James Corbett vs. James Braddock

"Being competitive with Farr is equitable to being competitive with a boxer from 40 years before, the guy who was the second heavyweight champion ever, yes. Before Lennox Lewis, Tommy Farr was the best HW boxer to come out of the UK, Fitzsimmons aside. I think a 6"1.5 200 lbs master boxer might be better than Corbett."

That depends entirely on how you perceive the elite boxers from the 1890s to the elite boxers from the 1930s. I personally don't think there's a significant difference in class, if at all, between the very best across eras and that's primarily due to how boxers who look good on film, as well as trainers and mentors close to the modern era perceived them from first-hand experiences.

For example; from film we can clearly see how modern Joe Gans and Sam Langford look compared to fighters from the 30s. In fact, Blackburn considered Louis to be an inferior version of Gans. Gans himself claimed that he learned his craft from Nonpareil Dempsey and Jack McAuliffe, both Sullivan-era technicians that predate Corbett;

1898-11-07 The Sun (Baltimore, MD) (page 8)
"I never had an instructor in boxing, but learned the game from observation. Of course, I learned considerable in my many fights. When I was almost seventeen years of age I took much interest in the game and used to study the movements of such great boxers as Jack Dempsey and Jack McAuliffe."

The fact that a big factor in Gans' scientific abilities come from learning from great fighters before him, indicate those fighters were great scientific boxers as well. Not to mention Gans apparently also used to follow Bob Fitzsimmons to learn his techniques, and Corbett's speed bewildered Bob by his own admission.
In the case of Dempsey; Corbett was able to hold him to a draw as a beginner. Dempsey was still able to hold his own well into a pretty stacked middleweight era despite having tuberculosis. Clearly, Corbett would have to be a freak talent himself of sorts to hold his own against the best middleweight technician of his own era as a rookie.

In the case of McAuliffe, we have someone who actually lived on to see Tunney and Louis. McAuliffe believed that Tunney and Corbett were equal with regard to science, but that Tunney's power was the only significant difference between them. It's not like McAuliffe was biased either; he ranked Tunney higher than Corbett.

And then there is Tunney, who you and I can both agree was a marvel and likely one of the most dangerous H2H light heavyweights the sport has ever seen. Tunney didn't just hold Jim to high regard when he met him that one time in 1925, he continued to marvel upon Corbett's speed, science and IQ. Tunney wrote an article saying that he believed that he and Corbett were equals with regard to scientific abilities, but that he still felt he would beat Jim due to being the superior puncher. That's not even counting the fact that Gene was adamant about Corbett's ability and speed being on par with, if not better than, Benny Leonard's. Loughran said that Corbett noticed things he was doing that his opponent's corner, as well as the audience, wouldn't notice.

Farr is good, very good in fact. He might be the most skilled 200 pounder Louis ever beat and I think was quite a few levels above Braddock as well. He had a very good jab, and was pretty competent everywhere else. However, he was certainly not on Tunney's level and all respectable observers who actually saw both Tunney AND Corbett, including Gene himself, thought they were on the same level. Being barely competitive with Farr is not evidence that he could compete with Corbett.

"I'm sure Corbett was a pioneer in the late 1800s but it's hard to quantify how effective he would 40 years after his time. Braddock is a reliable 190 lbs fighter who has pretty much all his bases covered, and that's enough to make him a favorite over Corbett."

Corbett isn't really a pioneer though, nothing he did was even remotely new to the sport. Pioneers were mostly during the 18th century imo. What made Corbett unique how flashy\clownish and fast he was on his feet and defensively, and there was likely not a heavyweight similar to him until Ali came around. He carried unique intangibles at heavyweight that would even be unique in Braddock's era.

I will respond to your video later tonight since there is a lot I want to address in it that I likely can't do in a singular post, I'm just at school for the moment. I did like your Baer video, though.

 

With regard to the video's contents:

Firstly, I don't think you can compare the way Braddock fought Baer and Louis to the way he would fight Loughran. Braddock never had any chance to compete with Loughran in the jabbing department which is why he never really bothered doing so. Loughran's use of excessive lateral movement also forces Braddock to look for much more awkward angles than the ones Louis and Baer offered him. Louis and Baer were also putting up the crappiest performances I've ever seen from them and what factored into making those performances bad didn't have much to do with Braddock's ability at all; Louis was wild and anxious, constantly swinging himself off balance which is what caused the knockdown; likely due to the magnitude of being in his first title fight with so much on the line if he lost as well as a few cold streaks of performances following Schmeling, Baer seemed indifferent until the end and Braddock still went life and death with him. Prime Loughran was just more technical and better at utilizing lateral movement than the versions of Louis and Baer that Braddock fought, as well as Farr.

Also, Braddock frequently waltzes in with his punches even after the Loughran fight, it's not an indication of improvement; the fact that it happened so much more frequently against Tommy was due to Loughran not giving him any other options. Many thought Braddock actually had a good chance to win the LHW title after Loughran bounced, I don't see when a significant technical improvement would take place? Are there any contemporary reports of them?
In the Loughran fight, he still throws his right hand the same way (wings his elbow back before throwing, as a result telegraphing it by doing it so painfully slow), he still has good check hook attempts as well as a few uppercut attempts seem pretty good but Loughran is too smart and frames them, he also still tries throwing jabs like at 4:04 of the below video.

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Braddock waltzes plenty, he throws a slow arm-punching swings at 1:21, 1:33, does the slow elbow thing at 2:48, waltzes in defencelessly with wild swings with bad footwork at 1:28, 1:30, 1:39, 1:42, 1:52, 3:12, 6:28. These aren't exactly rarities in a Braddock fight

Arm punches like in the roundhouse right swing in the following clip are quite frequent for Braddock when he significantly opens up;

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Braddock's feet and overall movement are still painfully slow in the examples you've shown, especially in the Baer footage example from 2:48-3:27. Everything Braddock does throughout that sequence is in slow motion. He lazily jabs at Baer while on the run, that 1-2 at 3:18 could've been at 0.75 speed and I wouldn't know. He has pretty slow handpseed as well, in pretty much every exchange I've seen from him. Also sloppy footwork as he often crosses his feet while exchanging like at 3:04 and 3:11, and those slow-mo exchanges between he and Baer at 5:04-5:13 was just pitiful. Baer really could've destroyed the lad if he genuinely committed himself.

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Probably Braddock's best performance, but still shows many of his flaws. Slow, lumbering feet, poor footwork, often off balance when throwing his right, very slow arm punches, At 7:02 and 7:07 Braddock throws left drives to the stomach that could be seen coming from a mile away.

I'm not saying Braddock is dog****, Braddock has strengths. He has a very solid jab, check-hook and uppercut that he often times them well. However, it seems like the times he really thrives are when his elite opponents are fighting dumb or don't really have significant outputs within the moment. The guy clearly had skills, I just don't think he was an elite fighter. Certainly not on the level of someone Gene Tunney attested was on his own

 

Was Braddock ever seen as the best in the world? Was he ever compared with Tunney and Benny Leonard? - Corbett was considered a smart boxer of his day in a time when Blackburn and Gans were fighting, we need more film but without much to go by I’ll still bet the farm on Jim here.

 

Braddock seems like someone Corbett would use as a reason why his era was better and why he’s the GOAT

 

I don’t understand what you mean. Here is footage of Corbett mocking around, if you pay attention you’ll see something uncommon and very useful.

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