Which Oldschool Fighters Were Real Hardcore Tough?

Tom Sharkey, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Harry Greb... pretty much all the guys from that time window.

 

I came in here to say something just like that.. because there was a thread here recently that disparaged Harry Greb..

 

Jack Dempsey fighting in the back rooms of bars as a teen, waking up in a cave outside town, eating sporadically, from mining camp to mining camp...

Jack Johnson fighting in Battle Royales, enduring God-Knows-What indignities as a black man at the turn of the last century, especially one out to prove his abilities against whites.

And just look at Tom Sharkey. Forget boxing. That is the last dude you would ever want to F with. The fight would never be over with a guy like that.

 

Jeffries, the writeups of his cuts and injuries are nauseating

 

My favourite is how Joe Choynski hit one of his teeth all the way up to his upper lip with a left hook, and his corner had to remove it between rounds with a penknife.

 

Primo Carnea knocked down 11 times by Max Baer and kept getting up so what you like about his skills but that's tough.

Joe Frazier against George Foreman kept getting back up.

 

Most of them.
Today's fighters expect to be coddled. If a guy had 100 amateur fights he expects easy fights to build his record. They ask for easy sparring. In the gyms they conduct themselves poorly. You saw Devin Haney refuse to accept his loss to Garcia and you have seen the boxing press go along with it.
Everybody thinks that their pro debut is worth 4 grand. Nobody thinks about how they are going to put people in seats to see them fight.
Boxing is a clown show at this point of time.

 

So many of them. Especially the pre 30s guys. Baer, Marciano, Liston, Foreman, Galento, and many others were known for their bar fights. Sullivan prob takes the cake

 

The answer is Joe Grim btw. He was insane.

Faced Joe Gans, Barbados Joe Walcott, Jack Blackburn, Dave Holly, Hugo Kelly, Peter Maher, Bob Fitzsimmons and Jack Johnson. I don't think anyone from that list managed to stop him.

Jack Johnson said he was not human.

 

Unfortunately we don't get to see just how tough some of these guys are today. Less fights, less rounds, less Fighters fighting the best available competition, quick stoppages, etc etc. Many of the same reasons why we don't get to see fully developed potential.

 

I chose a random fighter from the pre-war British era and that was George 'Panther' Purchase. If you don't know who he is, that's OK, because there were so many like him up and down the England coast plying their trade that he and others like him can get lost in the crowd. Panther had 127 fights with an unremarkable record of 77-41-8 with one no contest. Panther never fought for the world title, was never world-rated, never fought for British, Commonwealth (Empire at the time) or European honors. The best he fought for was the South African (where he was originally from) lightweight and welterweight titles as well as the British Area Welsh welterweight title (twice) all unsuccessfully. However, with the game so competitive and popular back then, Panther actually competed in 37 scheduled 15 rounders. And again, I would say his numbers were quite average with the competition of the time. One needs to look at his photo on boxrec to see what these old time fighters went through to put food on the table. Man, he was a mess with scartissue over his eyes and a nasty cauliflower ear. Another area of his record I look at is his bout with Jack 'Kid' Berg, which states Panther was stopped on a severe eye cut. Not a nick, but a severe eye cut. How long would a fighter today be out of action? Well, he was back in the ring 11 days later, then had another bout and finally a 4th bout in less than 2 months, which was stopped on another cut - probably the same cut that never had a chance to heal. A rough game back then.

 

Anyone mention Battling Nelson?

Started his pro career at 14, cuz why not?

Went 40 rounds against Ad Wolgast, went 21 and 17 and 42 rounds against Joe Gans, 18 and 20 rounds against Jimmy Britt... 106 fights.

Lost everything in the crash and spiraled into severe pugilistica dementia.

 

Hi Seamus.
Good call, remember seeing a photo of him the day after he was assaulted by 3 thugs on a railway station, he was wearing a 3 piece suit, shoes with no socks, his face had numerous plasters addorning it, plus what looked like multiple bruises, not sure how old he was, but he looked around 60ish, and the tough ole dude was in a fighting stance, whilst attending the Jeffries- Johnson fight, he stripped off and climbed into what he thought was a huge glass container of cold water to cool down, turned out to be lemonade ! yuk, his nemesis Wolgast also ended his days in a santouream.
Two very hard and tough individuals.
stay safe buddy, chat soon.
Mike.