Corbett vs. Spinks and Byrd

Corbett was KO'd 3 times and his best win is Sullivan, whose record is more padded than gramma's cushions.

So being the smaller guy has become an advantage, now? Then let me postulate the "Lomachenko theory" in that Lomachenko would have obliterated all the heavy weights of that era because he was so small, fast and elusive, and that their peculiar susceptibility to fast, small, elusive fighters would have been a real problem.

Yeah, and if The Hulk was a DC character he'd have a brooding tragic storyline and even more powers that would let him beat Superman every time Facts.

Byrd is 215lb with a 45% KO record against far larger guys than Corbett ever fought. He IS a wrecking machine in comparison.

^ Conjecture, opinion and so forth.

 

That's never how they fought. All the bareknuckle manuals emphasize straight punching as what should generally be used. There were numerous different stance people used at various points, and a general evolution

Absolute rubbish, bareknuckle manuals included horizontal movement as part of the basics

That makes sense if you are stupid.

There's no continuity between modern and old bareknuckle, and there's no competition. The modern guys are basically amateurs or club fighters. The old bareknuckle champs were met royality etc. Comparing bareknuckle boxing of then to a time where it was much more prestigious is just dishonest.

 

Apparently as soon as you box without gloves you have to windmill and have no concept of movement or defence. Easy experiment, get Lomachenko and Linares to box without gloves. If they suddendly just stand there with no defence, or movement, throwing big swings we'll know unitas was right.

 

Your computer or cell phone seems to be autocorrecting "manual" to "manuel", for some reason.

Otherwise, good post.

 

Nah, I just have some odd spelling issues.

 

Luckily, I nevur mayke misteaks like that.

 

Some of these people live in a fantasy world set in the past. Anybody who knows anything about boxing can look at Corbett and see that his "technique" is about the same as two 13 year olds use while slap boxing. Chin up, leans back, turns his head when a punch comes his way, arm punches, etc. If, as some of these "historians" claim, boxing is thousands of years old, it seems that there was no progress through at least the time of Corbett. He shows no skills on video that aren't seen from untrained people who try to box.

Despite what some of these "historians" say, boxing is like football and basketball, it has progressed a lot since the time of Corbett. It's ridiculous to claim that a sport hasn't improved. If I went to a gym and the trainer told me to watch some boxer from 80 years ago to learn boxing, I'd tell him to watch it himself, I'm going to find a trainer who is smart enough to know what was known 80 years ago plus the new things that have been used in the last 80 years. A lot of the people who post here are stuck in the past.

 

It only has 300 years of traceable lineage. So 200 years of development.

Do you consider it more likely that there was no progress for 200 years, or that bareknuckle fights needed a different style?

 

Agreed, there's some evidence for older boxing, but it's really hard to say to what extent there was continuity, and if we're talking about a highly localised version, that's totally underground and fought between people without writing, how much developement are you going to get? If people make innovations in such a sport, they won't get passed on a lot of the time. Plus it seems to the extent it existed was in quite a different form with group fights between towns etc.

For the latter point I think one also has to point out this was no an overnight transition.

Supposedly Jack Broughton first brought in gloves for sparring, and over the course of the 18th to 19th century there were numerous rule changes, from fights with chokes, throwing people out of the the ring, and beating people until they submit, to the introduction of rounds, restrictions of the grappling allowed. Then there were gloved fights under the bareknuckle ruleset, as well as Queensberry rules. The gloves themselves varied, there were hard gloves and skin tight gloves, but the early gloves were far smaller, and expanded on a more recent time scale. And while the Queensberry rules officially barred grappling, it's still part of boxing, but the extent to which it is allowed has changed a lot, from the early days where they could still get away with throws, through to Jack Johnson, and continuing on to how it's done now. They also went from finnish fights (like with bareknuckle), to 20+rounders, to 15 rounders, and more recently 12 rounders

It's worth noting it's not entirely linear, under LPR etc. after a knockdown you had a 40second break, and then the start of a new round where they came up to scratch. So the standing over opponents was only really a feature of early gloved matches. Far from this preventing skill, this ruleset helped smalled skilled fighters, since they could outbox their opponent, and if they got overpowered they'd intentionally go down from a light hit, and slowly wear down their opponent.

While there are moments

 

What exactly do you mean by “give Byrd problems”? I don’t think Byrd would necessarily knock Corbett out early but I don’t see Corbett winning a single round in this one. Corbett’s style seems like it would be far less effective against a fundamentally sound (by modern standards) fighter with Byrd’s physical attributes. Those overly-exaggerated feints are if anything a liability against someone with a quick accurate jab, who defends with his guard instead of reaching to parry punches or leaning back. Byrd would easily defend against and counter Corbett’s sporadic, limited attacks. I think it would most likely be a boring fight that Byrd controls with his jab and completely dominates with basic fundamentals. Unless he gets bored and uncharacteristically feels like stepping on the gas, I guess. I don’t think Byrd would even need to use some of the unorthodox, reflex-based tactics that he used against much bigger men.

 

Better question: how many of the dozens of fighters who managed to crack Ring’s Top Ten in the 1990s or 2000s lose to Jim Corbett?

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_Heavyweight--1990s

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_Heavyweight--2000s

 

Byrd was a puncher at 160 or 168; whatever he moved up from.

Assuming that Corbett was a natural 180, and both are using smallish gloves, Byrd would probably have the power to KO Corbett, and then some.

 

Why do you think he was a puncher at middleweight?

He didn't KO 160Ib Gary Smith, who had fought at lower weights, and been KOed by numerous fighters before and since, and I don't see any KOs when he fought in the Olympics.

Plus Corbett was fine against the likes of Kid McCoy, and Joe Choynski, (not to mention Peter Jackson) so I don't see how being a puncher at 160 suggests Byrd would have the power to hurt him.

 

It's like this.

Byrd might have hit harder than Corbett or he might not, but he almost certainly did not hit harder than Choynski, Fitzsimmons, Jackson, Jeffries, or a disiapted Sullivan.

Byrd's power is a total non issue here.

What I am saying is that fighters who are accustomed to being the defensive fighter in an argument, often struggle when they are forced to act as the offensive fighter.

We have seen this enough times.

Byrd fought at 175lbs at the age of 37.

I am going to guess that he was not much more than 190 in the ring on that date.

Byrd was basically just a Corbett sized fighter who lifted weights.

No he would not have been a wrecking machine in any era.