Another factor was that the old films were not as available as today. I remember that when Jim Jacobs in, I believe, 1962, showed his collection to the boxing writers, it was clear that most, if not indeed all of them, had not seen these films. One comment by a prominent boxing writer was used as the title of the article:

"I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry."

Prior to this he had only heard the old timer myths and had accepted them.

 

Makes sense with context. I believe Fleischer made the list in 1967, and Ali's only good win by this point was his win over Liston.

 

Certainly agree on the Joe Louis point - seems inexplicable to have rated him in the lower half of the ten.

Re Ali - I guess it begs the question: When did Ali go from being a startling 'Phenom' to a bona fide 'Great'?

 

Exactly.

 

Can't help you. It was a boxing yearbook put out I think by True Magazine. There were several of those put out by different publications every year. And sixty years past, who knows where to find it.

 

I don't know if it is the same article, but I read a similar article in the special annual edition of Ring Magazine in which they named their fighter of the year, round of the year, etc. and other special featured articles. I believe this would be the March issue of the magazine. The first I remember, in 1968 or 69 featured a debate between Nat Fleischer and Angelo Dundee regarding old time fighters vs moderns. Dundee related an incident where some old films were shown to a group of veteran boxing people. At one point, someone asked "Who are these bums?" to which the answer was "Corbett vs Fitsimmons." It was an interesting article in which both debaters made some good points. Another year Fleischer debated Jim Jacobs the film collector on who was the most crowd- pleasing fighter. Fleischer supported Jack Dempsey while Jacobs supported Sugar Ray Robinson. The Ring Magazines of the late sixties (when I first started reading it) and early seventies had a lot of good articles filled with good stories and information. Nat Fleischer was elderly then, as were several writers who contributed heavily to the magazine like Sam Taub and Dan Daniel who were also eyewitnesses to many boxing matches over the years.

 

True,it is surprising that Fleischer rated Johnson as no 1.However Fleischer's complete dismissal of Ali's
greatness does show his views were governed by other factors rather than prowess in the ring.

 

Which fighters specifically were they talking about?

 

Just goes to show..

 

There may be others CT, but the one i'm familiar with is from Ring 1968 (cover below), Jacobs claimed "pictures don't lie: modern boxers are fare superior to old timers" presents a view that, in all honesty, a lot of us have reached when we can be true to ourselves, in that we are often disappointed in some of these old time fighters after 'seeing' (rather than reading) the opinions of others. He acknowledges that these fighters were excellent...for their time but that modern boxers (late 1960s in this case) were generally far superior to those around 50 years before.

Nat's claims that doesn't represent a true vision of what he has "in his mind" about these fighters and blasts all the film footage; Jacobs answers that you can still tell techniques and that some of those early bouts were a mixture of a fight and a pie-eating contest.

Fleisher went berserk and stole all of Jim's fight films burned them in a ceremonial bonfire attended by all the Ring's staff, Henry Kissinger, Spiro Agnew, John Wayne and Lassie, chanting "Ruby Rob Yeay, Draft Dodger Nay".

File:68Mar.jpg - BoxRec

 

Boxing News did its own 'best ever' heavies around this time to (late 1971). The top few were:

Louis
Johnson
Marciano
Dempsey
Ali
Frazier.

It's fair to say it's gives more props to then 'modern' fighters than they ' Nats-led' Ring back then.

 

All of these bums would be beaten by my top ten.

1. "Fireman" Jim McCorkindale 2. "Hard Drinking" Matt Fitzherbert 3. Joe "Sugarcane Cutter" De Boisgilbert 4. "Randy Harry" 5. "Irish Onelegged" Pol O'Flaherty 6. "Blind in both eyes" McFadden 7. Francois "The Purple Pimpernell" Chevalier 8. "Crusty Edward" 9. Ernie "Tiny man with massive balls" Halfanshawe 10. Jeremia "Speeding tickets" Johnstone