Best and worst boxing historians...

IMO Sugar isn't that great. He exagerates stories, but he does tell a good one, and he tells cheesy little jokes. He's also very biased towards some fighters (Louis and Ali mainly) but neglects and ignores Marciano, Holmes, Hagler etc. I hate it when so called "experts" do that.

 

Just trying to piece it together. The reasoning behind it and trying to come up with it as someone who is there looking forward, instead of us, looking back.
Let me make this perfectly clear, I don't agree with these rankings. But trying to make an argument in their defense.

OK, its 1958. and I have witnessed many of the fights in person (lucky *******) that these guys have fought in.

1. Jack Johnson
Of all the fighters on the list, or any HW fighters that can be named prior to 1958, one could make an argument that Johnson had some of the most dominant fights of any heavyweight that can be named. Nat could feel that Johnson was prevented from obtaining the highest honors of being the champ, kind of being an uncrowned champ since 1903 or so. If this is the case, then his title reign is the same time period as Louis. And, unlike Louis, it is not interrupted by war years. In Johnson's last championship fight, he showied he was still a master of things. Nat must think that in overall knowledge and skill, Johnson was the top of the heap. He can make the argument that on Johnson's best night, there wasn't a heavyweight who could beat him. The best combination of power, skill, size that the ring had ever produced.

2. Jim Jeffries
The finest physical presence in ever in the heavyweight divison. It must have been amazing to see Jeffries stand in there and absorb
punishment in fights, then watch him land and take the other fighter out. He could be making the argument that, by 1958, there were no heavyweights that ever came on the scene that had the ability to take out Jeffries. There is still nothing below 15 rounds for a championship fighter, and in some ways, the fighter who can last the longest must account for something. Perhaps its the view that the fighters who could only go 15 were a notch below those who could fight 20 or 30. Kind of the way people can dog 12 round championship fights now. Jeffries was never beat in his prime and if not for the almost as big (but Nat's view smarter) Johnson, Jeffries is the best.

3. Bob Fitzsimmons
So with Jeffries and Johnson at number two, you have Fitzsimmons next. First, ignore the size issue. This is 1958 and 190lb Patterson is champ. There is the oveall feeling that anyone over 200lbs was a huge uncooridinated oaf. Fitzsimmons was a top ranked fighter for a dozen years. He has wins over your number 5 and did fairly well against your number 2. Many people would rate Fitz as a top smw to this day, and with champs only twenty pounds heavier, there is no reason that an extremely hard punching guy can't land and take out any heavyweight that isn't born with Jeffries style freak size and strength. If not for monster Jeffries, Fitz has a longer title reign. He was beaten by a great. Its hard to judge him now, because of the huge size of heavyweights since the fifties, but when your average heavy is under 200, Fitz becomes much more formadable at 170. Twenty pound difference, not 70lbs.

4. Jack Dempsey
Dempsey is ranked, but Dempsey to those who lived through him, was seen as an exciting, roaring heavyweight and kind of too popular (I know he was widely hated, I am thinking million dollar gates here) to really be the best that ever was. A Hollywood champ. In a head to head matchup, he could be seen as being too wild and full of rage to beat Johnson, not quite good enough to take out Jeffries who would be able to out last him, and who most people who saw both of them, agreed hit harder. Perhaps in a match up with Fitz, Nat feels as though Fitz would be able to out box him (Fitz did evade Corbett), evade his charges and take him out with a well timed shot and take out the brawling Dempsey.

5. Jim Corbett
How much of how great Corbett is lost due to **** poor film and any lack of
up close footage taken in the prime of Corbett's career? What if he really was as fast in person as reports of his time make him out to be? The way that he moved throughout the ring must have been an amazing thing to see, his innovations, compared to anyone of that time. The man who brought the science into modern day boxing. Obviously, Nat thinks that Johnson took it up a notch, and that Corbett was not as good as the two people ahead of him whom he lost too, plus Dempseys attack might have been too much for him to avoid. Other than that, maybe Corbett was quick enough and clever enough to beat anyone who came after him in the list. Kind of like how Tunney did it more recently, but more of a fighters fighter who was able to hang with Peter Jackson.

