Is there any good reason why I shouldn't rate bob fitzsimmons as the goat?

All I am saying is can you imagine a fighter today or even 50 years ago dominating multiple divisions with a stationary, low hands, lean back counterpunching for 1 punch body kayo style?

 

My top 10:

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Willie Pep
3. Henry Armstrong
4. Sam Langford
5. Roberto Duran
6. Ezzard Charles
7. Harry Greb
8. Joe Gans
9. Archie Moore
10. Benny Leonard

I don't see room for Fitzsimmons here, but he is not far from being in it.

 

Bob Fitzsimmons might well be the GOAT.

Unfortunately his surviving record is a bit of a partial specimine, that probably does not do him justice.

Somtimes you don't need all the bones to see that you have found the biggest animal in the ecosystem.

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Luf, I do not want to proselytize, but to intelligently answer this thread,it should be mandatory to read the opinion of the one man who watched RINGSIDE, Bob Fitzimmons,and all his successors up to and including Joe Louis . This man saw them ALL, and what he wrote about Bob Fitzimmons,
will shock you. The man's name was Edgar Lee Masters,a great American poet
and lover of heavyweight boxing history. His article is in a book called,
The Fireside Book of Boxing, by W.C. Heinz and Ward. An anthalogy of great
Boxing History. Read that article and understand who a prime Bob Fitzimmons
really was....Cheers.

 

Well if he beat 3 all time greats in different weight classes, that settles itatsch

Of Course we could say Fitz beat
Dempsey, Hall (ATG Middle), Choynski, Gardner (ATG Light Heavy) Corbett, Sharkey (ATG Heavy).

And since you want to compare film, could you please post a link to Ezzard Charles vs Donnie Fleeman so i compare how charles looks to Ancient Fitz in the Lang fight? I dont think anyone has ever reduced Charles Walcott to grainy film image for a valid comparison to make on the corbett film.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=wI...epage&q=edgar lee masters fitzsimmons&f=false

 

No, but other than Fitz, can you imagine any fighter from 100 years ago doing this?

I think you make a pretty compelling case for ranking Fitz as the GOAT right there. He is the only middleweight ever in the history of queensbury rules to do this. And there is no argument about this. In fact, he is pretty much also the only light heavyweight ever to win an undisputed heavyweight title, again this must count for something.

And by the way as for unorthodoxity and doing things wrong, Muhammed Ali is a great who did all these lean back, low hands and technically incorrect things, but he was still pretty succesful. There are plenty of other examples also.

 

I obtained my copy for $3.00 in a used bookstore. Of course you can always save your money and screen a copy first through an inter library loan. I can absolutely vouch for The Fireside Book, and there are plenty of others who share this literary pleasure here.

 

You tend to have a 40's/50's bias when it comes to fighters. I don't blame you too much, it could very well be argued as the peak of boxing.

I think Greb is too low, and Pep too high. By the way, how far off is Ali from making the list?

I'm intrigued in your reasoning as to what makes Joe Gans superior to somewhat like Fitzsimmons. Rarely see him rated that highly...

 

all you need to do is go to the film and see why fitz is very overrated. an all-time great, no doubt, but imo he loses to many other atgs around his weight. fitz holding titles at heavy, lh and middle sounds impressive and it is to a point but those were all "white" versions of titles and the lh title wasn't really much of a title at all back then. o'brien never defended it after beating fitz and no one held the title until almost 10 yrs later. look towards langford if you're talking about the GOAT.