Who hits hardest? Who had the fastest hands? Who had the better chin? I'll go Bob turns it around, after being battered by Floyd s faster hands. With Floyd s gloves making Ruby's pale skin look on fire, Bob produces a sudden punch from his memory of battles past, and drops his man down. Floyd s legs are doing the drunk man's dance, where Fitz shoots him again. He rises again but the ref has compassion and grabs Floyd in his arms. Fitz by ko 5.
Again I’m not saying it’s totally impossible but from what we know about the era they didn’t have a very high punch rate due to having to fight for such long distances. It was more about skill, timing, and intelligence. The footage we have matches that. He also went down against Corbett and showed a lower work rate that was standard for the era.
I don’t really see the logic that a fighter who throws about 10 punches per round would go to throwing 50 or so per round just because it’s scheduled a shorter distance. They didn’t operate like that.
Do you think that Fitzsimmons stopped the best HWs in the world within 5 rounds without throwing a lot of punches? Patterson also went down a lot of times, so what? He did have a low workrate in that fight but a lot of that had to do with Corbett's defensive tactics. Fitzsimmons knew it wouldn't be smart to try to knock out Corbett in first few rounds.
Yes. Compared to the punch rate of boxers in Patterson’s era. not against featherfisted 180 lbrs if I remember right. I just wouldn’t really be confident placing a 160 lbr who went down against a featherfisted 180 lbr against a fast hard hitting atg like Patterson.
You don't know that though, as you haven't seen any of Fitzsimmons short duration fights. Corbett wasn't featherfisted and he weighed as much as Patterson. Additional lbs didn't help Ruhlin, Sharkey and even Jeffries needed a lot of rounds to stop old Fitz.
Do you have any evidence at all to the contrary? Haven’t seen anything to suggest that. Yes Corbett was. He has all of 5 knockout wins on his record out of 20 or so fights. That’s considered featherfisted. The weight reference wasn’t in terms of advantage over Fitz, it was to show that even just a soft punching fighter lighter than Patterson was able to put him down. Can’t really use the Jeffries fights as examples given he got flattened in both. In the first fight, he went down 4 times. It wasn’t until he put electrical tape on his hands and cut Jeffries’ face to shreds as a result, that he made it difficult to he put down.
Have you read the reports of the second fight between Jeffries and Fitzsimmons? Fitzsimmons was utterly battering Jeffries, until (from what I can gather), he injured his hands, then got caught with a hard body punch, that left him open for a finish. In his post fight report George Siler stated Jeffries after the fight was the worst beaten a champion had been since the LPR days And he did it by slipping punches, countering and moving against Jeffires, in a performance Siler stated "Fitz in this battle proved beyond the shadow of doubt that he is the greatest Queensberry rule fighter than ever donned a mitt, and that the name, "The grand old man of the prize ring," rightfully belongs to him." Did I mention Fitz was 39 years old?
I repeat, it wasn’t until the second fight where Fitzsimmons had his hands wrapped with electrical tape that it was difficult for Fitz to be put down. When the fight was on the level Fitz went down 4 times and was demolished by the 11th.
My first impulse was to pick Fitz to stop Patterson by the mid rounds with his superior punching power. But this is one of those fights where anything could happen. Both had many fine performances against opponents of various sizes and styles (and those victories are mostly after their championship reigns.) I could easily see this fight resembling any of the Patterson-Johansson series. It would be a fight worth watching! I'll stick with my initial feeling but I wouldn't wager much one way or the other.
Plenty of reports from his different fights (the report of Corbett's fight isn't called the same way). He didn't have the style to knock out opponents, but I never saw people calling him featherfisted. KO% doesn't tell everything. Cool, weaker and smaller punchers than Foreman or Liston were able to put Ali down. What does it mean? Corbett fought nothing like Patterson. He did better in both fights than Patterson did against Liston. You have no proof that Fitzsimmons cheated.
Show me these reports that say Fitz is throwing near 50 punches per round then. Or any of the reports your referencing. Sounds like an excuse. Corbett didn’t have the style to knock out opponents yet Fitz still went down. Case closed. I call it feather fisted, you call it style. It’s the same thing. Corbett wasn’t a puncher at all in any sense. Ali went down early in his career. When he gained more experience he was very difficult to put down. Only Frazier managed to do it and he caught Ali on a bad night/ was one of the best punchers of all time. I don’t want to get into an argument about Muhammad Ali on this thread so just end that side bar here. Jeffries was nothing like Liston. At all. Nowhere near the work rate or skill level. There was a poll on a boxing Instagram page with about 50k followers on Jeffries vs Liston. The overwhelming majority chose Liston. It was so lopsided, about 80+% or more voted Liston. Boxrec, fight city, boxing hall of fame all attest to it. Just type in Jeffries vs FitzSimmons hand wraps on google and you’ll get plenty of results.
You quickly find that many widely circulated stories about early fights have no legit basis. It was certainly something I learned the hard way. So it's important to focus on next day reports. Jeffries inspected Fitzsimmons bandages on his hands before the fight, as atttested to in the next day reports in The San Francisco Call and San Francisco Chronicle.