Best and worst boxing historians...

While I don't necessarily agree with Fleischer's picks, I do appreciate that his lists have led us to discuss boxers in 2007 who might otherwise be completely forgotten, and deserve to be remembered and considered.

 

I really don't see anything wrong with Nat's picks. He's pretty much seen them all and we haven't seen nearly what he's seen so who are we to crticize?

 

I met Nat Fliecher and spoke to him several times, I was suprised by some of his opinions but he saw many fighters when he was young and a true lover of boxing,He loved Johnson,Ketchel,McCoy,Langford, and some of the older fighters but not too many others saw the fighters that Nat saw, I did not agree with him but I respect his opinion because he saw era's that I did not and the newer fighters had to really be good to get a place over one of Nats hero's. Ray Arcel had a good opinion and so did Angelo Dundee, Burt Sugar is Ok but he is no more of an expert than anyone, The Kid Max Kellerman is a total moron and YES he knows names and dates but does not know boxing. With guys like Max, if it glitters its gold.Teddy Brenner MSG, matchmaker knew boxing...but a lot of these so called experts are not qualified

 

Fleischer provides a perspective as Janitor pointed out, but I would question if it is a good historical perspective. Of the sixty fighters rated from heavy to feather, by my count, fifty fought before 1930 and only ten after 1930. About half of his sixty peaked prior to 1910. Considering that boxing grew immeasurably more popular not only in the United States, but also around the world, I think this balance is hard to justify.

It is interesting that collecters of vintage fights generally violently disagree with Fleischer. Phil Berger remembers talking with Fleischer in the late sixties at a time Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Bob Foster, Emile Griffith, Carlos Ortiz, and Reuben Olivares were active. "None of todays fighters," Berger quoted Fleischer, "are equal to the great fighters of the past."
Berger commented that films of the old timers showed men who appeared ungainly and technically limited. Jim Jacobs told him of discussing Tony Canzoneri with Cus D'Amato, with Jacobs pulling out films of Conzoneri for D'Amato to view. Afterwards, D'Amato commented:
"You know, Jim. I don't remember him fighting this way. Over the past 40 years I've learned a great deal more about boxing than when I was watching Canzoneri. While I still admire the fury with which he fought, I realize that technically he didn't have the skills which I remembered him to have."

These quotes from Bert Sugar's Fight Game, Sept 2000 issue.

I would point out that boxing history differs from general history in that the best primary source, the films of the fights, are available to an interested viewer. No description of how Dempsey fought is as good as watching the films of him actually fighting.

 

Some opinions about Fleischer in September 2006 issue of CBZ journal.

 

Nice stuff.

 

The best way to look at Fleischer is not in terms of him being right or wrong. It is better simply to view him as a perspective.

It is as misguided to reject his lists out of hand as it is to accept them without question. What I prefer to do is look at them as a guide to which fighters I perhaps need to learn more about.

 

Great post.


You mentioned earlier than you saw footage of Dempsey and other old greats in the 50's, but at such a bad speed that not much could be concluded from it. And in the early 70's for the first time you saw them at a better speed, correct? Do you know when for the first time those old films were modified in speed?

 

I have a film called The History of Boxing, a pair of 25 minute shorts released to theatres, one from the early 1930's, the other the mid 1950's. The old films, going back to Gans and Nelson, are about three times the regular speed. Even Canzoneri and Ambers in 1935 got an apology from the narrator as the footage was filmed at a different speed than the modern projecters project at and so was about 3 times natural speed.
The Baer-Schmeling fight, though, was at natural speed.

It was about the sixties that Jim Jacobs really worked at bringing the old time fights down to natural speed. I first saw most of the old timers in the seventies, yes. And today, when you see a film of let's say Dempsey, the speed is much better and the film seems to have been cleaned up also. Preservation technique is much better today.

 

yup. I just wish i had a chance to see all the great fighters ringside though

 

Chris I see Schmeling has three inside the distance defeats on his record before he became Champ,one when he was 19 ,one when he was20 against larry Gains and one when he was 23 against Gypsy Daniels ,of the three Daniles fiight was the only one where he was at or near his prime ,I think you might be being a little harsh here.

 

Perhaps i am, but if you look at contenders or champions around his time, you will find that Sharkey, Baer (both Max & Buddy), Uzcudun, Carnera, Braddock, Young Stribling, Schaaf, Loughran all started as professionals around or before their 20's, they all lost some early on, but none of them lost by early knockout as often as Schmeling did; he is the only one out of 11 similar contenders to have that feat. So this is not something you can ignore.

Now of course he does have a solid chin because he did survive quite some landing combinations from Louis in their first fight (particularly the 5th round if i remember correct) but you can't overlook those early knockout losses as well as the fact that he went out in the first round against a peak Louis while several made it further.

 

Fair enough!