Bob Fitzsimmons vs Earnie Shavers

That there are people who can look at the Fitz footage vs Corbett - and actually conclude that Fitz is one of the "best and most horrifying fighters ever".

 

I'm sure you'd not say anything like that had Fitz was born in the 1950s, even if he'd fought the same way.

 

Why would you think that?

 

Because he'd have beaten the best fighters of his era, just like he actually did. Listen, Fitzsimmons wasn't an orthodox fighter and he created his own style that was never replicated before or since. You need to have exceptional physical gifts to make it work and Fitz was an athletic freak with tons of experience.

You could laugh how silly he looks, but he knew what to do and I wouldn't hesitate to pick him over a lot of fighters who looks "better". This man fought for over 30 years, am I supposed to believe that he was clueless on his life craft?

 

When you're considering the abilities of Fitzsimmons, do you base it solely on the remaining footage of his fight with Corbett, or do you consider fight reports of his prime bouts?

 

Ali, Jones and Hamed went some way to replicating his style to be fair.

Very few can get away with leaning back at the top level, but those who did, all are known are ATG fighters. It isn't something you'd teach, but clearly it worked.

 

No, of course he wasn't clueless. He was the best of his era, and he should get all the praise in the world for that - as we can ask no more of any boxers.

But that doesn't mean, he could give away 40+ lbs to a modern, hard-punching heavyweight like Shavers and dominate him.

 

Shavers isn't modern, he fought 40+ years ago.

 

I mean Jerry Quarry weighed less than 190 for the first 20 fights of his career and he sparked Shavers in 1.

Fitzsimmons was the same height of Quarry and the same reach. Am I supposed to believe that he's incapable of weighing 190-200?

 

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words - or translated to boxing: Even a small piece of footage, is worth more than a hundred articles. Take someone like Greb. We have all heard the stories and read the descriptions of his fights - and yet we're left guessing, what he actually looked like in the ring. To think if we had just one of his fights on film to study - imagine the kind of information that would give us!

Likewise, we have all read about Fitz - about his exceptional power, about how Gans idolized and studied him, that he mastered the "shift" and was a great trap-setter. Yes, we have all heard about that. Oh, yes... and also that he was a student of the human anatomy, and knew about special pressure points, where he would place his punches with surgical precision, in order to do the most damage (ROFL).

But the thing is, that unlike in Greb's case, we actually have footage of Fitz. Not a lot, and not in super quality - but good enough to give us a pretty good idea of how he boxed.

Based on what I've seen, I don't think he looks very good. If others think he looks phenomenal, so be it.

 

Really?

Do you believe any of what you just said?

Imagine if all we had of Ali was his fight with Shavers, would that paint a thousand words?

Imagine if all we had of Jones was the first fight with Griffin, would that paint a thousand words?

Imagine if all we had of Mayweather was a reduces frame rate 10 minute highlight of the first fight with Castillo where he's just 5 pounds north of one of the best performances in history, would that paint a thousand words?

You're better than this, I'm sure of it.

 

For me, "modern" (when it comes to boxing) began around late 30s/early 40s... where Louis, Pep and Robinson came on the scene. I don't really see any technical improvement from that, over the past 80 years or so. But if you want to classify Shavers as an oldtimer, that is of course up to you.

 

When I look at Gans, McFarland or Langford, I see no improvement.

 

But the footage we have of Fitz, is from his title-winning effort against Corbett - not from one of his worst fights (I'm not counting the Lang fight). Why are you picking some of the least impressive Ali/Jones/Mayweather performances to make your point?

Would we have a better picture of Fitz, if we had most of his fights on film to study? Of course we would, but unfortunately the Corbett footage is all we got. And I'll repeat, what I have already said: I don't think he looks impressive at all. Sorry if it offends you.

 

Well, then for you "modern" starts around the beginning of the 20th century, right?