Did Joe Goddard get the better of his draw with Peter Jackson?

Reports at the time said that Goddard had the best of the fight. The 2 judges could not agree, and the referee (former Australian champion Professor William Miller) refused to pick a winner. In the modern day is seems clear that Goddard would have won on points, but at the time there was often a reluctance to pick a winner if both men were still game at the end of the limited rounds. Finish fights were seen as more legitimate than limited round fights.

There were plans for a fight to the finish between them, but this did not come to fruition as Jackson left for America the following month.

 

Its very hard to do an autopsy of these old close fights without an established scoring system and round for round summary like we have now. When people say they think someone won we are taking their word for it.

However concrete facts here are Peter Jackson got 2 knockdowns to Goddards 1 and it was only a 8 round fight. Another fact is Jacksons 2nd knockdown and Goddards came in the same round.

I know knockdowns weren't neccessarily scored then but looking at it through the modern lens that seems like it would be a difficult fight for Goddard to win on points if he did anything short of sweeping the non knockdown rounds. Also theres the question of how the double knockdown round would be scored. At first glance controversy makes sense here.

As Simon said people in olden times were very funny about having the belt change hands by decision.

 

I favored Jackson by 2 points on my card.

 

Most observers felt Goddard had the best of it. Evidently Jackson underestimated him and didn't bother training very hard. He had trouble containing Goddard's non-stop style and tired as the bout went on.

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