This content is protected This fight was so sloppy that I am going to feel free to label it as a classic, at least not by my books. It was a laughable affair though, which was made it worth watching at all. Dundee was down 11 times during the whole fight. 7 were legitimate knockdowns. Three times while tied up to Steele. And one was a slip. Once, Steele hit Dundee with such a barrage that Dundee hung over the ropes like a dish rag. Overall, it was a frightful beating Steele gave Dundee. The fight, though wildly entertaining, was not too surprising. I also watched Dundee's third match with Teddy Yarosz and thought Dundee was pretty easy to manhandle, and he seemed prone to slips/knockdowns/being wrestled to the floor. At one point in that fight, Yarosz and he were tied up and Yarosz spun and flung him out through the ropes on the ring apron. It was pretty funny actually. Based on these two films, Dundee looks awful to me. When it comes to durability that is. He looked relatively easy to manhandle and floor. He could just not get his bearings against Steele. On the other hand, Steele was not a bad fighter. He had a good jab, he was fast, and he was strong. But he was too wild for my taste. I've watched the two Dundee fights on youtube, and all I could find on Steele (Lesnevich, Risko, Apostoli, and this). Just not fun to watch. I'm done with both fighters. Verdict: If you want a good laugh, watch this one. Otherwise, move on.
Looking his record up at boxrec, this was the only time in over 100 fights in which Dundee was stopped. He suffered a broken jaw in this fight. The left hook on the first knockdown might have done that. From there on Dundee was out on his feet and never able to steady himself. The referee should have stopped this fight in the first round. Thankfully, he did stop it in the third. Whatever else, Dundee shows a great deal of courage to keep getting up. Some see a fighter suffering a whole bunch of knockdowns as evidence of a weak jaw, but I think a guy with a weak jaw would probably stay down. What it really shows is heart. As for Steele, he is wild here but he was going for the KO against a helpless opponent more or less the whole fight, so I would withhold judgment a bit. I am somewhat surprised at Steele's relatively low KO percentage. He stopped 58 men in 140 fights. He certainly showed a big punch. One of the clearest and best films so far. Looked like it was shot in Hollywood. Perhaps a studio crew did come up to Seattle. *I recall reading an editorial by Nat Fleischer in which he criticized the 3 knockdown rule. His position was that many fighters when in trouble took a deliberate "strategic" knockdown to gain time to pull themselves together and break up their opponent's attack. He felt this was less likely to lead to severe injury than a man trying to stay on his feet. Hard to say if some of this going down by Dundee was for that reason. Accepting knockdowns even if not cleanly hit seems to have been part of general boxing tactics in the old days, unlike today when the referee will quickly pull the plug.
