How do you view Bob Fitszimmons' KO loss to Jim Hall?

I'm completely unsure to be honest and to me it's just one of those anomalous results like lewis losing to rahman etc where the great is reluctant to award the due credit.

From 1891 to about 1904 the guy was pretty much as dominant as it gets against those around his weight. I'm reluctant to call the loss "green" because of his age, he was about 26 or something like that if I remember rightly.

It's hard to imagine anyone from then beating fitz but considering his feint and counter style maybe he just mis judged a punch?

Either way whether it's lefitimately caught pre prime or a dive during prime it's still a negative because it's still a loss suffered.

Not one we can really judge him from this because, as I said, his best years are the 13 year stretch of domination from 91-04 and the only time he lost were to the much bigger jeffries in come from behind stoppages (throw the sharkey loss right out of the window).

I know that fixed fights have occured in boxing, but unless there's proof (even if just agreement from both sides; did hall ever back up ruby's story) I tend to believe the much simpler explanation which is he got caught and knocked out.

Occam's razor is my friend,

 

You can't trust a kiwi.

 

Yeah H2H he holds an advantage of superiority and not just numerically on paper (a la ali-norton)

It does show he can be knocked out if the right punch lands, but later in his career he was much more confident in his technique (not sure if technically sound is the right definition here) and could evade much easier or take punches he needed to land his own.

Damn right he's a brit, we're claiming the cornish hero as our own!

 

I can't recall but how many fights had he had at that point?

Bear in mind also that hall, choynski and fitz have co argument for being the 3 best lhw's before the lhw division was created. If you follow a lineage of the early american lhw belt I think it goes through these to hart who ultimately loses to root in what's considered the first lhw title fight.

Ignoring a lineage you can also consider that during this same timescale fitz knocked out both men and was knocking out hw's so he could be considered the best lhw in the world prior to the divisions creation.

As an interesting side note barbados joe smacked choynski around somehow also.

The point i'm making is that hall wasn't just some bum who got lucky. He was one of the top level fighters finding mw too small but hw too big. Had they had the right promoters it's feasible they could have had one of their fights sanctioned for the inaugral title as root did.

 

Hall was good, at the time Hall and Fitz were judged about equal. Hall is forgotten now but up till Maher schooled him in a "draw" he was serious top level contender at h/middle.

 

In the Ring With Bob Fitzsimmons addresses this bout. Weighing everything in the balance, I tend to believe it was fixed. However, a valid argument could be made either way. There were some Australian writers around the time of the bout and shortly thereafter who suggested that Fitz might have thrown it. Fitz didn't really talk much about it until after he came to America. Folks there were high on Hall, and Jim was advertising himself as a man who had KO'd Fitz. Bob then said that he had never actually lost a bout, for he threw the fight with Hall and would knock him out in order to prove it. Bob had easily KO'd Hall the first time in 5 rounds, before suffering the loss to Hall, and in their fight in the U.S., Bob drilled him in 4 in their rubber match.

 

One of the things about fixed fights is they are intended to appear as if they have not been fixed. It's certainly impossible to form much of an opinion on a fight that went unfilmed and took place in 1890. Lots of fights with rumours surrounding them may be completely legit, and it's likely that lots of fights that we take for granted as legit were in fact fixed !

 

Keep in mind the context. Bob and Hall sparred in semi-friendly 4-round exhibitions at least a couple times. Then they have a real fight, Bob drops him in the 2nd round and Hall is saved by the bell. Eventually, Hall retires during the 5th round. Bob is conceded to be the better fighter.

Over the next year, the younger Hall is still a highly touted prospect, and obtains many fights, whereas Fitz obtains none. Hall becomes known as the middleweight champion of Australia. A year after their fight, Hall is scheduled to go on a trip to America, but before this, he is also scheduled to fight Fitz again.

