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

To answer the original question; no.

Any reasoning I could drum up I would myself classify as trivial. That said, when talking GOAT sometimes trivial matter are all we have to break an otherwise equal comparison.

People relate Bob to Roy, which is fair, but also apples and oranges. This also highlights just how silly plopping a man into a time he doesn't belong is.

Do me a favor and look up Bob's weights for his MW and HW fights. Virtually no difference right? In fact sometimes Boxrec will report a weigher weight for a MW fight than what he weighed as a HW.

Now look at Roy's weights. In the divisions he is in at that time are they not? I will remind readers the old CW cap was 190. So to be a HW, automatically and without asking for a body to sanction a fight that isn't a catchweight nor both fighters make weight, one has to weigh above 190.

Roy learned to fight with the extra weight. Bob used his smaller size and learned to fight well against larger men. Let us be clear, not because of a style choice alone but rather with the influence of rules that did not exist and were not formalized in Bob Fitzsimmon's career.


Whether this makes Roy the sleight edge or Bob is your choice.

Likewise with the title themselves. No one really much goes to bat for the greatness of Corbett or Ruiz, but, Ruiz and RJJ are both single strappers where as Corbett and Bob's time is limited by a different kind of politics in colorline and global reach.


Being the best of their era is all they can really do. GOAT shouldn't be about who can make what logical fallacies up to catch the most like minds to sound off on their opinion. GOAT should be about which of these men who did prove they were the best during their time is your favorite. Bob fighting today is more fantasy than history and says nothing to his greatness but rather plenty about fans' imaginations.

 

My reason would be lack of meaningful competition at Middle and Lhy.

 

Yes, I stand by those reasons for including Fitz in the top 10 p4p fighters of all time. I think the GOAT is between SRR, Greb, Langford and Armstrong, though.

 

All have a solid case.. me personally I'm a Greb man.. never get tired of researching his life & career. Amazing man. All of them are.

 

Greb has the deepest win resume, by quite a margin.

If we only factored in Greb's win resume from fights contested in the 1910's, it's arguably the deepest in boxing history. Same if we only factored in his wins from the 1920's. Which is absurd.

It's all subjective and dependent on criteria, of course, and at one time or another I've had SRR, Greb, Langford and Armstrong at #1, before eventually settling (at least for the time being) on SRR, with Greb at #2.

SRR doesn't have the depth of win resume of Greb, but the consistent and utter dominance during his prime years leads me to believe he was just about even further removed from the field than Greb and therefore, imo, the greatest p4p boxer of all time. Anyone who ranks Greb as such will get no argument from me.

 

If there'd been a light heavy class thru out his career, Fitzsimmon's might well have had a Louis-like 'imperial' championship reign, while also at times being middle weight and heavyweight champ.

 

There are no safe and complete parameters to compare Old School boxers with those of the following years. Smaller gloves, rudimentary mouth guards, uncomfortable shoes with leather soles, larger rings, longer durations or even fights to finish, clinches allowed for a long time, a certain tolerance for dirty play etc. Hence different techniques, different tactics, different training.
If you look at his career, Fitz's is unique though:
1) the only middleweight to win the heavyweight world champion title;
2) world champion in three weight classes, two of which were above his;
3) several opponents killed, literally, others in danger of life. Capable of knocking out opponents with super-heavyweight dimensions. Demolished Jeffries' face. Maher knocked out in less than 100 seconds. Fitz did this and more. Unreal power for a middleweight.
4) for 15 years, no one could beat him (we know that with Sharkey he won and was wrongfully disqualified), except Jeffries, 12 years younger and with the size of a super-heavyweight.
5) world light-heavyweight champion after 40, beating Gardner, then defeating O'Brien again. Middleweight champion by defeating Non-Pareil Dempsey, virtually undefeated. Heavyweight champion by beating Corbett, undefeated.

Whatever criteria you use to judge Fitz's career, he is out of the ordinary. He may or may not be the GOAT pound for pound. The fact is that he is in the small circle of possible GOATs, together with Langford, Greb, Robinson and a very few others ...

 

Someone like Fitzsimmons should not get credit for winning at MW. If someone can effortlessly overpower a super HW when they cut down to MW or even WW they have found a loophole in the whole weight system which is based on the concept that heavier men are stronger. He was not a MW climbing to HW he was a HW(for his time) terrorizing MW.

This is not to even get into Fitzsimmons era and the reality Fitzsimmons was not a very good boxer. Hes actually got the best chance against modern fighters of any of his peers because of his power. But the most powerful HW can't be a P4P great.

 

1)Tommy Burns was a MW he just failed to win the MW title. Schreck and Jack Twin Sullivan who beat Burns at MW were HW claimants. Fitzs peer Dan Creedon won various versions of the MW and HW titles. Thats 5 MWs in that same era. Langford, RJJ and Toney all won HW belts even if it was taken away from Toney. Stribling was a former Featherweight and regional MW champ. Carpentier was a WW, MW, LHW and HW IBU champ. Ketchel only couldn't become HW champ because of Langford and Johnson before that he'd have had no problem doing it. This claim doesn't hold water if you look deep into it. MWs winning at HW is rare not impossible especially prior to WW1.
2)His real class was HW. And the only reason 3 weight class champs were rare back then was there were less of them.
3)Agreed. His Nuclear hands having no correlation with his weight is exactly why 1) and 2) don't matter though.
4)Three notable absences on his CV are Peter Jackson, Goddard and Bob Armstrong. But still his era wasn't very good. Fitzsimmons was born before the Queensbury rules were even written.

 

LHW debuted in 1897 but the would be top LHWs of this era all wanted to fight at MW or HW. The only thing keeping LHWs at LHW was Jeffries the undisputed champ not giving shots. Fitzsimmons only went to LHW once he'd lost to Jeffries twice. After Jeffries retirement all the guys who struggled to make MW bolted for HW and the division stopped existing for like 6 years with even fights within the LHW limit being often designated MW or HW. It was viewed like Bridgerweight. So Fitz was never going to have a Joe Louis run at LHW.