Harry Wills biggest wins come pre-Dempsey, should Willard have fought him?

I don't. I understood the meanings in those contexts perfectly well.

Robert Lipsyte was using the term "journeyman boxer" about Frazier in the context of saying Frazier was more of a FIGHTER, and had middling boxing skills for a world champion.

D!ck Sadler called Foreman a "journeyman fighter" to praise his 24-0 protege for reaching a certain level of competence in overall ring craft but acknowledging he was still improving towards championship level.

"Journeyman" was perfectly meaningful in both contexts.
The use of the word was good.
To me.

I don't have a strong opinion on how good or how bad his performances were in 1924 or 1925. I've seen limited footage of the fights.
But Robert Edgren was one of the writers who wasn't impressed, if I remember rightly.

We could equally ask whether Wills' performance in 1915 was AS GOOD as Edgren was claiming.
That's the point.
We can't just throw away the negative reports as biased or exaggerated and then go and hold up the positive reports as being accurate .... especially if it's the very same writer !

Weinert was pretty good, yes.

 

okay, I think I understand what you are trying to say,

Lipsyte is using the term journeyman to modify boxer--in other words he is using a noun as an adjective to convey the negative connotations of the noun (ordinary, average, unexceptional) in regards to Frazier's boxing skill.

But I think most would agree that using "journeyman" as a noun to describe Frazier would be ridiculous as Frazier was probably the best fighter in the world at the time.

The problem here is that these examples of journeyman being used as an adjective only and cases of it being used as a noun are totally different.

For example, if I refer to Ted Williams as a journeyman outfielder meaning his skill as a defensive player was average or ordinary--okay.

If I simply refer to Ted Williams as a journeyman, it is laughable.

 

Yes, that was Robert Lipsyte's use of the term.
That was a more unusual use of it, but it did work.

More generally, as I've said before, journeyman doesn't have to be some narrow and exclusive class/level of boxer or fighter.

It can simply mean somewhere below the level of a special or outstanding talent. And that is subjective.
Or it can be a boxer who a boxer who is good and reliable. These are broad categories.
It doesn't have to EXCLUDE "contenders" or "gatekeepers", it can include them all.
It's also a relative term.

The point being, an outstanding and developed talent, a GOOD champion, should not lose to a "journeyman".
But I guess in times where there's no outstanding or special champions and contenders, the otherwise "journeyman" boxer can rise to the top.

If Ray Arcel did describe Harry Wills as a "journeyman" that is probably how he remembered him. A good fighter but one that didn't strike him as having the special talent or uncommon quality of a JacK Dempsey.
Rightly or wrongly.

 

"It is a relative term"

and becoming more relative all the time. That is what happens when a word is corrupted from its original and precise meaning.

"Lipsyte"

Used it as an adjective, but there are many terms he could have used just as well--ordinary for example. Or average.

"Sadler and Arcel"

These are boxing experts, not language experts. Who knows exactly what they meant, if they actually said what they are quoted as saying. Sadler I think might have been just trying to keep Foreman from getting too full of himself. It would certainly have been more accurate to say he was a prospect or a work in progress than a journeyman, unless he meant it in the adjective sense of referring to aspects of Foreman's game rather than his total stature as a fighter.

And journeyman is a disparaging term if applied to a top man.

*a "relative" term is useless. Conn couldn't beat Louis. Does that make Conn a journeyman? It is conceivable to me if Conn had gotten a shot at some of the lesser champions he would have become champion himself. Would that take him out of the journeyman class?

*just on Arcel--if it is a relative term, we don't really know what he meant by it if he used it, which I still think unlikely. We have better quotes supporting that he thought Dempsey would beat Wills. But we don't know if Arcel saw Wills in the teens or early twenties when he was at his peak.

Anyway, let's just agree to disagree.

 

Yes, and thus far you've done nothing to ascertain its original and precise meaning.
Find its earliest use in boxing and then you have some foundation to make such an argument.

And no, it's NOT "becoming more relative all the time".
I can dig up quotes from the 1940s, or maybe 1930s, that illustrate its use was always varied and relative in describing boxers.