Some quotes from In the Ring With Bob Fitzsimmons:

The week before the Fitz-Hall rematch, the Referee gave its assessment of Fitzsimmons:

There is not perhaps in Australia a man more likely to try out our middleweight champion and test his true merits to the utmost than the young New Zealander, Bob Fitzsimmons. Scaling about 11st. [154 pounds], and every inch as hard as nails, he is a hard hitter, rarely misses when he lets go, and is the most agile man I ever saw in a ring. In appearance Fitz is a consumptive streak, but a judge can see that he is all bone and muscle, and in reality very strong. He stands nearly or quite as tall as the champion, and is the hardest man to get on to who ever came under my notice.

Bob had impressed some sportsmen and writers, but the Referee was acting as if it had no knowledge about the fact that Fitz had previously defeated Hall in early 1889. No one mentioned that prior fight.

The Referee also said, “Like Hall, Bob is a pupil of Jackson, and the champion heavyweight said, ere he left Australia on his all-conquering tour [in April 1888], that he should not be surprised to find Fitzsimmons champion when he returned.”

The battle was predicted to be “the hardest of the champion’s career so far” and would require Hall “to have every ounce up to defeat the dodgy Robert.”

Hall proceeds to knock out Fitz with a single right in the 4th round. Fitz was apparently out cold.

Perhaps his inability to secure fights after defeating Hall had demonstrated to Bob that a win over the favored/well liked fighter was not that lucrative after all. Maybe he was promised more fights if he did Hall’s people a favor. Possibly, he threw it for more money than what he claimed, or maybe he was simply in dire financial straits at that time, and $75 was a lot for a man who had not made very much in his bouts and exhibitions.

Fitzsimmons said that economics dictated his actions in throwing the fight. He said that he had made just 10 shillings from his 5th round victory over Hall, which was only about $2.50. He was not making much from the fight game. A San Francisco newspaper reporting Fitz’s claims in 1891 said,

Shortly afterward Hall, who seems to have had command of some little money and was willing to part with it for pugilistic glory, offered Bob $75 to let him lick him in six rounds. Fitz accepted the offer, for he was in dire need of money, but he says he had hard work keeping his end of the bargain, as Hall was so tired at the end of three rounds that Bob had to fairly throw himself out in the fourth to get the money.

Years later, Joe Goddard, a top heavyweight who saw the fight, corroborated Bob’s version.

There is support even in the local primary sources fairly soon after the bout that there was more than a hint of crookedness about this fight. Almost two weeks after the bout, the Sydney Bulletin said,

Jem Hall’s last “fight,” previous to his departure for the States, that with Fitzsimmons, proved another of those contests which knock spots off the anti-pugilist preachers in crying the death-knell of pugilism. No one thought Fitz had a ghost of a show with the clever middle-weight, but they at least expected a genuine set-to for their money. This they didn’t get. The usually cool Hall obviously “gammoned,” blowing like a grampus the while, until the fourth round, when Fitzsimmons received a feather-weight tap on the jaw, and fell all of a heap.

The Bulletin wasn’t buying it, feeling that Fitz had thrown the fight. And this was an article printed soon after the fight.

While in America in 1892, Fitzsimmons offered some further insight into his relationship with Hall. “Out in Australia I used to fight for $5, and glad to get the chance. Hall was a big card there and I used to follow the show, boxing him when the bill didn’t fill. Of course I was not allowed to let out or I would have got fired.” Perhaps this explains why a number of Fitz’s exhibition bouts were described as tame. His continued pay depended on his working with the more favored local opponents, the ones who filled the seats and brought in the money. Bob was just a strange looking foreigner, and not necessarily all that popular with the fans.

For whatever reason, the handsome and younger native Hall was seen as more marketable than the odd looking foreigner Fitzsimmons. After Bob had defeated Hall for very little money, he encountered a drought. Yet, Hall was set up with a number of fights and became middleweight champion, despite the fact that Fitz had defeated him. Maybe losing did not look all that bad to Bob.

