James J Corbett vs Carl Froch

You mean like when contrasting the revolutionary war to the gulf war ? For sure

 

He was the best of his era, but he was not an example of good technical practice for his era.

He was a sort of Roy Jones of his era.

 

Corbett dances around Froch, arm-punches and flicks his way to a decisive decision.

 

Gentleman Jim gets broken down by the Cobra in front of 80,000 at Wembley. Doesn’t have the power or the skill to keep Froch off of him for 15 rounds. Men who hit much harder and moved much better than Jim did eventually succumb to the mauling of Froch. Froch beats Corbett up then brags about it on his YouTube podcast or whatever he does these days.

 

Froch would win. The game evolved. Froch would be bigger, better, faster, stronger, and have a better chin and constitution. Froch wins this any way he wants imo

 

How exactly in this case?

I respect Froch, but he was clearly not an orthodox fighter.

Like Corbett he threw the book out of the window, and doubled down on his natural gifts.

Hard to see any evolution in that.

 

If you think the diaper man looks modern, I got a bridge to sell you. Froch had serious skills.

 

Does Froch look modern?

If you wanted to show people who fighters of his era fight, would you show them footage of Froch?

 

I agree. Corbett seems like the Ali/RJJ/Slattery type where he was so athletically gifted, or so comfortable with the basics of boxing that he would do mistakes but be so quick and have such a high ring IQ that he could still thrive regardless. Here are some quotes that could suggest this:

“Early in my experience I used to be fond of parrying blows. I found that they wouldsometimes get through my guard in spite of everything. Then I began to rely upon my legs and eyesight. I found it a great deal better plan... -Corbett

“Corbett can’t be such a terrible puncher. I can’t recollect a man that he dropped with a single punch. He certainly did not knock Choynski out that way, and he putSullivan out an inch at a time. Itrequired about twenty of his thumps to send the big fellow to the floor.” -Fitz

excerpt from a newspaper analyzing Jackson-Corbett on In The Ring with John L. Sullivan page 405:

“Corbett developed a rare degree of cleverness, but his certainly favours the avoiding of blows than the delivering of them.”

Tunney and Loughran seemed to be very impressed with Jim’s ring IQ, though I don’t think much of his fundamentals or ring IQ in the footage we have of him. I do, however, think well of the Professor Donovan-Billy Edwards footage, as well as the footage we have of Gans who wasn’t really that far apart in time from Corbett, and who also looked upon Fitzsimmons very highly. Even Jeffries and Jack Root look more fundamentally sound than Corbett does on film, and if you said this back then you’d probably get laughed out of the room.

It seems that Corbett was much like Greb; he looks poor on film we have, but his contemporaries (outside of Fitz, McGovern and a few others) look pretty good.

 

Gans is a diaper man more skilled than Froch