Because he has one of the most padded records in the history of the sport. He was a good fighter, not great, but consider that he has one of the highest KO tallies ever and never knocked out anyone of consequence. Consider also that despite his KO tally he was considered a relatively light puncher. He lost every one of his important fights. That tells you all you need to know. His parents were ex circus performers who left the circus to manage him. That pretty much sums up how he was promoted. He was billed as a boy wonder (and as a boy he was something of a phenom) but he fought in tons of tank towns against bums padding his record and was always protected until he got close to big money. When the big money came calling his dad would take the risk and Stribling would invariably lose. Then rinse and repeat. Back to a endless tank towns to build up a ridiculously long unbeaten streak with lots of KOs against has beens, never weres, and total unknowns. If you couldnt punch or fought overly defensive (Loughran, Rosenbloom, McTigue) he could be problematic due to his athleticism. But if you could punch, or were a good to great fighter you had nothing to worry about. A very interesting guy and worth looking into but not anywhere near as good as his win/loss record indicates.
He certainly had some quality wins and was quite durable, it seems. I don't care if his dad was Bozo the Clown, he faced many of the best men of his day and beat a few of them (as noted: Loughran, McTigue, Rosenbloom, Carnera on a fishy DQ, and several other fringe guys). His record may, indeed, have been padded but scattered among the tank-town wins are some credible victories over credible fellows like Jimmy Slattery, Jimmy Delaney, Battling Levinsky ... and he came within less than half a minute of going the distance with Max Schmelling in a heavyweight title fight. He also died in a motorcyle wreck before he turned 30, so he probably had a few good years and maybe another significant win or two left in him.
Stribling beat his chauffeur many times in tank towns to fatten up his resume.Klompton has his measure.
Extremely padded record but still a respectable fighter. Only one loss by stoppage in 291 recorded bouts. That is impressive. Durable boxer but a shade below world championship level. Legit world title champions and HW contenders Schmeling, Sharkey, Schaaf defeated him handily but he could lick some of the second tier guys. He was better than say a buck smith. If you removed all the cab drivers from his record reducing it's volume by a substantial margin he is not a hall of famer. (He is in it) I posted a link but guess it's not allowed.
That sums it up. He was a good but not great fighter. I gave him credit for his quality wins: Loughran was probably the best of the bunch. Rosenbloom was a good one too. But in the other thread about Loughran I questioned whether he had a tendency to fight down to opposition based on losses like those to Stribling and his gift decision over Roland Todd. His fights with McTigue should both be wins for him, and off the first one he should have been champion, but I dont consider McTigue a serious champion. Hes certainly one of the worst ever. So while that is an interesting set of circumstances where Strib was robbed of a championship its not really that great of a win because McTigue was not a great fighter. Remember, before he won a total gift over Siki he was considered a ham and egger himself. The Carnera fight was a fix (both were), we know that because Carnera's manager admitted it. The Battling Levinsky win came over a fat, flabby old Levinsky who had had just two fights in two years. Thats what I mean about him. If you look at his win loss ratio its impressive. Then if you look at his record and the details behind it it really falls apart.
I see him on the level of Scotty LeDoux who drew with a before his prime Spinx and a long after it Norton. Along the way Scott also had wins against legit top tenners (Middleton, etc.) but they were in his home town and disputed. A legit top ten fighter who beat decent fighters on off days and passed their primes, clearly beat by in their prime upper tiers and you could write that equally of Stribling or LeDoux.
I read once that Jim Corbett considered Stribling to be a master of feinting, for what that is worth.
As gaudy as his record is, how would it have looked if not for his accident? Can you imagine a 300-25 record? Similar to Len Wickwar's.
