Could Jim Corbett win a professional title today.

The OP is asking if,judged off the available footage ,Corbett could win a professional title today? He is not asking about a hypothetical, cloned version of Corbett.In my opinion Corbett's record does not qualify him for ATG status and there is no film extant that persuades me he should be accorded such . He looked good against palookas and novices and the media duly recorded his exploits as remarkable , and for his time they were.Today his vaunted skills would be seen as risible.

 

Which begs the question "When did boxing as we know it begin?". Who bridged the gap between Sullivan and Dempsey? I'm not disagreeing with your post, by the way, I'm just curious as to who developed the boxing techniques that we can see in the Dempsey or Louis eras?

Are we saying that basically anyone before 1915 couldn't box, or were at least completely rudimentary? I find this subject fascinating. I don't think the old timers are helped by the rickety old films, either, Mac!

 

Gee he must have been a terrible fighter, I suppose the world flyweight title holders would beat him to death in half a round, hell an amateur featherweight who is still waiting for his first fight would knock Corbett out...; I guess Lucas Browne's mother would beat him too, yep those old timers sure were soft and stupid eh mate ? Modern blokes are aooo much harder than those old timers, I guess it's all the cars, motor bikes... air conditioned homes and shops that makes us so much tougher than those old timer wimps. Just imagine how pathetically weak and soft and unskilled Viking warriors must have been.

Yep, we will take your word on it mate :hi:

 

One example is the Wolgast vs Nelson film, anyone saying they were devoid of skill must be watching a different film and those two were not highly regarded in the skills department compared to the Griffo's and Gans's and Ryan's etc.

 

A lot of people do seem to have reached this conclusion based on the available film, but a number of things that we know to be true contradict it.

It is inescapable that Corbett was exceptionally good at hitting, and not getting hit.

He pretty much seems to have been out boxing everybody.

Then there is the testimony of later fighters who sparred with him, such as Gene Tunney who most people here do seem to rate as a technician.

What this all adds up to, is that the people dismissing his chances are probably missing something important.

 

Those boxrec ratings are pretty zany after the top 8 or so. I wonder if any of the sanctioning bodies have either of them ranked top 50? Even then, I would bet that there are other up and coming, as of yet untested heavies who could beat them.

 

With a guy like Martin as one of the champions at heavyweight, sure. He could also win one at cruiser, and possibly light heavy if he can make the weight.

Corbett would be about 200 pounds today.

 

Let’s look at what some contemporary people said about Corbett, and just as importantly what they didn’t say.

I would guess that most people here would consider Gene Tunney to be in a different league in terms of technique, but observations by people who saw them both could be interesting.

Gene Tunney himself sparred with an older Corbett, and he said that he learned plenty, and even claimed that Corbett was cleverer than Benny Leonard.

He later wrote an article in which he speculated about how he would have done against other great heavyweights, and he compared Corbett to himself in terms of ring science, but said that he would have beaten him because he hit harder.

Another fighter who saw them both was Jack McAuliffe.

He ranked Tunney above Corbett, saying that he was second only to John L Sullivan among the great heavyweights.

His reason for ranking Tunney above Corbett was that while they were equal in ring science, Tunney gave and took a better punch.

What I find interesting is that nobody seems to have identified Gene Tunney as representing any sort of advance in boxing technique, as many revisionists argue that he did today.

What I also find interesting, is that those who rated Tunney over Corbett, seem to have done so based on his power and durability.

All this points to the conclusion that the available film does not do justice to Corbett.

 

This was a time when left jabs were seen as Greek Fire. Have you seen the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight?
They certainly weren't "soft and stupid." It is dumb, however, to state that their skills or defensive abilities are anywhere close to fighters today. I have said before, Sam Langford was the sole exception to the early 1900s. It wasn't until the '20s that boxers actually started fighting "modernly," and that didn't take full steam until the '30s.
:hi:
In addition, we are talking about a heavyweight who could have probably made LHW today, not featherweights. Do you realise your nonsense?

 

Then why did nobody observe this revolution in the 1920s?

Why did everybody lament feinting becoming a lost art, and say how disappointed they were with the current crop of fighters?

Even if most of them were delusional, there should have been somebody who was the voice of protest!

 

As far as I know it was being "observed." Why else would we see more scientific boxers evolve and appear (like the Gibbons brothers, Kid Chocolate, Canzoneri, etc.)? Feinting was becoming a lost art? Maybe it became harder to identify when people started throwing combinations and not one punch at a time. I think that it has been established that fighters from previous generations will always criticise the "current crop." Jack Johnson criticising Louis's skills, case in point. What did Johnson do better than Louis for him to criticise? Even his vaunted "defense" was not as good as Louis's because combinations were actually being thrown as opposed to one swing, tie-em-up classic Jack.

 

^ This.

Feinting decreased and combination punching increased because the game was changing. The old-timers' shock at the decline of feinting is actually consistent with the "evolution" argument.

 

So no, Corbett, while revolutionary for his time, would not have enough to win a title, even with the easiness of winning one compared to previous eras.

 

He's not even revolutionary, really. Corbett is pretty standard for his time. Textbook late-Victorian boxing stylist. Arguably even a throwback.