Al ask if a punch to the back of the head was fair or foul. And Dagget replie, No kidney or rabbit punchs, I going to call em if I do.
Can you give me a case from the fifties in which a fighter lost points or was disqualified for hitting to the back of the head?
Hell, I pretty sure, Tyson would have bite Holyfiled's ear off in the 50's, and they let it go. As said before they were very lax. Max Baer was backhanded MOST of his foes(OR the way it was told before the crash"The Baer ***** slap") and the most he got was a warning. The ref in ten rounds vs the Baer Schemling fight, only warn Baer like what ? 1 or 2 times, of couse Baer did more than that, shortly before the ko, Baer swing his arm back and forth with the German on the ropes, and no warning.
The most brutally effective dirty fighter was Dempsey, who could ko a Jack Sharkey with one beaut of a sneak left while the nut-case was bitching to the referee. Remember that Dempsey once gave lessons to Max Baer in a restaurant on fighting dirty, after the decision Max lost to Tommy Loughran.
BS. He elbowed Biggs, tried to hit Tubbs when he was on the floor and headbutted Williams on his way down. He hardly was desperate any of those times. Hell, there's an old clip of him continuing to batter an opponent even though the ref tries to pull him off. But he's like a rabid dog and pays the ref no mind.
Marciano, intentionally or not did a lot of things outside the boundaries of the sport. Elbows, heads, shoulders, hitting hips and thighs. Holyfield is not the cleanest fighter around uses a few of these himself. Not a champion but Golotas headbutting, biting and low blows are among the more blatant examples of dirty fighting
I think Sharkey should have remembered the golden rule and protected himself at all times. That blow was legal.
Rabbit punches were banned in 1941. The rabbit punch was defined as a blow to the back of the neck or the base of the skull, so it is not technically any blow to the back of the head, but is generally included.
Banned by whom? Who was the central authority? The New York State Athletic Commission was generally a law onto itself, and then there was the NBA and a whole slew of separate state athletic organizations. My question is serious. Who exactly banned rabbit punching? Dempsey1238 quoted a Pennsylvania referee, but what about New York state or California? What were their actual rules?
If dirty means fouls such as rabbit punching, kidney shots, low blows, elbows, head butts, biting and such, I'd say the following champions had their share of dirty moments: Dempsey Baer Marciano Liston Tyson Holyfield
Lets not forget the low blow Louis gave to Max Schemling in there first fight. A few rounds before Louis got ko.