Stanley Ketchel

To be fair we only have two filmed bouts to judge Ketchel. One is a setup vs the heavyweight champion and the other his second bout with Papke that was termed a stinker at that time. We have nothing to judge him by except at his worst.

 

That is fair commentary. It's the primary problem when dealing with very old fighters.

 

There were at least 8 newspapers who voted for Ketchel, and at least 7 had it a draw. So, no, Langford didn't have the better of it.

 

According to Boxrec, of 13 New York and Philadelphia papers, 7 scored to Langford, 4 to Ketchel with 2 scoring the bout a draw.

My assertion that Langford had the better of it was based on, and admittedly just off memory, Clay Moyle's excellent biography of Sam Langford. I recall being left with the impression that opinion was split, but a balanced view was that Langford edged it, though I could be wrong in that regard. I do recall Moyle's book speculating that Langford was holding back in an attempt to generate public interest in a more significant bout scheduled over a longer period.

 

On his record at boxrec you can click on wiki entry for that bout and see the list of newspaper decisions (added by me a while ago).

 

Cheers. Wiki cites the same New York and Philadelphia newspaper poll as Boxrec, I.e. 7-4-2 in favour of Langford, and then goes on to list individual paper scores, which tally 5 to Langford, 8 to Ketchel and 7 as a draw.

Suffice to say, its fair to deem who had the better of the action as inconclusive based on the split of these reports. Thank you for the correction.

 

It was Ketchel, I think, that when his manager was called to inform him of his death, the manager simply said 'Start countin', he'll get up...'

 

Wasn't Ketchel-Langford a fix? From what I've read Ketchel's physical decline in 1909-10 was pretty rapid.

 

Journeyman92 had a good write up on Ketchel awhile back:

“I think he even had an aggressive caveman type reputation like Hart in his day, but I’d like to point out a few things where Stanley might seem a bit more then primitive.

First his tripping and off balance punching I’d like to remind you boxing shoes soles were leather back then, they had resin boxes to step into to help retain grip on the floor, a grip which could and would wear over the course of a fight and result in what you’ve seen.

From a stance point of view Stans sound,
he’s almost sideways with his weight off to the right he creates a lot of distance between him and the other guys rear hand at all times - as a byproduct his shoulder remains a serviceable final defensive tool, he can be seen shoulder rolling right hands from Billy Papke who was no slouch himself.

About his defence he gets hit going in a bit, if you’re always in range that’s unavoidable. Having his hands down isn’t so much a critique to me, it shows he has faith enough in his head movement to keep his lands low for countering, a punch can’t properly be thrown with the hands higher then the shoulder and a counter can’t be thrown if you’re blocking. George Benton said it “a man can’t punch and block at the same time”

Ketchel was a very capable Bob and weaver, off of lead jabs he gets outside and simultaneously lands left uppercuts to the solar plexus, left straight's to the ribs and even lands lefts to the liver off of inside rolls. No easy feat.

I never saw any of the highly revered 60s-70s HW land those punches that I know of, would you call them less skilled then Stanley? He certainly threw punches better then Ali, Frazier and Foreman and those were all sort of the last group of guys we’d consider “classic” HW champions and I’ve never seen anyone call them “unskilled” if we had more of his fights in reasonable quality I’m certain his appreciation would grow substantially”

 

I agree. This very same thing was done with Jeffries with even worse Footage. You got a total of like 4 mins maybe with grainy bigfoot like footage & your entire option is based on this??

It's why I said film should be like 10%-20% of your assessment. On pioneer fighter's. While fighter's who have zero film seem to be free from criticism of film analysis.

You can take almost any fighter & upload a several minute stretch of them not looking good & if that's all you have you're going to have a seriously skewed option.