Despite the loss, or perhaps because of it, Fitzsimmons was back in the ring again just eleven days after the Hall fight. Certainly, it seemed pretty quick for a man to be fighting again so soon after being badly knocked out, if he really was, as the initial Referee report would have led one to believe. The fact that he was boxing in a fight to the finish so soon afterwards is one indication that Bob probably was not legitimately concussed.

After defeating Starlight, the Referee said, “As for Fitzsimmons, he is simply a fool to throw away his reputation as he has been doing lately, and unless he is desirous of being known as champion faker of Australasia he had better fight square and clean, as I know he can if on the job. I tell both boys this, as I wish them well.”

A couple months later, in April 1890, the same newspaper called Fitzsimmons “the best middleweight boxer we have yet raised, and, I firmly believe, the best at the weight that lives…. He has not been able to get on many square fights here because all the boys were frightened of the New Zealander.” Certainly, this discounted the recent Hall loss and gave the impression that it was not on the square. Perhaps this also explains why Fitzsimmons did not fight for ten months after knocking out Hall in January 1889. No one would fight him. Perhaps needing the money, he might have agreed to throw the fight for the cash and the opportunity to obtain bouts and earn.

In August 1890, when discussing Hall’s victory over Fitz, the Referee again mentioned that it might not have been legitimate. Hall “eat Bob Fitzsimmons in three and a half rounds, but there was a strong flavor of crookedness about this last encounter.”

Interestingly enough, on August 25, 1890, Hall was in the process of beating up and finishing heavyweight Owen Sullivan, but was hit by a straight right that knocked him out in the 11th round. Making things even more intriguing is the fact that bookmaker and former Hall backer Joe Harris a year later claimed that Hall admitted to him that he threw the Sullivan fight for $1,000.

 

In May 1892, Fitz had said,

I only want to face Hall in a ring and then it will be proved conclusively who is the better man. He says that he licked me. Well, he didn’t, and what is more, he cannot. We have met four times. Three times I have made him quit and the fourth time I laid down. I have no desire to belittle Hall’s abilities. Far from it. On the contrary, I say that he is a very clever boxer, but he cannot take punishment.

Later that year, Fitz said that Hall “is clever, but lacks both heart and staying qualities. If I ever get a chance I will do him in four rounds.” That was an interesting prediction.

The Hall fight would not be for the middleweight championship, but would be fought at heavyweight. The 170-pound Hall refused to come down to the then middleweight limit of 158 pounds. Bob said that he was weighing 156 pounds, and intended to enter the ring at 160 or 165 pounds.

I am stronger than he is and can punch a bit harder. I will never give up the fight if it lasts a week. So far in a finish fight not a glove has touched my face. I don’t believe in taking blows. … When this match was made I wanted the winner to take everything, but Hall wanted $2,500 to go to the loser and I let him have it. This fight will be on the level too. There will be no splitting of the purse. … I say this because there has been talk of fixing the battle. There isn’t money enough to buy me off.

After Fitz knocked out Hall in the 4th round, later that evening, Fitz gave a speech, saying,

I have won the fight of my life. I can honestly say that it was the one ambition of my life to defeat Jas. Hall, and why? Simply because I could have the chance to show the American public that I told the truth when I told them that I laid down to him in Australia. It was a very bad mistake, I’ll admit, but when you take into consideration that I was only an amateur and knew nothing of reputation or its meaning, I think you will forgive me.

I assure you that I have wiped out the stain on my reputation tonight, and went out of my class simply to show the American public that I told the truth. Now, I suppose you will believe me.


Fitzsimmons had learned his lesson from his poor conduct in Australia. He said that a Hall backer had once approached him, offering that they divide the large purse evenly, regardless of outcome, but he rejected it. “I had played the sucker role once in my life, and it has taken me ever since to set myself right before the world. I determined that I would never again lay myself liable to criticism, and, therefore; refused.”