I see a lot of varying opinions about the skills of Gentleman Jim, so I thought I'd start a thread about it. Many people seem to think he was overrated or outdated. Others, like Gene Tunney, celebrated Corbett as one of the greatest tacticians in boxing history. What do you think? How good were Corbett's skills?
What I've seen on film of him ... he sucks. But on the other hand I think Tunney is a top shelf operator and maybe he saw stuff we didn't.
I can remember when I first started reading the Ring Magazine as a kid in the early sixties Corbett seemed to be revered. Now though well on here anyway he seems to be dismissed.
Tunney sparred pit a pat briefly with an in his 60's Corbett,asked afterwards if he learned anything he said ,"I learned plenty",thats rather different than naming him as,"one of the greatest technicians in boxing history!" What was Tunney going to say," his style is so outmoded now?" Gene Tunney & James J Corbett Sparring Film, New York 1925 - YouTube
In my mind, given that we have some footage of his fight vs Fitz, at least we can see the differences between the "theatrical" version of Corbett (vs Courtney, McCoy and Tunney) and the actual "fighting" version of Corbett (vs Fitz). As compared to the other footage. I would say Corbett looks quite a bit better in there against Fitz, and, for his time, he performs some pretty decent moves. It also seems that he could hit harder than he is generally given credit for. As far as I can glean from the old footage, though well inactive, he was pretty much having it his way against Fitz until he began to clearly tire after the 6th round - the round in which I think he had Fitz down and then tried his utmost to put Fitz completely out. In the context of his times, I think he warranted being viewed as a leading "scientific" boxer. And a good start to being "scientific" back in the day was to actually try and avoid being hit, rather than going punch for punch - the latter approach being viewed as somewhat of a badge of honor as opposed to, God forbid, actually trying to hit without being hit.
