Your thoughts on this 'Old Timer' bout?

Well, if no one else wants to kick this off, I'll give it a go.

The first thing I notice, is that there's plenty of infighting going on. No big surprise, as there of course was a lot of that "back in the day". I'm not saying, they weren't good at it... but I have to confess, that it's not really my cup of tea.

I'm not a big fan of the "one-punch-and-clinch" way of fighting, that we see here. I much prefer to watch someone like Louis with short, powerful hooks, thrown in combinations - where he doesn't fall into a clinch, from where he has to regroup. One lunging punch followed by the inevitable clinch, is not what I consider good boxing.

That being said, it's clear that there's some ability here. Especially Corbett shows good skills, imo. With excellent footwork and working behind a fine jab, he looks (dare I say it?) quite "modern". Also, he's not the one instigating the clinching, but tries his best to make a real boxing match of it. He looks like someone who could be time-machined (as is) forward to 2020, and not look completely out of place. I'm a bit impressed! With Fields, not so much.

 

I'm guessing Fields may not have fought a lot of southpaws. He likely had trouble figuring out how to fight Corbett and that possibly may be one of the reasons for his clinching. I'm just throwing that out there for discussion by someone who knows more about the difficulty of fighting southpaws, especially in an era when there weren't so many of them and there was little or no film to view. Corbett may be effective, as you suggest, but he sure looks awkward to me. That, too, may be because Fields didn't know how to fight him.

As far as I know, this is the only film of Corbett and the only decent film of Fields. There is home-movie-type footage of Fields losing his title to Young Jack Thompson, but it is a pretty poor example to make a judgment about either fighter. That film is the only one we have of Thompson. Fields lost that one too, although he had defeated Thompson in two prior matches. Boxrec shows Fields' record as 72-9-2. It's too bad we only have films of fights he lost by which to judge him, but that's the luck of the draw.

 

Pretty good fight. Corbett likes room to work angles and shoot his left hand, and he works it up and down. He lands some nice shots to the head and works the left uppercut to the body pretty well. Notice how often the southpaw moves to his own left to create angles for his left hand.

Today the story is to always keep your lead foot outside of his and throw your left. In those days it was considered, and I tend to agree, bad strategy to give up "inside " punching position. But you do see Corbett move both ways.

Fields is intent on bringing the fight to close quarters. I think he is the better puncher in close and that negates Corbett's best weapon, the left coming from odd angles. Corbett knows that, too, which is why he ties Fields up right away and then walks him back. He potshots him with a left on the way in, then grabs him and walks him.

I'm guessing that Corbett always fought that way.

 

I admit I haven't watched this in years. I'm going to watch it again and keep what you have said in mind.

 

Just uploaded.

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You do know that's a totally different Young Corbett?

Also I'm near certain it's fake.

 

Just watched a few minutes , but it seems the southpaw is the guy that wants to hit one time & clinch while the orthodox fighter is banging it out in the clinches-taking the fight to him.