Has Bob Fitzsimmons Got A Legit Claim As The Gretest Fighter Of All Time?

Still doesn't make him the GOAT.

BTW, is that you hiding in that tent in your avatar?

 

No
A lot of posters in the Classic section let romanticism nostalgia and a desire to believe in legends weigh in their decision where to rank fighters.

 

So you think Ola Afolabi should be rated higher than Fitz as an ATG?

I agree improvements have been made but thats irrelevant, Fitz was great in his own time, he helped make those innovations you're speaking of. Pavlik may very well beat him head to head but in his era Fitz was undoubtedly the greater fighter.

 

Hes top 10 ATG heavyweight easily, he was a beast, pasty and chicken legged but a beast even so

Sure hed get wasted but many fighters today but for his time he was a very bad mutha

 

Winning belts is one thing but establishing yourself as "the man" is another.

Did Jones ueoquivocaly establish himself as the top fighter in any weight class?

 

That could be it, or it could be that their knowledge of these men overshadows your own, therefore they've have come to different conclusions about them than you would.

 

Not necessarily, but I do think that for the most part, he beat the best available men in those classes, save for maybe one or two here and there. He was very dominant in the fashion that he defeated his foes, and for a while was thought of by many as the best in the world pound for pound. He certainly has my vote as best fighter of the 90's. In either case, I don't think that either Jones or Fitz are the greatest.

 

At Heavyweight?

 

We could argue that at light heavyweight, he was clearly the man when he held all the belts, lineage be damned.

 

Why?

Fitz seemed to beat better fighters in a quicker and more convincing manner.

From memory, didnt they fight a short exhibition close to primes. I wonder how that one went down (if my memory is correct).

 

Yes. Yes I remember that too. Fitz was sacked more or less.

 

Jim Corbett claimed (to Nat Fleischer) that he watched an exhibition between Jackson and Fitzsimmons and said that it was like a Professor giving a pupil a lesson.

Fleischer also claimed that Fitzsimmons told him that Peter Jackson was the greatest fighter that ever breathed and that he had purpousfully avoided him.

Of course against these factors we have to consider that Fitzsimmons would likley have met Jackson in his own prime when Jackson was on the slide.

 

Very interesting.

Jackson is such an interesting case. He was so highly rated by contemporaries, but his record doesnt really bear out the class and have the high string of contenders you would expect from such a well respected fighter. He doesnt really have many big name victims on his list. He also struggled life and death with Goddard, only drew with Corbett, was KOd by Bill Farnan etc. Yet so many of his time rated him the Greatest ever. The only thing i can think of is that his listed NDs and exhibitions were more like dominant decisions where he may have even carried his fighters, that there were many, many unreported fights and/or that there were a lot of very, very good fighters that he fought, who we simply cant appreciate their careers due to lost information and they were a lot better than their known record indicates. I really think that the career of Peter Jackson is the next fighter who i would like to see Pollacked, after the Marvin Hart book.

Looking solely at common results, Fitz seemed to get the business done that little bit quicker and more efficiently. In particular, the most telling common result is the Corbett one, where in the biggest fight of both careers (pretty much prime for prime against a prime for prime ATG) Fitz did the better of the two, as far as i can see.

 

Damn, I missed a chance to see what/who you are:?

Guess you'll have to go on being a mythical Randall Flagg-esque omnipotent force for now:rofl