Jim Corbett vs Harry Greb

Except that your theory that they all looked like Courtney contradicts everything we know about the evolution of boxing.

Choynski fought during this period. We have him on film. He didn't fight like Courtney.
Neither did Fitzsimmons.
Neither did Corbett.

None of the manuals from 1800 to 1900 advocate fighting like Courtney did. There are a lot of these manuals, and pretty much everything from 1850 onward tells you to fight like Corbett. His style's textbook.

Your statement that these guys didn't learn from each other, and didn't pass on any "style", is simply wrong. We know these guys trained each other because it's recorded. We know that boxing "professors" had schools throughout the Anglophone world, and were paid well for their lessons. Even the elite universities had boxing clubs and competitions, for crying out loud. And then there are the published manuals, which are plentiful and show that yes, they actually did have a style that was more or less universal across the boxing world by about 1860.

If you don't believe all of that, then here:

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That's Billy Edwards, a lightweight bareknuckle champion who competed in the 1860s. He's 53 there. He is literally the earliest high-ranked boxer we have captured on film.

Notice that he moves more or less like Corbett. This is especially telling because Edwards wrote a popular book about boxing, where he advocates fighting with the same style that you see on film.

https://books.google.com/books?id=9...KAhUDRBQKHdsSCgIQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q&f=false

If you were right, not only would two centuries of boxers have to be too dull to learn from their predecessors; they'd also have to have been schizophrenics who wrote elaborate boxing manuals about a style that never existed.



Look, I actually agree with you that boxing got MUCH more professionalized and competent after about 1890. There's no denying that. But there's a long tradition of assuming that the bareknuckle guys were neanderthal brawlers that just doesn't fit the facts.

 

(1) Yes, he does things that would get him clobbered against an opponent under modern rules with larger gloves. I agree.

(2) Corbett's toying with Courtney, which should be taken into account.

(3) It's an absolutely tiny ring, and Corbett is expected not to get involved in frequent clinching. This artificially forces him to fight at a middle range that his style's not built for.


You mentioned the Fitzsimmons fight. Notice the range. With few exceptions, they're either staying waaaaay to the outside, trying to out-feint each other to set up a linear entry, or they're wrestling. Everything in Corbett's style is designed for that kind of fight.

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His hook against Courtney looks awful because, frankly, it's not a boxing hook. It's a long-range swinging attack that resembles a karate ridgehand or the hooks in Russian sambo. It's usually set up with feints and Corbett's busy hand positioning. It's more awkward, and harder to avoid, than you'd think. It serves different functions from a modern hook, and it's one of the only curved blows that's possible with the straight-line offensive footwork from this period. It isn't designed for mid-range exchanges with large gloves like Corbett's using it for against Courtney.

I'm not saying it's a great punch, mind you. It's an early attempt to solve the demands of specialized Queensberry competitions. It did eventually evolve into a hook, because it was a sub-optimal punch under later, less clinchy gloved rules. But it's not as stupid as it looks.

 

Exactly. Boxers from Australia in late 1800s, such as Young Griffo, are listed hundreds of bouts. It's silly to think they didn't learn just because they were more friendly sparrings than actual fights. The same practice of holding weekly shows (often several shows the same week) started in New York, Philadelphia, and other big or small cities long before that became popular in Australia. And for decades prior to that such gloved boxing exhibitions and sparrings had been popular in London, where for every actual bareknuckle bout we know about, they had tens or hundreds of sparring exhibitions with gloves before the public. Long before Marquis of Queensberry rules even appeared, gloved boxing was frequent and popular.

 

The problem with this theory is we are then saying that entire generation of fighters could not really fight. Fast forward 25-30 years and boxing is able to produce in my mind the greatest hwt scientific boxer in Tunney? In 25-30 years somehow trainers woke up and were able to produce Dempsey with perfectly thrown short hooks, bobbing and weaving and Tunney with perfect straight punches and jabs and all before magically could not fight? Who trained the trainers who trained Dempsey and Tunney if it was not the generation of trainers before them?

I see incredible greatness in Johnson. I see this greatness by steadfastly examining primitive boxing films where idiosyncrasies are difficult to see.

Prior to Johnson there is not a lot to work with. You have people on here looking at sparring sessions of Corbett when he is in his 50's and based on this concluding he could not fight. The Courtney fight is also an exhibition and again Corbett is playing but he is not the same fighter who is making exaggerated movements in the ring sparring with Tunney. Here he can be seen throwing straight from the shoulder right hands and defending himself with hands low by stepping foreward into his opponent BUT he is still for the most part playing. His bout with Fitz I've watched dozens of times and it's a herky jerky mess. You just can't conclude anything from it.

