he rarely gets mentioned on lists of great champions and is almost forgotten about by the general public, needless to say he was a stud between the ropes, and based on what I’ve read about him he was one of the most violent men ever seen in the sport, does Billy “Violence Personified “ Papke get overlooked and Underrated by the vast majority?
I would imagine he is by quite a lot of people, he was very good in his era and you can see that on film, Papke does things you can see still used in modern boxing. A lot of the great guys from this era get passed over sometimes because their styles are being compared to modern boxers styles, and there is progression of things with time no doubt, but if the rules and factors change along with time then the difference may be even more pronounced and cause people to judge more harshly at first glance and thought. When considering the change in fighting factors like glove size fight length and the gameplans and adjustments needed to be made for those, its a different game and the fighters at the top are a representation of what sort of things are succeeding under the guidelines people fight under. Theres a reason the guys from this era knew what they were doing up close and were tough as hell, fighting 15 rounds is no joke, another 5,10 rounds added on with a guy mauling and draining your energy with small gloves on, you need to know what to do and how within the rules to survive and win. The biggest interest factor for me with very different generation matchups is what the ruleset is and how different era fighters would deal with that. Cause someone from right now vs someone from over 100 years ago, their boxing was very different, the things they would see from the other would most likely surprise both of them.
I haven't actually seen it happen. You get some guys watching a fight who say **** like x could beat both of them on the same night. Well Papke actually did it. And one of them had a win of Barbados Joe Walcott
