Did Siki expose Carpentier as being mostly hype?

Except at this point in his career Papke was well past his best, rarely trained, and in fact only won one more fight for the rest of his career against a relative nobody. He had lost his last two fights, five of his last 7, and 7 of his last 11. One of those losses came to a guy who only a year earlier had been a lightweight. None of those four wins hed had in the previous two years had come against anyone noteworthy.

 

The obvious counter argument to this, would be to ask you to prove that the Levinsky fight and the Smith fight were fixed.

If they were not, then they are obviously wins that would force us to take him very seriously indeed.

The burden of proof would sit on the shoulders of those alleging that they were fixed.

 

Siki is a watchable guy. Not the most skilled, but aggressive.

Carpentier was a deluxe boxer type, who actually started out as a flyweight. Keeping tough chined / aggressive guys like Siki was a weakness of his. That's who Siki was.

I'd say Siki exposed Carpentier's lack of ability to hurt heavier and tougher fighters, forcing a guy who likes to box and making him fight back.

There is the talk of a fix and double-cross in this fight. Who knows for sure. By the way, the film has more than one copy. I have heard one ending shows Siki kicking Carpentier when he was down.

Carpentier's chin in the upper weights was not very good. Shhh...don't tell that to big time Jack Dempsey fans.

 

Have you seen Georges Carpentier vs. Billy Papke?

A bad cut ( round 17 ) sunk Carpentier in the 20 round affair. Who was in the lead prior to the cut?

 

1. I never said the Smith fight was fixed. I said there was biased, and incorrect officiating. It happens in that error but that fight certainly doesnt shine the greatest light on Carpentier. When you get brushed on the shoulder and collapse, rolling around on the canvas holding your head in your hands in what many ringside said was a horrible acting job, dont come to me and claim greatness.

2. The result of the Levinsky fight was called into question and many writers wrote openly about Levinsky selling his championship to Carpentier. Whether it actually was is no matter to me because the point stands: If Carpentier's greatness is based on beating a guy who showed up fat, with a double chin, a knee brace, and several no decision losses to better fighters than Carpentier, am I supposed to pretend Carpentier did something special by beating him?

3. The fact that Carpentier clearly participated in fights fixed in his favor: Siki was a disaster of a fix for Carpentier and Carpentier even admitted his involvement and knowledge of it, Townely was going down without even being hit, Klaus and Papke both returned to the US with stories of turning down offers to lose to Carpentier, etc. Then I dont need to speculate whether Carpentier was guilty of that. If the stench of a fix was on the Levinsky fight and was tied to a guy who took part in such affairs, then at the very least it casts doubt upon the result. Whether you choose to believe it matters little to me. The burden of proof for a fix may be on me, but the burden of proof for his greatness rests with those making such claims and that proof is razor thin at best and non existent at worst.

 

Of course Ive seen it. Papke was winning. He had dropped Carpentier and was beating his ass when Carpentier quit. The cut wasnt just happenstance, it happened as a result of the licking he was getting.

Its just like the Klaus fight. In fact they look very similar. Klaus was so much stronger and gave Carpentier such a brutal body beating that he started vomiting blood. Carpentier's manager Francois Descamps was so afraid that Klaus would do irreparable damage to Carpentier or kill him that he leapt into the ring in tears and stopped the fight.

 

Sounds eminently reasonable!

Shame on him if he hadn’t stopped it!

 

A key fight maybe but does it establish his greatness? Was Smith that great? No. Did Carpentier win in convincing fashion? No. In fact Carpentier had just been nailed and gone down. We all know a fight can change on one punch and by Carpentier's admission he was hurt by that punch and went down. Carpentier won that fight by rolling around on the canvas and holding his head in his hands as his manager argued to have Smith DQd. If that "key" fight and its result over a guy who was never more than a contender, somehow cements Carpentier's greatness then we can differ on what that word even means. I think its overused.