There is no film of Corbett in his prime fighting for real. You are doing this fighter a great disservice by drawing conclusions where no evidence really exists.

 

No we are saying that an entire generation of boxers couldn't fight by the standards of a later generation. That's part of the problem here. Some of you guys who are enamored with the old timers think that's an insult. Its not. Just because I don't believe you can drop Corbett, or Sullivan, or Edwards, or Donovan into the 20th century and expect them to be competitive doesn't mean they couldn't fight in their own day. But its beyond ignorant to suggest that the sport, the training, the level of competition or anything was advanced or refined as it would be two decades later.

The problem with this tired old argument is that it supposes nobody ever learned from the past. The exact same knowledge was always and constantly being transmitted with absolutely no change or refinement. As has already been illustrated Corbett himself admitted that he was never able to develop his style like Slattery and Tunney because he didn't have enough fights during his career to actually work on things. That right there is about as damning of the level of experience of greats of that era by one of their own as it gets. Even the example given by Senya of Griffo has to be taken with a grain of salt because look at the number of absolute novices Griffo fought and how short the duration of most of his fights were and Im willing to even admit that he was probably a remarkably talented fighter for the era, but again, the guy had over a hundred fights, an extreme rarity. Torpedo Billy Murphy was another who had a lot more fights than the average but look at his record. TONS of fights that were 3 or 4 rounds. Look at his record in fights over 10 rounds and you will note that he won very few of them.

You also have an overactive imagination. Comparing Johnson to those old timers is like comparing night and day. The idea that cross trainer can post footage of Billy Edwards, admit that he fights like Corbett despite having fought 30 years prior to Corbett, and pretend that the development of the sport wasn't slow based on that ridiculous exhibition of a guy hopping around with head and chin literally straight up in the air begging to be knocked out by a modern fighter is doing nothing but trying to defend the old timers against an imagined attack.

Why was it slow? Well, there were less people, less fighters, no mass media, slower modes of transportation. Now take all of that into consideration and remember that boxing was a fringe sport in those days as it has been for the majority of modern history, frowned up, illegal in some places, and often associated with the denizens of society and its easy to see why in those early days the fighters were little more than street brawlers and why as the population expanded, the sport gained more acceptance, and mass media began spread the sport flourished and evolved into something more refined and more skilled.

Just because YOU cant watch his films in any clarity doesn't mean they don't exist and that others cant benefit from them. His film with Fitz is longer than all the other s****s of film we have on him combined. Its a real fight and it takes place while Corbett is still on top of his game. Its amazingly clear (and no Im not talking about the **** you can watch on youtube Im talking about the original film). Its steady, clear, close, and gives an accurate representation of him and hes primitive, both of them are. He fights no different than he does against Courtenay. Its convenient to dismiss this as just a fun exhibition but lets not pretend that Corbett just forgot everything he knew about boxing the instant the cameras turned on. That's just a bit too convenient when arguing for Corbett's skill level.

 

You're just proving my point. Boxing didn't evolve until the populations of major cities exploded and common people could easily go to a gym and learn how to fight and fight regularly and learn from others.

Publishing manuals when most of the country couldn't read doesn't mean squat. And it didn't matter if boxing was taught by highly paid "professors" at universities in the 19th century when less than one percent of the population went to a university.

Hell, I just looked it up. In 1860, 9,000 college degrees were awarded ... in the entire country.

9,000 in a country of 31 million people at that time. Now about 5 million degrees are awarded each year.

And who cares if a bunch of future bankers and accountants learned how to lean back like Corbett while sparring at their universities.

It didn't advance the professional ranks. Clearly.

Not until the populations exploded in major cities and common people could go to gyms and learn how to fight from others who fought often.

When you had to pay someone "handsomely" to teach you one style, the sport didn't go anywhere.

Most likely because the people who could afford to pay someone a lot to teach them to fight clearly didn't have a great desire to earn a living getting punched in the face.

 

Some excellent arguments and ****ysis in this thread, dubblechin and klompton. You guys aren't going to reach the religious zealots with overactive imaginations,but the rest of us appreciate the commentary.

 

I'm not protecting Corbett (who I don't think too highly about, same as Fitz, where skills or cleverness are concerned), but I don't think you can just take him and conclude that the rest of the field was no better. I just think that most of famous heavyweights were idolized too much, when you see all the praise of their skills and abilities, it shouldn't be taken as absolute, but only within the heavyweight division.

Tunney is cited as some kind of example here. I don't see anything special about him on film, and I have seen a whole lot of disappointing opinions about him before he gained fame by defeating Dempsey, to figure he wasn't as good as people have been trying to paint him. Not saying he didn't look better than Corbett and Fitz, but certainly nowhere near as good in skills/cleverness/generalship as contemporary writers and modern historians talk him to be.

