Let's Talk about Bob Fitzsimmons

I think Ruby Bob was a TRUE GREAT, and had the psycho-physical endowments to be great in any era. If he came along today and if environmental influences yielded a bit bigger-framed fighter, if he built up a little, and got the right hvwywt champ infront of him, he could still concievable win the big crown. But even if he didn't, there's no reason a fellow of his toughness, vitality, cunning, coordination, quickness and freak punch power wouldn't develope into a terror for fighters of his own size.

 

Bob Fitzsimmons is one of the most enjoyable fighters to learn about because whatever preconceptions you start with they will always get turned on their head.

It is hard to get your head round the fact that a supermiddleweight was so efective at finishing off fighters who would be classed as heavyweights today. Inevitably you start out skeptical and get drawn a bit closer to the position of Nat Fleischer than you expected.

What stands out above all, is that his anatomical knowledge and ability to capitalise on it in terms of boxing technique were perhaps unsurpased in the history of the sport. Whatever conclusions you reach about his era, his style, and how it compares to fighters from other eras you still see the absolute perfection of punching and finishing technique welded into his style.

 

Where do you come up with such a ridiculous assertion? Fitz was an absolute athletic freak of nature, possessing some of the very greatest power, lb. for lb., the ring has ever seen. Furthermore, he was noted as a youth champion runner and excellent rugby player. I am still not sure what the much-bandied-about word "athleticism" means, but this power he possessed was a natural, God-given talent, never outdone and rarely duplicated in the century that followed him. He regularly flattened opponents who outweighed him by 30 or more pounds well into his 40's and moving from middleweight to heavyweight. Not amount of workhorse tenacity could have achieved such.

 

Fitzsimmons does not realy fit neatly into his own era or any other.

He was in part self taught, and developed techniques and training methods that nobody else used.

Joe Gans got a job carrying Fitzsimmons spit bucket to learn from him.

Jim Jeffries and Gene Tunney both tried to emulate Fitzsimmons punching techniques.

 

Manual labour is a funny thing.

A manual labourer will not beat a weightlifter in a bench press contest but they develop subtle all round strength for performing awkward actions that you can never really replicate in the gym.

I was a refuse collector for two years before I took up weightlifting and I got a clear idea of the difference. When I gave up the bins and took up the weights I got stronger and bigger but perhaps lost some things.

 

His frame was one of the most impressive things about him, and the same would hold true if he came along in any era. I can't say the same for his skills though, unless we're considering if he'd been born into the modern era rather than whisked here in a time machine. If the former were true I expect he'd have been one hell of a force.

 

I didn't mean to snap, it's just that Fitz was something of a specimen, not in the eye test way (which is no way to judge a boxer), but in the functional way, in the way of the almost unequaled power he got on his punches. He and Langford are the two real amazing freaks of that era.

 

Watched ancient film of Fitz-Corbett
Wicked left hooks to body

by the way, I heard there was a book about on Peter Maher--be interesting to see what it says about his fight with Fitz where Wyatt Earp gave MAher the fight on a bogus foul

 

From Helston actually.