Bob Fitzsimmons vs Earnie Shavers

We don't know if it's one of his worst fights, because we don't have any other fights to view.

But winning a title doesn't necessarily mean anything either. Imagine if all we had of Arguello was against Olivares, if a we had of Spinks was against Mustafa, if all we had of Jones was against Ruiz, if all we had of Toney was against Nunn, if all we had of Ali was against Foreman, obviously I could go on and on.

I pick the other fights because clearly, if they're all we had, they would be insufficient to create any kind of picture. Same as those I've now added.

Nothing you could ever say on an anonymous forum would offend me. I just don't believe that anyone would be naive enough to assume the footage of Fitz vs Corbett is enough to paint a full picture.

Fitz isn't the only MW I'd pick over Shavers. Ernie was a helluva hitter, but he rarely landed those hits. Jones, Hopkins, Toney, Walker, Greb. I think they'd all do a job as well.

 

No, I just dislike this term. Last year we had one of the least skilled and most primitive HW "champions" in the division history. I'm sure that Wilder is much less impressive fighter than most top tier boxers from 1900s, but it doesn't mean that the era is bad now.

There always have been skilled and unskilled contenders, being "modern" has nothing to do with it.

 

When did I say the Corbett footage is enough to paint a full picture of Fitz? Did I not just say, that we of course would have a better picture of Fitz, if we had more footage - but that, unfortunately, the Corbett film is all we got? What is wrong with you?

 

I didn't say you said it was. I said I don't believe anyone is actually naive enough to do that.

It doesn't matter if the footage is all we have, there are many fight reports out there.

As I've said, when considering his abilities we have to consider more than just the scant remaining footage.

You don't need to be so emotionally invested in this, we're merely discussing how good a fighter was from over 100 years ago.

My view is you can't make that decision based purely on bits of footage from his fight with Corbett.

 

I don't think anyone here is crazy enough to form an opinion on Fitz, solely based on the rather poor footage against Corbett.

Everybody here on Classic is well aware of what he did both before and after Corbett. So the picture we have in our heads, regarding what kind of fighter Fitz was, naturally involves everything we know about him. And not just the sparse footage. I would have thought, this was obvious!

 

It's interesting you think that's so obvious, because when a previous poster said he thought Fitz would counter Shavers to death, you asked him to tell you which part of this sparse footage leads him to that conclusion.

 

Would you have felt better, if I had asked him what made him reach that conclusion - without mentioning anything about footage?

 

Yeah, I would.

 

Ok, then... let's for a moment not discuss, specifically, the footage.

Instead let me ask you this: With what you know about Fitz, you feel he would tear Shavers a new one - whereas I believe he would get ko'd! What do you think is the reason for such a divergence of opinion? How can we explain this?

 

Most fights have a divergence of opinion. Take last night for example.

At the end of round 4 Povetkin looked shot. Only a madman, at that point, would pick Povetkin to win by ko, yet that's exactly what happened.

There's no right or wrong answers here, it's a hypothetical situation that can never ever occur.

But I'm sure there's plenty of such fights where we could both watch the same footage and disagree over the outcome should they ever face each other.

So the short answer is, it's a subjective sport.