More Ray Robinson’s prime footage. A single Harry Greb fight. A fight between the Old Mongoose and the Cincinnati Cobra. How do you even find those fights? Maybe in somebody’s attic that was built in the 1940s? Curious to know.
I've been hoping to find Liston vs. Folley, 1960, Denver. A match between contenders #1 and 2. It must've been televised but perhaps not.
The process is basically treasure hunting. I’ve never done it, and those who do probably don’t openly share their secrets, but I’d imagine one way to go about it would be about like this: 1) Determine, first (of course), if the fight you’re seeking was filmed. 2) Dig through all kinds of archives, accounts and records to find what you can about who filmed it — not the cameraman necessarily, but what company, entity or person put up the money to film the fight. 3) Dig through even more archives to figure out as much as you can about who was involved in that enterprise — who owned the company, who worked there, who did they deal with to show the fights (there would surely be a distributor who took fight films (and other content) to theaters around the country), maybe when and where it was shown (perhaps newspaper archives for ads). Basically everything one can find pertaining to the fight film. 4) Start tracking down those people and their descendants — ask if any old canisters of film are sitting in some basement or attic, if anyone inherited such (even if the films aren’t specified, you’d want to track them down, so going to courthouses to find estate records and copies of wills on file for probate), etc. 5) Hope you get lucky. I’m sure there are other ways if your interest is more general than a particular fight, but you’d have to narrow the search. I mean you could just pour through estate sales across the country large and small and hope you find a needle in a haystack. Of course there have been some collections that dealers or collectors were known to have had — even if the entire inventory might not be known — so one can reach out to their relatives and descendants or target the search to their estate sales … that sort of thing. It certainly takes determination and dedication (not to mention the resources to buy the films if you locate any) but there would certainly be an element of good fortune in tracking down or stumbling upon something of great value or a particular fight you might seek.
As a fellow Corrie Sanders enthusiast I find that regularly searching youtube for his more obscure fights sometimes coughs up nuggets. The problem is that they often get taken down as collateral damage from the nuking of the poster that put them up. I know the Bispo fight was out there a few years ago but I neglected to download it and its been gone since. On the plus side this popped up last year and seems set to stay. In case you haven't seen it: This content is protected
The NY Times covered the Liston-Folley fight. There is a UPI article the day of the Liston-Folley bout in the NY Times that says the fight will not be televised or broadcast (radio).
lol not even the MiB can find that one. Not even Sconiers himself knows. Luckily we can now watch this: This content is protected Wilder has a weakness vs fat men ...
I'm hoping Klompton will one day write a book about his life long pursuit of lost films. It would be a landmark book on an unexplored topic that would serve as a Bible on the subject.
This is all true, but one other thing is to keep an open mind. I suggest that your search should not just be directed at locating a film of one fight or films of one particular fighter, but of any fighter or fight which has not yet turned up. When you're making the effort to dig, you might as well keep an eye out for other gems as well. Otherwise, years from now you will be kicking yourself over missed opportunities. Looking for one fight or films of one fighter which were never captured or don't survive on film can lead to frustration. If you broaden your field, you'll be more apt to come up with other successes along the way that will make the effort worthwhile even if the precise film you are searching for doesn't turn up. This all will require that you educate yourself about what is and isn't out there, so you recognize an important find when you run into it. Along the way, you will also be learning more about the history of the sport as your search.
