Fitzsimmons Against Todays Heavys

But more orthodox in his time than today.

It's unreasonable to expect Fitzsimmons to walk into modern boxing and beat any top contender with his primitive style. He'd get battered by people like Edison Miranda. As raw and crude as he is, he is a modern fighter and under modern rules, would also school Fitzsimmons. Someone like Mayorga or Ponce De Leon is more suited to modern boxing than a technical genius from the 1800's.

Fitzsimmons has as much chance as some guy in a bar who hits ridiculously hard and can take a punch.

Pavlik, Abragam, Calzaghe, Kessler, Froch, Dawson, Johnson, Tarver, Hopkins, Wright, Maccarinelli, Haye, Cunningham, Klitschko, Peter, Toney, Povetkin and many more, smack the **** out of him.

He wouldn't be a more than an average journeyman under modern rules.

 

You could always ask how modern fighters would do under his rules.

Not as well as Fitz would do unter modern rules I can asure you.

Fitz had a timeless skill set. If I had to sum up his style in one word I would say he was not a boxer or slugger but a "pressure pointer" or "finisher".

This was a guy who obsesed about pressure points and found inventive ways to exploit them.

 

He punched a lion?

 

Gene Tunney as well, from some of the material I've read that he wrote.

How did Fitz manage it?

 

They'd probably do poorly too. Although a fighter of Fitzsimmons' calibre in modern boxing, say Roy Jones, would have an advantage due to the superior conditioning.

 

It is worth noting firstly that Gene Tunney drew on Fitz extensivley when developing his punching technique so the paralel is a valid one.

Fitz devoted his life to studying the pressure points of the human body, perhaps moreso than any other martial artist in history. He built his style around that body of knowledge and not vice versa.

He probably took a lot of what he learned to the grave with him though fighters like Joe Gans were happy to carry his spit bucket to learn from him.

 

Bob Fitzsimmons was far better conditioned than any modern heavyweight.

This is a guy who ran 14 miles in the morning after ridng 15 miles on a bicycle, then sparred in the evenings.

Why dont you try asking Sam Peter to do that?

 

Roy Jones is an interesting case in point though.

He is a fighter who has built his style round his reflexes and it is as alien to what we see in most fighters today as it would be to fighters from the Fitz era.

Now for my money Fitz also had a style alien to his era and Corbett too.

 

I think the whole Gans-Fitz thing is blown out of proportions. Gans might have learned a thing or two from what he saw, but hardly that much. I don't see much similarity in styles. Besides, Fitz was exhibiting in Maryland and D.C. only a couple of times, for a short while. Gans couldn't afford following Fitz around early in his career, and when he could finally afford it, he was himself a master already.

 

Gans like Tunney did not coppy Fitz's actual style. He studied his punching technique and adapted it for his own style.

He was verry specific on the point that he took the job to learn from Fitz.

 

He could learn which punching technique exactly, from Fitz?

 

Senya,

You have to read Fitz's manual that Cross_Trainer for yourself, then judge. It is the boxing equivalent to Sun Tzu, the art of war.

Remember Fitz was a pupil of the legendary Jim Mace. Fitz not only struck with speed and power, he seemed to drive his shots through his target.

While I could be reaching a bit, I do thick Fitz knew some stuff that boxing has lost.

 

I'm asking somebody who has read it, which punches exactly Fitz stood out with?

 

Its not so much a matter of which punches he stood out with as where he put them.

Fitz played the human body like a physiotherapist.

 

It was not one punch per say, rather it was how developed his body to deliver it. Fitz felt the key muscles were in the shoulder, back and hips. The bicep did not do much for boxing. Fitz developed whipcord like muscles in these areas. He could snap them out like a whip in one smooth motion with his famous shift punch. Fitz also said leverage on a punch is important.

You have to read it for yourself. Its a quick read.

While reading it is one thing, seeing it in action live another, which is why Gans agreed to work free whenever Fitz was in his area.