I dont think it was legit. I think it was fixed. I think there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence pointing to that. Even if it were legitimate it doesnt impress me. Levinsky had been refusing to defend his championship against the best guys the division had to offer, hed lost to several of them in ND fights, and he showed up for this one fat and out of condition. Carpentier beat the fat, old, out of shape 1920 version of Levinsky. Keep in mind that of Levinsky's roughly 250 bouts he failed to win nearly 100. Thats a staggering statistic for a HOFer. So keep that in mind and then remember that Carpentier was just ONE of those nearly ONE HUNDRED that either beat Levinsky or held him even. Did it take a great man to beat Levinsky? Because Bob McCallister, Bob Moha, One Round Davis, Tom McCarty, Carl Morris, Bill Brennan, Bartley Madden, and others all beat a better version of Levinsky than Carpentier ever had to face and did so without anyone contending the fight was fixed and never got HOF recognition for it either or had the word "great" attached to their name. There are club fighters out there with far better results than Carpentier ever got who will never get close to the HOF.

 

I agree, but to my point about the cultural difference over there, the press (in some quarters) pretended these fights were close. Especially in the case of the Klaus fight this simply was not true. Carpentier was manhandled in both fights. You mentioned contradictory press reports in one of your posts. Go back and read some of the copy written by French reporters on Carpentiers fights then watch them and tell me they jive with reality. Carpentier simply had to show up to get good press in some quarters. He could have been knocked out with the first punch of a fight and some of the journalists in France would have gushed over his bravery and plucky effort and might have even tried to contend he was winning the fight to that point. When he fought Klaus and Dempsey some of the press over there contended that his opponents were brutish half gorillas thats a handsome young gentleman should not be forced to fight. It was this impression of him, that he was somewhat more galant and brave than the rest of his boxing contemporaries because he was somehow from better stock (the son of a coal miner, LOL), that they often used to elevate him. "Yeah, these other boxers are getting their hands dirty too but they are all brutes, Carpentier is a gentleman so he gets more credit." Its crazy buts that my point, it was this cult of personality surrounding him that sold tickets.

 

You make a very persuasive case,and I agree Carpentier is overated, but let's not forget he was 18 when he fought Papke and Klaus. Papke might have been at the end of the line, but Klaus still had some juice.

 

I have always agreed mostly with your views on Carpentier, although i do not think him quite as bad as what you suggest. Still, do you not think that in some ways he is lost potential, given that he actually did lose his 3 best years to the war. 3 years had a noticeable effect on Ali, why wouldnt it have had the same effect on Carpentier? Maybe he is more of a what if than a never was?

 

I dont know. Its possible. I guess it depends on the competition he would have fought, when he fought them, and whether or not the fights were fought on even footing. I give the guy a lot of credit for two things 1. He was legitimately a big right hand puncher. Very big right hand for his size. No doubt. and 2. He was obviously very brave to face the guys he did when he faced them. You can throw in one more thing I have always said about him and give him a world of credit for: He is, in my opinion, easily the most influential and important figure in the development of boxings popularity and spread in Europe during the 20th century. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. That alone is why I give him a pass for getting into the HOF. He deserves to be in there because his contribution to the sport in Europe is literally immeasurable. I think the guy is incredibly overrated. I think there are literally dozens of guys from MW to HW who could beat the best version of Carpentier that ever did or ever would exist (because he never really grew as a fighter, hence my point about him being a one trick pony). But, there is absolutely no dispute from me that he was a monumentally important figure in the sport of boxing in Europe and by extension the United States because much like Mayweather used the DLH fight to leap frog into huge gates and paydays, Dempsey would have never had a million dollar gate without first appearing that massive stage with Carpentier. Carpentier was the genesis and lynchpin of that happening. Because of that boxing entered a golden era in the United States so that cult of personality that I always mention and criticize in regards to Carpentier's actual ability did pay dividends for the sport of boxing in the long run.

 

carpentier's career shows some scope for lost potential, but imo the film shows a guy who was a step below world class. I'm not comparing him to amir khans chin, but they are both guys who are vulnerable to smart aggression and can look great for stretches then make silly mistakes.

i have only commented on what i have seen, but a cut doesn't cause 3 minutes of film where he barely gets a punch in and turns his back and runs away. I acknowledged that tiredness could be a factor in that clip playing out the way it does, but he isn't eating those uppercuts because he is cut.

 

Tommy Loughran called him a great fighter but he may just have been inflating his win over an on the slide Carpentier.