And I suspect you're not a language expert either.
Because if you were you would have figured it all out by now or provided me with something of substance instead of just picking holes at how other people are using the term.

Instead of just insisting that such uses of the term is a corruption of language, how about proving your case ?

I certainly have no qualms about using Arcel and Sadler (quoted years ago when they were alive) as better sources of the use of journeyman in boxing, than referring to something concoted in the internet age by the internet generation.

Billy Conn was light-heavyweight champion of the world at a young age and considered quite a special talent, having risen from welter/middleweight just a few year earlier. He wasn't a full heavyweight.
I'd say journeyman is unlikely to have been used about him at that time.

I think Arcel said it, and was asked about Wills' chances against Dempsey.
I couldn't care less whether he was right and wrong.
I'm only saying it's not an "absurd" or "outrageous" word to use.

Yes, it is a relative term. Just like "good fighter" is a relative term.
It's a broad term.

:good

 

Let's just agree to disagree.

There is a much more interesting discussion about the meaning of the word courtesan taking place right now on a different board which has nothing to do with boxing.

I am more interested in learning the precise meaning of that term.

 

February 22, 1913, W.W. Naughton, San Francisco Examiner

Now [Bob] McAllister has the professional bee buzzing in his bonnet. The fellows who want to make a journeyman fighter of him have pointed out to him that there are no new worlds to conquer in the amateur line. They have impressed upon him that various experts have pronounced him a better man than any of the middles or light heavies boxing for a living today and they have urged upon him that he is neglecting his own interests by hesitating about embarking in a business which promises such good rewards.

 

For my own amusement, I just looked up definitions of boxing journeyman

boxrec

"A 'journeyman' is a boxer who has little or no chance of winning his fights, thus he is said to be 'along for the journey.' They are generally competent boxers who possess solid boxing skills and/or the ability to adsorb punishment. Often they were aspiring novices or even prospects, but were defeated and found to have limitations which relegated them to the role of journeymen."
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Google

"In boxing and mixed martial arts, a journeyman is a fighter who has adequate skills but is not of the caliber of a contender or gatekeeper."
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Sportslingo.com
definitions of common sports slang and jargon

"Journeyman"

"boxing--a journeyman is a boxer who has a respectable skill set and toughness, but is not considered a contender."
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Pick 'em.com

"Boxing terms"

"Journeyman--a skilled fighter while not necessarily a winning one. Used as opponents and to test up and coming fighters.
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English Encyclopedia

"In boxing a journeyman is a fighter who has adequate skill but is not of the caliber of a contender or gatekeeper."
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Even the intellectuals get into it

Diane & Lucas Ketelle

Forum: Qualitative Social Research--Vol 16, no. 3, art. 20--Sept. 2015

"Career journeyman (gym slang for a boxer who travels from town to town, making little to no money or just enough to get by and nearly always losing to his opponent.)

 

"You have done nothing to ascertain its original or precise meaning."

Original is going to be difficult to find.

Precise

"In boxing a journeyman is a fighter who has adequate skill but is not of the caliber of a contender or gatekeeper."
--------------------------------------------------------------

If anyone wants to understand it differently or use it differently, he has to understand that the most readers will understand it this way as this is the most accepted definition.

 

Fulton was scheduled to fight Willard on July 4, 1918, but the fight was canceled because promoter Col. J.C. Miller said public sentiment was opposed to a world heavyweight championship fight taking place during World War I.

while I'm sure many sports fans wanted the fight, it wasn't something that the world in general supported.

The public would have shot it down. The press would not have supported it, boxing, still struggling as a legal enterprise, didn't have the high ground and would have a difficult time defending itself.
You would not have a million dollar gate, here.

So i give a pass to Jess for not defending his title in 1917 and 1918. Fulton/Wills does not matter.

 

This is really good stuff, Senya. :good

I'll let others intepret for themselves the meaning of the term as used here, in 1913.

I'm fairly satisfied that it is not disparaging, and for me it further vindicates what I've been saying.