Is this real? Never saw it like this …

Wow. If that is what you say it is, looks like Siki is playing to a script.

 

McTigue is a pretty crafty spoiler, underrated technician though never even close to being the top man in his division.

 

It's real.

 

After this McTigue got to keep his belt several times after losing because of the magic of Newspaper decisions.

 

great footage, might have been enhanced & restored by modern means, but doesn't look doctored...

it does point out though, the crude basic fighting of the era, tough, durable, capable men, but not as yet finessed by athletic stylists, which I have always maintained.

Siki looks the more willing to 'just fight'.

I wish the old footage was all that good.

 

This is incredible.

 

They didn't all fight like that. Their is plenty footage of numerous fighters of that era.. and before that .. that look as modern as fighters today. Mctigue was just a crafty awkward fighter.. great at stalling & spoiling attacks.. i don't think he looks crude anyway, looks quite adept & pretty slippery, a precursor to the modern slick fighter.. it's impressive footage. Shows that they had excellent ring craft.. you can see the burgeoning style of modern boxing being birthed in some of these older fighters.. they just aren't up on their toes as much and clinching & tying up was a lot more a part of the game back then because fights were longer so they had to pace themselves better.. go watch Tommy Gibbons, Tommy Loughran, Mickey Walker , Gene Tunney etc if you think they're all crude..

 

Which just shows there must have been some brilliant fighters at the top if it then cos mctigue was damn good

 

How did McTigue win this? He looks like hes running from the school yard bully throughout most of this footage.

 

agree mostly with what you are saying, with exception to these early era's being anything like the what Boxing became just a Decade or so later...

precursors, sure, but not Athletic Stylists. Absolutely they were Fighters, I have always maintained they were Hard, Tough, Durable and Capable men, but when you add, just that decade later, of 'evolutionary' Athleticism & Slick Skills to those 'Prizefighting' norms, you came up with the Golden Age(s) of Boxing for at least the 50, 60 years that followed.

I know there were the odd tricky masters, like Gans & Johnson and others obviously, but they were in the minority, compared to the Fighting Prizefighters.

anyway, the earliest film that I ever seen of great stylish boxing was Tony Canzoneri, in fact someone just posted him & Kid Chocolate recently, great stuff and they obviously weren't alone in that, but the Boxing that we have come to expect as 'the Norm', was in my understanding still about a Decade away, when & where it proliferated into common place.

Still they were Good & Hard fighters, no question.