The effort to dethrone Jack Johnson brought about the search for the Great White Hope during his 1908-1915 reign and produced an array of talent that has rarely been matched in any other period. But, even they could not touch Johnson in his prime. Tracy Callis They were awfull. Bert Sugar
Callis is a respected historian, Sugar is something else but he is nearer the mark than Tracy this time IMO. Guys like Kaufman, Gunboat and Ross were not strictly "White Hopes" if, like me you understand it to mean men who were brought into boxing specifically to dethroan Johnson. Willard and McCarty were decent , I suppose.
You also got a post Johnson dividend from the white hopes campaign with fighters like Fred Fulton who only came to the top after he had been dethroned.
How good were the white hopes? The best ones did not get title shots. In my opinion they were Gunboat Smith, Luther McCarty ( died at age 21 ), and Jack Dillion. These men were not “ hopes “, they were only white. But how good were the white hopes in general? They were horrible! I have a 5 page article on how Goddard, Slavin, McCoy, Choynski, Sullivan, Jackson, Fitzsimmons, Corbett, Jeffries, Root, and Hart would have smashed the entire lot. The detail and descriptions of the fighters is very good. I highly recommend it. It is perhaps the best short boxing read I have read on the white hope era, and it was written around 1914 by a good writer. Anyone here who wants to read it has to PM me and include an email address, because the article is too long to re-post and in PDF format only. I will be here another hour, then gone for most of the weekend, so hurry up if you want it.
I had a laugh, when I read Mike DeLisa, in his book about Braddock, thank Bert Sugar for giving such rare piece of information as the name of Max Baer's dog
I don't remember. The point was, he's thanking everyone, Hank Kaplan for providing so much help, etc, then Bert Sugar for the name of Baer's dog.
I agree. What about Kid McCoy? Should he be considered a " white hope' ? McCoy did not lose a fight from 1904-1916. How much did he have left? I don't know , but based on results, he had something left, and he was HOF name guy. McCoy holds a 1908 win over Jim Stewart, who defeated both McCarty, Morris and Gunbaot Smith in 1912! McCoy also beat Jim Savage in 1911. Savage did well enough vs the other white hopes, Ko'ing Moran in 1911, beating Kubiak in 1913, and drawing with Ross in 1914.
That is exactly what I mean. Were there any good fighters who were a direct product of the white hope schools? Frank Morans origins can be traced back to the white hope campaign and I think Fred Fultons can as well.
Jim Coffey was quite good mixing well with Smith, Levinsky, Flynn, Morris, Brennan etc. The problem for the white hopes is that the the previous generation of fighters, likes of an aging Flynn handled most of them pretty well and for example Tony Ross boxed the ears off Palzar. Then a new wave of Dempsey, Brennan, Miske, Fulton swept over them and wiped them out. Weinert is one guy who appeared at the tail-end who could also box a bit, but was he a "White Hope"? I dunno.
Well, that list runs a quarter of a century from the early eighties well into the 20th century. Not exactly a fair comparision. I don't think most of the White Hopes were considered all that good, but the best prospect, McCarty, died at 21. Who would remember Sullivan, Corbett, Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, etc, if they had died at 21? And taking out the best fighter from an era could certainly distort it a great deal. What would the 1880's have been like without Sullivan? The 1895 to 1905 period without Jeffries? The 1920's without Dempsey? I think, therefore, that the big question mark of McCarty clouds the whole era and our judgement of it.
I do not think McCarty was the best of the white hopes. Gunboat Smith had the better resume by far. Maybe McCarty was the 2nd best white hope. Or perhaps it was Dillion. I digress as this is another thread. The feature article I have is from an author who saw many of the fighters in action from 1880's to 1914. He strongly indicates the “ white hopes “ from 1908-1914 would not be champ in any of the pervious eras. They would be cannon fodder to contenders of yesteryear. Even if there was no Sullivan, Corbett, Fitz, or Jeffires, the author says Goddard, Choynski, Jackson, Slavin, Mitchell, Sharkey, Ruhlin, Hart and Root were better than the “ White hopes “ I am probably missing a few names. Yes I am Maher, Schreck, Bruns and Kid McCoy and others are mentioned too. The author does mention Gunboat Smith as the best of the white hopes and says he would only be able to defeat Ruhlin and it a maybe in his opninion. The reason was styles and Speed. Smith could fight. Aside from the compare and contrast between the eras, the descriptions of styles of each fighter, and explanations as to how the matches might go vs the “ white hope “ crew is most impressive. I have decided to upload the article for the readers. Click on the below link to downlaod the article, and let me know what you think. Regards, [url]http://www.megaupload.com/?d=059WTNSA[/url]
