Geniune question. I'm more familiar with Calzaghe but ive heard people say to this day that Driscoll is the best Welsh boxer ever. Is this laughable or is their an argument to be made?
Certainly not laughable. Very little film of Driscoll exists but when you read about him and look at his record, you can see what a magnificent Fighter he must have been. Jimmy Wilde is Wales' greatest Fighter.
Wilde is 100% the best boxer to come from Wales. Driscoll actually looks great on film and was revered in his day. His resume does appear a little thin compared to his reputation. He was also very sick for a number of years and still performing well. Freddie Welsh beat him head to head but he was also naturally larger. Welsh had better scalps on his record but was not as beloved or as stylish. I think Welsh probably deserves to be #2 on the list. I think Driscoll’s style was liked more and his reputation for his time was better, but Calzaghe may run him close given what he accomplished. I think perhaps they are so far apart in time and close enough in pure resume that it’s a hard call.
Driscoll was great for his era, but it was a different time. On the film I have seen of him, he's very clever but he isn't real aggressive and he mostly throws one punch at a time which is typical of a lot of fighters of his era. I don't see him doing particularly well against a skilled, aggressive puncher like Calzaghe. I'm assuming here that we are discounting the difference in weight here? That, of course, would be another factor weighing heavily (pun intended) in Calzaghe's favor. Again, fighting was different back then. Maybe if Driscoll were trained and conditioned in the present era or if Calzaghe were trained and conditioned in Driscoll's era my answer would be different. I don't know how to answer those questions. Too much speculation. All that said, I find watching the old films and the old fighters particularly enjoyable. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is Driscoll's tour of the United States in 1908-09. Driscoll fought Abe Attell in New York in a no-decision bout and was almost universally declared the winner by the newspapermen in attendance. At the time, Attell was thought to be the best featherweight ever by many boxing experts. So the claim by some in this thread that Driscoll's resume is weak is entirely untrue. This one fight says it all.
they'd be too busy watching that english public school boy game they're all so weirdly enamored with.
