Was Tommy Burns a better fighter than the credit that he’s given?

He was underratred for a long time, but I think a lot of people overrate him now.

He looks decent, though a bit hittable, on film, but his competition was pretty poor, atleast until he lost to Johnson.

 

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I've seen him rated top 100 P4P, as Canada's best heavyweight, a top 10 and top 20 HW, and one of the best SMWs ever. All of which I find preposterous.

Don't get me wrong, he was a good fighter in his era, and of course was heavyweight champ. He seems to have been in quite a few wars across his pretty lengthy title reign, but he won the title off the worst HW champ in history IMO. He also has a pretty thin résumé after Hart, Flynn & O'Brian.

I think he's fun to watch, due to his horrible defence and aggressive nature, and he doesn't seem to have any problems letting his hands go or keeping his feet under him. Doesn't seem like he'd do well vs elite heavyweights too. Too small for my liking.

You have to admire his balls and toughness though.

 

He won the title, he defended the title internationally, he defended the title 13 times, he did not draw the colour line, he left the sport healthy and financially sound, what is not to like.

To me he deserves all plaudits he gets, yes he got easily beat by Johnson, but that is hardly a surprise as 'lil Arthur' was quite good at this boxing game, plus Burns walked away from that bout with 30 thousand dollars as his purse, mega money for the day.

Small in height but big in achievements

 

He deserves to be admired for this quote alone much less following through on it.

"I will defend my title against all comers, none barred. By this I mean white, black, Mexican, Indian, or any other nationality. I propose to be the champion of the world, not the white, or the Canadian, or the American. If I am not the best man in the heavyweight division, I don't want the title."

 

Not really. His title run was very low quality, perhaps the worst of tenured champions with 5 more title defenses. 5'7 1/2 168 pound heavyweight? That would be short for a super middle weight..

Burns isn't overlooked today. You can argue that for his time, he had decent skills. After losing to Johnson, Burns in my opinion had plenty of time left. He could have moved to light heavyweight or fought one of the heavyweight contenders. He did neither.

I think he loses to every heavyweight champion before him ( Except for Hart ) and all after him ( Except for Braddock ) in a prime for prime match up.

 

In a pound for pound sense, he should get a lot more credit, but he was one of the weakest lineal heavyweight champions.

 

Poor?

He beat the American champion, The English Champion, the Irish champion, The Australian Champion, The lineal Champion, and he came unstuck fighting the coloured champion. In fact he didnt fight the Champions of most of those places but he also fourth the no 1 and 2 contenders. All in a 15 fight sequence over 2 years! To be honest, i would have to say that it is probably the most impressive championship reign (for a 2 year period) of any heavyweight champion ever. What more could he have done?

By the way, after Johnson, he was undefeated for 12 years, including winning the Commonwealth Championship and the Canadian Championship.

Imagine if Johnson wasnt such a champion himself or if he really did have jaundice or some other legitimate excuse in the Johnson fight and had actually beaten Johnson. Depending on future results, he may very well have added Langford, Ketchell, McVey and Jeanette all within a year! The reality is that when you fight the best fighters in the world, like he was doing, so often you eventually lose. Tyson, Liston, Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Lewis, Dempsey, Greb, Langford, Fitzsimmons, Robinson, eventually everyonoe comes unstuck or has an off night. Burns's record, is very underated. (not tat he is in the class of some of the fighters i listed).

 

I expected to see an exclamation mark when I started reading your post. I was sorely disappointed!

 

Burns looks very nice on film, but his resume is weak for HW champion.

 

He achieved more in his reign as HW champ than Mr Thong Corbett did. Easily.
But over looked? Who would put him in the top 30-50 All time HW's? Or top 100 for that matter.

 

Watch how you talk to Janitor!

 

He was the best light-heavyweight of his era, so good that he didn't bother with trying to win that title and went directly after the heavyweight title. I think he would have been competitive with McVey and Jeannette. Langford would have been tough for him.