Jack Sharkey vs. Young Stribling (Full fight now on youtube)...

To be fair to Sharkey Stribling was about as experienced as pros get. Stribling was a very efficient fighter and knew how to neutralize almost any style and was always in position to counter, so it was dangerous to get too aggressive with him, which is why Sharkey was cautious the whole fight, since this was pretty much a make or break fight for Sharkey.

Also, If I remember correctly Stribling had an injured left arm going into this fight, so he couldn’t use his jab like he normally would, and this is why he overrelied on clinching Sharkey.

 

I saw the version on YouTube before, and I was pretty impressed with Sharkey, I think that version was 10min or so and pretty poor quality though, I'll watch this when I have the time.

Beating a guy like Stribling to the punch, and out boxing him is no easy feet. Not an ATG, but a solid tricky fighter.

 

You don't have to appologize, I'm not even Sharkey fan When you move to Schmeling fights, then be careful!

I think he looks good in this fight, although I haven't seen this version before.

 

Sharkey is someone I've changed my opinion on a lot, from really not rating him, to rating him fairly highly. Inconsistent, but a very strong ledger of wins.

Mostly I just enjoy his odd style though.

 

I disagree on one point. I found this an interesting fight despite the frequent clinches. Stribling's nickname was "Willie the Clutch" because of his facility at clinching. He lived up to it in this one.

The first thing which stood out for me was that Sharkey, while a bit shorter, looked considerably heavier. On boxrec the weights are listed at 192 for Sharkey to 182 for Stribling. The second thing is despite being lighter, Stribling looked far the stronger man in the clinches and was always pushing Sharkey back or even throwing him around.

The film I watched on you tube was a complete 10 round version, running 33 minutes. I noticed the boxers and the referee were moving very fast and so began timing the rounds. They ran consistently about 2 minutes and 39 seconds which my calculator tells me is about 12% faster than correct. Improper speed is frequently a problem with older films. So the fighters were not as fast they looked on this film.

The fight looked very close to me. It was hard to tell, but Sharkey's jabs often seemed to fall short of the fast moving Stribling. The cleanest punches appeared to be Stribling's right leads, but I can't say the film was good enough to really tell how cleanly the punches were landing.

The ref and sole judge scored it 6-3-1 for Sharkey and he had a better view. I had it about even and wouldn't have thought giving it to Stribling or having it a draw would have been unfair. Both men showed skill, especially the smaller Stribling.