The ESB Fitzsimmons Project

on Thursday ill go through alot of the stuff. Maybe on Friday ill manage to get the boxing gym when its quieter and try it out

 

The real KO of Fitz vs Jeff is out there.

 

There was plenty of upper body movement and head movement before Johnson. See Jim Corbett.

Also, Johnson guard was low, he did not out fight well, and he was too stationary. Funny stuff, suzieq hates on Fitz, but gives Johnson a pass even though they shared many of the same tendencies.

Most heavyweights in any era have trouble consistantely blocking or evading good jabs, especially if the other guy has good speed, and good form.

Regarding Fortissimos, he had very fast hands ( so say the papers ) good counter punching skills, and off the charts power. Fitz didn't just try to land a good one, he tried to punch through his opponent, and really understood how to use leverage and where to hit.

The manual and photos are a fascinating display.

 

After reviewing this a little bit(and it is fascinating) I have come to the conclusion that Fitz mastered the Bareknuckle style of Boxing. I have no doubt Fitz was perhaps one of the best bareknuckler fighters who ever lived, and would have been hell for those past 1800s champions in head to Head matchups. However, when it comes to modern boxing...his style would need some serious revisements if he would want to compete against fellow ATGs in later eras. However you place him against any fighterp pre 1900 around his weight class, and he would probably come out the winner. His techniques were designed to replicate off the bareknuckle techniques.

 

Fitz appeared to take what past bareknucklers fought like...and replicate the movmements as well as designing his own new techniques. This makes him an early genius. Unfortentley, though a genius for his time...Fitz still didnt realize his style was still a good 30-40 years away from being nutured into modern boxing techniques that we still use today. Not his fault..Fitz did the best he could with the new style for his time. But there is a good reason trainers today in the gym do not teach stance/techhnique/defense/ (shown by fitz) anymore....


Why is it that the best master boxers in the division today(bernard Hopkins and James Toney) constantly refer to Archie Moore and Jersey Joe Walcott as the fighters on film they most try to emulate. How come Hopkins and Toney dont say "We try to emulate Bob Fitzsimmons and James Corbett"?

 

While it is true that modern fighters tend to emulate the best of the 40s and 50s a lot of great fighters claim to have emulated Bob Fitzsimmons:

Kid McCoy

Joe Gans

Gene Tunney

Kid Chocolate

There are probably more.

 

My plan is to go over the stuff Thursday practise some of it. Go to the gym on Friday evening and go over the more fundamental techniques in Shadow Boxing and film it. If i can get somebody too i might o over it with them showing how it was used etc...

Then hopefully ill have learnt abit more and be able to do the more advanced parts of it and go over it and film it and hopefully give a fairly accurate reprentastion of the style albeit nowhere near as good as Bob.

I would try to land my jab and then get out of range like Pastrano vs Johnson. Just jab to land put Fitz out of place for a second then get away before the counter stuff comes back.

Good points there

I owuld say the most important is the first. The rules etc.. have evolved for example larger gloves so fighters use these to their advantage by guarding their head. What would be the use of having these advantages but not using them. :huh

 

Is the ultimate aim of this project to get enough information on Fitzsimmons to reverse engineer him and make a clone?

 

good stuff. its hard just to even do his techniques for 5 minutes its so unorthodox.

Definitly people like Pastrano, Ali and even Ray Robinson would be hell for him

I say even SRR as his style wasnt a jabber and mover but it was similar in certain ways.

Definitly

No i think its just to show an accurate reprentasion of Fitz's style so people can understand it better and see the complexity and how it would play out in modern rulesets etc...

Unless CT is trying to manufacture himself or me into clones to prove it would work in modern day rulesets