6. Joe Louis
This seems to be the one that upsets people the most. Why is Louis so low? Nat has to be coming from the perspective that Louis was born into a weak era of heavyweight fighters. He must think that Louis was not as ring savy as Johnson or Corbett, which may be true. Joe Louis was seen as having a freakishly hard punch, a true KO puncher, but what else? But if Corbett could evade him, he might do what Conn didn't. Maybe a the far superior rusher like Dempsey could do a better job than Godoy. Jeffries was a Max Bear with more heart, stamina and chin who came to fight. And if a hook that floored Louis came from the hard punching Fitz, its lights out Joe.

7. Sam Langford
One thing you must like about Nat, for someone born in his time period, he does put black fighters up in his top ten. Langfords fights would have been watched by Nat. Langford could be seen as a great fighter who just wasn't big enough to beat Jeffries, fast enough to catch Corbett, and not up to the same level as a Johnson in most ways. The best of the uncrowned heavyweights.

8. Gene Tunney
Like Corbett, only not as good.

9. Max Schemling
A good, smart fighter who has a win over Louis, and perhaps was the second best heavyweight of the "weak 1928-1958" era.

10.Rocky Marciano
A crowd pleasing, gutsy guy who just got finished with a pretty good four year championship run, with no real successor.

 

Bert Sugar is sort of boxing's Henny Youngman. If he concentrated on truly eveluating the greats of the past instead of being funny and telling old cliches and being funny, he might make more accurate and intelligent evaluations. In his list of great fighters, he rates Carlos Monzon way, way too low for instance. When on one of those Ringside programs, it's painfully obvious that he dosen't have the insight of the other experts, especially the ex-boxers themselves. He uses that hat and the cigar as comic cliches and his historical evaluations of great fights and great fighters leaves much to be desired in most cases.

 

No, you can't.

Based on their records,Schmeling having many early knockout losses, Marciano having the best KO % in history. Tunney unproven at HW, Louis the most proven HW of all time in terms of contenders faced and beating.

Why don't you just admit that it's ridiculous list that goes straight against their respective records and abilities on film. Someone who completely disregards ring records and trusts his own ability to remember a minutes of fights over 20+ years is a bad historian, it's that simple.

By the way, Fleischers hatred for Marciano was incredible. Again, bad judgement. Bad historian.

And Apolack, as knowlegdeable as he is, can only base that on accounts from that time instead of film like we can from other fighters.

The reason this is misleading is because they judged it in their own perspective. Which was a (transition) bareknuckle boxing form. Of course they're not gonna give a fighter **** when he can't throw a jab, no combinations etc. They didn't care because that wasn't part of the style yet. They will write that it's a great fighter, scoring a knockout with the right, etc etc.

 

Even if that is true:
1) It is no justification whatsoever to completely disregard their ring records, which he did.
2) Just because he has the style to beat one or two men, doesn't he should rank higher. There are plenty of people rating Frazier a bit higher than Foreman despite the fact that Frazier got annihilated by Foreman. It should be a "vs the field" matchup.

What do you mean? If i present you a list with Shannon Briggs in the top10, you can't say it is a bad list either because it is not yours?


As sombody who would try to be a good historian I cannot dismis it just because it runs counter to what the records suggest. I have to look at it as another source at my disposal.

Yes, which again shows b ias. Bad historic judgement. It's like an American historian claiming to have won the Vietnam war based on numbers and "liberal pussies", while the facts say otherwise.

Well, i've seen just too many inaccuracies when it comes to what they said and film of it. And by inaccuracies i don't mean little details, but big differences. Back then people didn't know that film of them in watchable version would become available so they wrote hero stories about each other; that was the only source 99,99% of the people would ever see anyway. The lucky others who saw them would have to base their judgement of a few minutes of watching two guys in a smokey cloud from a big distance fight.

