Is Peter Maher remembered as a HW champion.

This is pretty much a present yet classical issue.

But I don't wanna focus on the Fury aspct of things, nor any other dubious lineal claims tbh.

Purely Peter Maher.

So James J Corbett retires as champion, he announces the winner of O'Donnell vs Maher is the next HW champion.

Maher wins, claims the championship, he's promoted as a champion.

Maher then fights Fitzsimmons, in a bout promoted as a championship bout, Fitzsimmons wins, claims the championship, he's promoted as a champion.

Corbett comes out of retirement, I'm unsure of the details here, but come fight night everyone agrees Corbett is defending champion and Fitzsimmons is a challenger.

Now I'm gonna look into this myself as well, I'm not after rewriting history at all, I'm after understanding history as it was at the time.

I'll use this thread to dump stuff I read online, maybe (spoken like Magreb there, I know)

But I also want the thread to double as a simple "hands up if you think he was champion of the world"

Those in the know, have at it.

 

He isn't, but he should be.

 

Think of him as the Vitally Klitschko of his era.

 

I immediately thought of V. Klitschko, and the WBA tournament winner, James Ellis.

 

I feel like he should be the Marvin Hart as his era.

I just think every thing I read about Maher indicates he was a champion and was seen as a champion at the time.

But then Corbett came back and it was all kinda Mandela'd out of existence.

 

Why do you say he isn't? Based on popular opinion now, or on contemporary opinion then.

 

For a brief while he was considered as champion by a fair amount of people when Corbett was retired but most felt he needed to avenge the Fitz loss to cement his claim. The Mexico fight was probably considered by most as for the vacant title, but once Corbett came back, he was recognised as champion. The Sharkey-Fitz fiasco didn't help.

 

Did Fitz recognise Corbett as true champion?

 

I answered the question in the title. He's not remembered as the champion, but he should be.

 

They disliked each other and there was a two year circus where they avoided each other, both claiming the other was a coward etc. This led to Corbett retirement and Maher stepping into the void, Peter would dodge nobody. So by the time Jim came back Fitz was claiming the title but the public reverted to Corbett.

 

Given, given.

 

Not long after, some recognized Tom Sharkey as the World Champion. Wyatt Earp had something to do with that, and it tarnished Wyatt's image at the time.

 

Sharkey claimed the championship, but I don't think he was ever recognised, since Fitz knocked him out.

 

Bump, cause it's a fascinating topic indeed.

 

I've presented the idea the lineage disputes should be presented in lineal heaps of times. Just a ton. There's an old thread getting bumped now and then about it presently.

Peter Maher is not considered a champion because Nat Fleischer wrote the first widely accepted narrative on what pre-body boxing was. Anyone who claims differently is just being political and avoiding conflict.

Most of the made up, pretend, does not hold water to history, bull****, came from Nat and what didn't came from his shitty misinforming magazine.

Was Peter Maher a champion? Gee did he sell tickets to a world title fight? Win said fight? TF else do you need? Some historian telling you about best claim? Who made up that nonsense? Who said it is okay to rewrite, negate, or omit history for this best claim bull****? Who said it is okay to tell your readers what their opinions should be?

Yup, Peter, Tom, and of course Fitzs, all champions in reality. But don't let that stop you from skipping them in your reporting on champions.

Most of the time in pre-body champions you do have disputes. Most of the time you do have claimants. Who decides what is a champion and what is a claimant? Gatekeepers that go by the title historian. Created by a conman specifically for promotion, upheld by gatekeepers who call themselves historians but can't even be bothered to make sure their sources say what they claim it says.


How'd that Jack Johnson vs Jack Dempsey, 1980s magazine reprint of Ray Pearson's 1920s newspaper fantasy fight articles, ever came to a rumor JJ and JD danced in a basement? ... Christ almighty, I should not have to prove your historians were ass until the 2000s. ... but here we are. Still talking about what is basically no buddy your history gatekeepers were shitty fans who like to have smoke blown up their assholes more than they cared about quality history keeping.



If I have a criticism for the new wave of authors; y'all Tinkerbelles. Just about, if not all, boxing history books from the 2000s on, at least from IBRO/CBZ members, feature quite a lot of correcting past narratives held by the gatekeeper historians who came before you without calling them or their stances out for being wrong. Respect the history more than you do the historians. They were **** anyway.


No man younger than 50 should have to prove 80s misinformation about 20s data. If Tracy Callis and co actually were worth half a **** they would have done that for us. Instead we get snippets of Nat, Egan, Fox, Miles, etc.

To the point where one can skip them and know more about boxing than if they had actually read everything Nat and Tracy ever put out. You can just read Boxiania, Bell's Life, Pugilistica, Gazette, etc. And get yourself some modern books from Matt, Adam, Kevin, Chris, etc. and not only miss nothing but also not be clouded by misinformation.


Still, we honor these ... historians. Meanwhile none of you seem to know who norman gardiner or robert davis even is. IBRO? Research Org? You sure? Seem like a cirlce jerk to me. One where the old guard doesn't even belong but the young have too much respect to tell them.