Excellent 1958 Ring letter criticizing Fleischer & Dempsey

Appears on p.5 of the April 1958 issue. Written by long-time fight fan (most likely this man: http://www.gilbertsonfuneralhome.com/obituary/873488 ) fed up with their classicist biases and double standards.

Dear Mr. Fleischer:
I have been a follower of boxing since the second Dempsey-Tunney fight. Likewise I have been reading the “Ring” since that time. I have read much on the lives and careers of many of the old time fighters including Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, James J. Jeffries, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, John L. Sullivan, Stanley Ketchel, etc.
My big complaint with you and some of your writers is your obvious leaning towards the old time fighters as against modern fighters. Conditions in the old days were radically different, including rules and fighters in those days trained for endurance. I believe modern fighters, because of the accelerated pace at which they fight expend as much or more energy in a 10 or 15 round bout as the old timers did in 40 or 50 rounds.
I believe Jack Dempsey is doing neither himself nor boxing any good by writing articles as he did recently in a well known men’s magazine. The article to which I have reference was entitled “Floyd Patterson is a Paperweight Champ.” Is Dempsey so hard up for a buck that he has to resort to that kind of stuff to make money? I think he was doing a disservice to a great young fighter, a boy who may rewrite the record books before he hangs ‘em up. In my humble layman’s opinion, Patterson stands head and shoulders above anything in the heavyweight division and that includes the highly touted Eddie Machen. Floyd came in for a lot of criticism when he agreed to fight Peter Rademacher in Seattle. I feel that when a man is a professional fighter and receives an offer of $250,000 to defend his title, even if the opponents were to be Betty Grable, he would have to have rocks in his head not to accept such a payday and I’ll wager dollars to doughnuts that Jack Dempsey or any of your past champs would have accepted such an offer without hesitation. Dempsey remarked that Patterson was “cheapening the game by fighting an amateur” (Rademacher). Some of Jack’s opponents would not have stood too close inspection either, Billy Miske, dying of Bright’s disease, Tommy Gibbons, a blown up light heavy several years past his prime, Carpentier, also a light heavy and not an outstanding one at that, Firpo a big slow lumbering fellow with a terrific right hand and nothing else, Bill Brennan a fairly good fighter who was stopped by an illegal punch, the rabbit punch.
[…]
Best regards Nat

Gus Ottmar