 

To say the truth, I don't think true boxing historians care about such ratings or compile their own. To draw an analogy. Do professional American historians' compile ratings of US presidents? I don't think so. It just doesn't make sense to waste too much time about such things.

 

Valid point.

 

When i picked Vitali Klitschko over Schmeling i took into account both their ring records and how they looked on film. By looking at their ring records i saw that Schmeling suffered many early knockout defeats, Klitschko didn't. I also noticed that Schmeling barely faced skilled big men like Klitschko. So no, i didn't disregard the records. It was in fact you who did that when you were arguing about Klitschko's chin while Max was the suspect on this one. By the way, i'm not that confident about picking Klitschko but if i had to make a choice, i would pick him.

And how would you do that? Ali, Frazier and Foreman only lost to each other in their primes and beat all other contenders they faced. You won't get a better example of fighters sticking out over the rest than that.
It is similar to Langford, Jeannette and McVey in the 1900's-1910's, with the only difference that they were blatantly ducked for 7 years by the champion.


If you were talking about 70's contenders then i agree with you. I don't see why many people consider them to be more special than others and indeed their ring records do not suggest they are.

Fair enough. I just have the feeling that deep inside you know Fleischers list is bad but you don't want to admit it because he speaks highly of old timers.

It is great to see someone showing their moves, but this tells you very little about ones abilities. Even Chris Byrd looked to punch hard when he had a public workout in Germany. From looking at the gym of both fighters, there wouldn't be a single soul who picked Foreman over Moorer. If you only saw Ali spar in the 70's (similar to what we have with Greb) you would think he'd barely be a journeyman. The only thing that watching a fighter does is bring excitement because it usually is just that: exciting. But to make good judgement of how well he is is a lot harder when you're at that top level.

 

I would certainly be interested to hear what they have to say, but at the same time, take it with a grain of salt. Emmanuel Steward is one of the greatest trainers of the sport but he talks a lot of ****. Every fighter he trains is the greatest talent he ever saw, etc. Same for Angelo Dundee.
No human is impartial and when you spend all your time training someone it can be ever harder to remain that.

 

Polls of who were the best presidents by historians have been done commonly and often and actually are often quoted to "prove" a president good or bad. The earliest I am aware of is the Schlesinger poll of 1948, redone in 1962.
A very distinguished historican, Thomas A Bailey, wrote a book back in the sixties, "Presidential Greatness", in which he critiqued the historians' judgement, pointing out how political and regional biases shaped how they rated various presidents. Lincoln, for example, did better among Republicans and Midwesterners. Roosevelt did better among Democrats and Northeasterners. Washington and Jefferson did better among Southerners. It even mattered which University the historian graduated from. Graduates of Harvard rated presidential graduates of Harvard higher than historians who graduated from Princeton or Yale. Historians are subject to the same foibles as others. I would argue they just have more facts with which to back up their biases.
Interesting, a few years ago, C-Span, an American public service channel devoted to following day by day political activity, especially the Congress, asked their viewers to rate the presidents in an unscientific call-in poll. The historians they had in to comment admitted the results were not at all worse than the polls of the historians, and was a justifiable listing.
Most of these polls have been of historians but done by a newspaper or magazine, such as Life or the Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal.

 

This is an outstanding point and backed up by psychological research. Emotion is seen as a "primitive", biological part of the body.
i.e. see a pretty woman => urge to have sex, be in a dangerous situation=> get scared and run, etc. It is only later when one tries to use rational arguments to justify what one did, asif it was a well-considered choice. That's why so many people cheat on others even when beforehand they swore they would never do it, despise it, etc.
Or an other example, everyone knows it's stupid to act on what jealousy tells you to do and it often goes head-on against what would be the most logical (profitable) thing to do, yet most people cannot suppress these emotions. Usually it's the emotionally based judgement that is justified rationally afterwards, not the other way around (read: 'The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgement', Haidt).
Historians, trainers, fighters and ESB posters are subject to this just as much as other people.