James J. Corbett & Gene Tunney Sparring

Printing it in colour with double the dpi sure makes a huge difference.

 

Awesome watching that vid thanks for posting :good

 

Corbett's jab is horribly telegraphed, although I suppose as a bare fist fighter you partly need that bodyweight behind it to protect the hand and wrist. Still it's take allot of speeding and timing to actually land it against anyone half competent. His right hand isn't half bad though I have to say and his in fighting is good.

 

He moves ****en' great for a guy pushing 60.

 

Strange, considering he is never thought of as an in fighter.

For mine, the jab is just out and out weird, i am not even sure it should be called a jab. It is almost like part jab, part hook and part clothesline.

One thing i will say, is that if Corbett was this nimble and quick on his feet at 60 (i havent done the maths is this really his age), then he must have been really something special (as he was reported to be) speed wise, when in his prime. I wonder whether he could get away with the strange jab because of his physical speed (much like Ali and Jones Jr could get away with unorthodox methods because of their physical advantages).

 

He has a straighter jab if you see nearer the end, it looks to me like it offer more support to a bare fisted punch but still allot of telegraphing

 

I too picked Dempsey to beat Corbett but I'm beginning to think it wouldn't be as easy as I originally thought it would be. Corbett was fast on his feet. The comparison to Benny Leonard may be on the money. There just isn't a lot of film on Corbett...as there wasn't with many of the fighters of his time so it's difficult to gauge how they would do in contests with later fighters. The one area where I think boxing did evolve a bit however is the punch delivery. If you look at the film clip, Corbett seems to telegraph his shots a little too much and some of his punches are the thrusts and swings that were common in the transition period of boxing from bareknuckles to gloves. As the equipment "evolved" so too did the economy of punch delivery. Form follows function after all right? As the hand wraps and gloves improved along with the mouth guards, a fighter could let his hands go more...especially the big boys. The Fencing posture changed to the more modern stances we see today...elbows in, chin down, weight more evenly distributed between the feet etc..I'm not saying either style was better...just different

 

Corbett athleticism, flexibility, hand speed , foot speed, and reflexes remain very under rated. Some of these traits rival and possibly exceed prime versions of Ali, Holmes, or Patterson.



One must watch Corbett spar with Kid McCoy for WWI bonds on a big screen to see his brilliance. This film was likely taken when Corbett was 52-53 years of age. Yet his quick hands, feints, and overall speed were very impressive. After you see this, one must imagine if he was this quick at age 50, how much faster was in when he was 25-35? I have seen past their prime clips of Ali and Holmes around 50, and they do not look as impressive.



Few know this, but Corbett if you count 4 round matches with news decisions he was 59-0-3 before he lost to Fitzsimmons. In the Fitz film which run slow ( I timed a round and 3 minutes was like 3 ½ minutes ) Corbett showed the rare ability to bend low and land a strait body shot, and then get out of the way before a counter, in addition to a lighting combination that put Fitz down.



While I think Corbett’s chin was good enough to take direct shots from Choynski and Jackson, I also think his ego got the best of him at times in the ring as he “ admired “ his work at bit too much while being confronted with danger. 50 years ago, many historians viewed Corbett as a top 10 all time heavyweight. I don’t think he’s top 10 or top 15 all time great today, but I do think much of his brilliance has been forgotten.

 

AS many times as I've seen this it continues to amaze me ...

 

I hate to be the one to say it, but that kind of fighting style wouldn't work at a world class level post 1940, and definitely not today. Corbett telegraphs everything.

 

He seems to be exaggerating things early on. But shows decent form later. His feints are pretty cool but overboard.

From a purely physical standpoint, I hope I can move anywhere near that well when I am 60. He really looks like he could still kick some ass.

 

i dont know, he corbett reminds me of my uncle when he got drunk