Is Bob Fitzsimmons Top 5 P4P?

Didn't he beat Jack Dempsey for the Lineal title? Fitz also bettered Harris Martin who held the colored middle weight title.

Pound for pound is had to define. Who else besides Firzsimmons could give up over 30-40 pounds vs the best of his time and still win?

 

The original question is whether Fitz is top 5 p4p. I fail to see how exactly whether or not he was a world champion effects his standing as a top 5 p4p.

 

Anyone else have insight on his 2 round destruction of Creedon which was billed as a middleweight championship fight?

Again, not that this belt greatly effects his standing in this discussion.

 

Curiosity.

 

Seems a bit revisionist to me mate.

 

1. Creedon was no longer recognized the middleweight champion of Australia when he was beaten by Fitzsimmons.
The situation with Australian mw title is somewhat confusing.
The Sydney Referee quoted the Sporting Life (London, UK) report which said "Bob Fitzsimmons (Middleweight Champion of the World) and Dan Creedon (Middleweight Champion of Australia)", and "The Amateur", its (Referee's) boxing expert, didn't comment on that report as being incorrect, even though in pre-fight write-ups he wasn't calling Creedon the Australian mw champ. And that newspaper had previously published it's Melbourne correspondent "Counter" reporting the Duggan-McInerney bout "announced as for the middle-weight championship".
Boxrec lists "The Sportsman" newspaper (obviously the British one, not the Australian namesake which was started only in 1900) as the source of it being for the Australian mw championship.
So there were at least two newspapers who thought the Australian title had changed hands already, and two other writers still thinking it belonged to Creedon.

2. Most American writers didn't mention Creedon as the champion of anything in their reports about the Fitz bout, and were of the opinion that Bob was the world mw champion already and was defending his title, no source I've seen stated that he was going to win the world mw title if he defeated Creedon.

3. A lot of the same writers I mentioned in paragraph 2, plus the Sydney Referee's "The Amateur", referred to Jim Corbett as the hw champion of America only, even him beating Charley Mitchell earlier in 1894 didn't convince them he deserved the honors of being the champion of the world. Double standard.

4. McCoy's fight involved American, British, South African and Australian titles (one way or another) at the same time.

 

This,i would say more top 50 lmao

 

Yes, top 50… which includes the top 10 in which he actually belongs to anyone who has researched his career.

 

OK, sounds like you have researched this quite a bit more than me. I will go back to Pollack book later when I have time.

National Police Gazette Oct 13, 1894…

"The third and last contest of the fistic carnival organized by the Olympic Club was the great middleweight championship fight between Robert Fitzsimmons and Dan Creedon which took place to-night."

 

I am completely confused by Senya's argument, so i will give it a go.

Fitz rightly or wrongly lost the Australian title in 1893 on 12 February to Jim Hall. I think it is correct to consider this a loss, despite the strong suggestions of a fix, and we have to continue on the assumption of a loss.


Jim Hall defended the Australian middleweight title several times before losing a fight to Owen sullivan. According to this fight, it seems that it was a heavyweight fight, since Hall was expected to weigh by my calculations at 168 pounds. It is stated by boxrec to be a finish fight for the Australian heavyweight title. So i assume Sullivan was also a heavyweight for the fight.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/121778225?searchTerm=jim hall owen sullivan&searchLimits=

purely for interests sake, here is a letter which casts some doubt on the sullivan fight and suggests sullivan wasnt in jim's league.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/120317297?searchTerm=jim hall owen sullivan&searchLimits=

Sullivan ended up losing to heavyweight Harry Laing (who never lost another fight) and to Joe Choynski, who had already been beaten by Fitzsimmons. He doesnt seem to have defended any middleweight title or laid any claims to teh title
Hall's next billed Australian middleweight title fight was with Billy McCarthy which he appears to have lost by DQ. Does this mean the title changed hands? If it doesnt, then Fitz clearly unified by beating and knocking out Hall. If not, then i suppose you could technically argue that McCarthy was the Australian champion. I am not sure how much this would really mean though. His two fights before beating Hall were Knockout losses to Jack Dempsey and Bob Fitzsimmons!

I dont see how this argument has any kind of merit whatsoever, Senya.

What am i missing?

 

I don't see based on what Fitz could be considered top 5, top 10 or even top 20.

Fitz W-KO4 Jim Hall was at heavyweight, not at middleweight. If somebody argues that despite weighing above the limit it could be considered for middleweight title, they would have to admit by the same logic that Jack Dempsey had lost his middleweight title to George LaBlanche (who weighed 161 pounds vs Dempsey) previous to losing to Fitz and thus Fitz had won no mw title at all.

 

On accomplishments he is easily top 5.

On anything else he could be anywhere in the top 50.

 

He'd have a hard time to be ranked in heavyweight top 5, even less reason to be ranked top 5 P4P.

 

Never hw top 5 but the fact he's even discussed in hw rankings says it all really.