Intellectual Dishonesty

It was a OLD guy. a 50 year old Jaco O' Brien. Greb may not look all that great in that clip because Greb was fooling around and he didnt want to hurt the old timer.

Dempsey didnt look all that great vs McAuliffe either though.

 

No thoughts of modern Robinson vs old style Basillio?

 

Well the styles have been about the same.

Corbett vs Jeffires or Fitz.

Marciano vs Walcott.

Of couse Robinson vs Balisio and Fullmer.

Caveman Joe Fraizer vs Ali.
I seen the first Robinson Basillo fight, I gave it to Carman, but for some odd reason, Robinson could not land that jab on Carman's head who was always moving, weaveing, ducking, slipping ete. Robinson's could not do a thing in that fight once Basillo got by the jab.

 

It is not dishonesty, but merely the human being only trying to make sense of a complicated situation.

Boxing has evolved so much over the last 150 years it is a completely different sport, but the reality is the sport was completely different say from 1890 to 1920; or 1920 to 1950 etc.

The reality is most of the best get to the top; but the problem is those who manage to spin their fame best tend to rate above their peers when perhaps they do not deserve it.

 

Good thread. Not sure about that last line though!

I tend to favor the fighters of the 40s over the rest and have been known to strongly criticize Janitor, Sweet Scientist, and others who tend to -in my opinion- unduly favor guys who have never been seen on film and who fought in the no decision/newspaper decision (read unorganized) period overwrought with undocumented blacksmiths who threw on a pair of gloves or guys who's last 5 fights were in Shady Smitty's Bar by the railroad tracks in Oregon. I consider boxing before it was legalized in New York (1920) to be essentially a different sport -smaller gloves, more rounds, no judges, no standing eight, neutral corner, no functional weight limits, etc.

However, when you consider the greats of the pioneers, Gans, Johnson, Corbett, Langford, Blackburn, Walcott, Jeffries, Fitz, et al. there are reasons to favor them, though not unduly. Here are a few:

1. They had less precedent. Pioneers are trailblazers. It's no coincidence that Blackburn fashioned one of the top three HWs who ever lived in Louis.

2. They were harder men from a harder era fighting what was really a harder version of the sport. Boxing is a hard man's sport and the more familiar you are with adversity in life, in the ring, or what have you, the more scar tissue calcifies, so to speak. Character. The biographies of the greats during the early part of the 1900s are studies in abuse, tragedy, and adversity.

3. They were more experienced. I believe that the more fights you have the better it is -you get more comfortable and relaxed in there because it gets that much more familiar... Leonard is one of the few exceptions I can think of who I count as great who had less than 50 fights and the only reason he is there is that he fought so many monsters. Pryor ain't there in my book.

I guess those are the primary reason for me...

 

I think that if we had good footage of Fitz in his prime we would see a lot of things we are not seeing from the present footage.

Dont forgett that Kid McCoy and Joe Gans carried this guys spit bucket just so they could learn off him.

 

...they learned off of him, and then expounded upon it. The Old Master Gans, you'd agree, was better technically than Fitz. I see this as the expected trajectory of virtually anything 'technical'.

Human beings get more efficient with time when performing learned tasks. Otherwise, we'd still be sewing our own clothes and churning butter with wood in the backyard.

 

I don't think looking at how a guy would do today, arriving via time machine, is the only question to ask (though it is a legitimate question).

I think the idea of greatness involves such factors as dominance (and dominability of opposition), native physical and psychological endowment (with consideration of how the fighter might have prospered in other times), sportsmanship and championhood (taking on qualified opposition and fighting in a clean manner), consistency, longevity, versatility and pitch of skills, conditioning, mental resourcefulness and discipline, ect.

I think one has to consider the conditions of the time. A hundred and ten years ago, with longer fights, more of ones training had to be given over to endurance (vs skill development). Small gloves would have made for painful body blows and, also, have made parrying much more difficult. There may be some rational, given the conditions of the time, for carrying the hands lower and parrying blows further away than is now customary.
Consider too that a modern fighter of the bounce-on-the-toes, spray-flurries-at-the-head-variety, might not be ideally suited to a finish fight with 5 oz. gloves.

I do suspect, though, that the 'time-machine' scenario would tend to hurt oldtimers (travelling to present) a bit more than moderns (travelling to the past).
Other scenarios -- such as how a fighter of such-and-such physical and mental qualities would have done, coming up at a different time -- are also valid.

As to the factor of film, and paucity there-of: well, we make due with what we have. I think it could be argued that, the less evidence there is, the more conservative one's evaluation should be.

 

True masters do subtle things that cant be seen readily on new quality film, let alone old grainy fragmented footage.

The reason a fighter might carry a master's bucket to learn from him is precisely because there are things to learn that even the most dedicated observer wouldn't realize were important watching from the second row back. There are things we cant even see up close until they are explained to us. There are things you dont get to understand until you've shared a ring with these men.

It's foolish when we speak of skills and technique like we can see it all. Men like Bob Fitzsimmons, Joe Gans, Ray Arcel, Eddie Futch, Jack Blackburn, Charley Burley et al. dedicated their lives to practicing, observing, discovering and trying to understand what worked, why it worked, learning by accident or by design. And even then there were things certain fighters did or didn't do that remained mysterious. Intangible qualities and unfathomable uniqueness.

Years of working it all out - through practice in real situations, not simply describing what we think we see on film. Years of being great or surrounded by greatness. Learning the craft beyond what will ever be featured in the textbook.

I dont have the credentials to really know anything. And I'm not convinced by anyone here either.