 

If you have to use Weinert 40-10, KO'd 8 times with just a 28% KO ratio!

AND

Renault 68-22, with a KO % of just 31% KO Ratio as decent I think that sums it up.

MORON. Neither was close to Cobbett.

Your lame attempt to go off tangent fools nobody. First off, he's fighting Greb, who's at best 170 pounds. Jake Kilrain was over 180, so was Sullivan in case you forgot. You are an embarrassment to the forum and easily debunked, however I kind of view you as a wore out speed bag. You get hammered and keep coming back for more. : lol:

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1 ) Klompton is a zealot on the topic, and that's not a bad thing. He's doing his best to say Corbett had a primitive style, yet Greb who is not on film in the ring was described as amateurish. This is a huge double standard and as someone else pointed out Greb doesn't wow you in his training video.

2 ) We are matching a middle who was short with very little power vs a heavyweight champion highly thought of by the people of the times from 1890-1925. Picking a middle to beat a heavy is nearly impossible unless the middle had all time power.

3 ) Greb has losses to taller and bigger men above 170 to Tunney, Loughran and Gibbons. He's just giving up too much height, and reach here and because he doesn't have power these losses should not surprise anyone.

No one of the times felt Gibbons was better than Corbett that I read of.

4 ) Tunney himself was very impressed with Corbett and he meet Corbett when Jim was much older.

 

Weinert's ko ratio is totally irrelevant to his boxing ability as was Billy Conn's ,Jack Sharkey's or Joey Maxim's.
Renault beat:
Godfrey
Fulton
Smith
Roper
Cowler
Madden
Johnson

Rated number 5 in 1924 number 3 in1925,number 6 in 1926.
Yes I would say he was decent.
Keep up the histrionics , but remember ,we all know you for the illiterate liar you are.:good

 

What an asinine statement. Renault we can see on film is clearly a better schooled fighter than Corbett, he beat better competition, and had more experience than Corbett ever did. Weinert was considered a master boxer in his day and when he fought Greb he had more than three times as many bouts as Corbett ever had in his life. I already said youd try to say these guys were worse than Corbett but the fact remains that they fought better competition, had more experience, more fights, were bigger, and pass the eyeball test. You cant say those things about Corbett. Drop 1897 Corbett into 1921 and both of these guys not only beat him but Corbett isn't even a factor in any division.

John L. Sullivan was a fat drunken 212 pounds when he met Corbett in 1892. He hadn't been in a real fight in three years and was in such bad shape at that point nobody believed he could even get into fighting condition to face Kilrain. Hed been a blimp for years. Kilrain himself was at least 20 pounds overweight when he fought Corbett. Quit acting like these guys were giants. Sullivan and Kilrain stood only two inches taller than Greb and Kilrain could weigh 175 without trouble in his prime. Quit acting like Corbett was this giant of a man who was so great at beating big men. He wasn't. He held a size advantage over the majority of his opponents and still failed to win almost half of his fights despite the absolute dirth of competition in the division in his era.

And yet again because you are obtuse you miss the point. The point isn't who looks prettier. The point is whose style translates better. Whether Greb fought in a supposedly amateurish style isn't the point. The point is that using that style Greb beat men who were far better than Corbett and for more advanced. We also know that Corbett couldn't fight any better than he showed or any different and we know that he never beat anyone as good as Greb or with Greb's attributes. Furthermore, given Corbett's style we can almost assuredly say that it A. Doesn't translate well into the modern era, and B. Doesn't bring anything to the table that Greb hadn't already dealt with in better men.

That's an asinine argument for numerous reasons: 1. Its not like Corbett was 6'6" and weighed 250 pounds. He wasn't a huge heavyweight. In fact by Greb's time he would have been considered a small heavyweight. 2. Boxing isn't about knockouts. It doesn't simply take power for a smaller guy to beat a bigger guy especially when that smaller guy is legendarily durable, has a bottomless well of stamina, is extremely fast, hard to hit, and throws a ton punches. Put that up against a guy who wasn't that big and didn't hit that hard and stands straight up with his chin in the air, hands down, and throws one swinging punch at a time and you've got no brainer for Greb.

He also beat those guys more than they beat him. Against Tunney and Loughran the losses came when he was past his prime. And all of those men are better than Corbett. Greb's record against those men was 9-5-1. Only one of those losses came in his prime while all of those fights took place in the other guys prime. Can Corbett say he ever beat a hall of famer in his prime? In 15 fights against those three guys can anyone watch any footage on Corbett and tell me he wins 9 out of the 15?

Im sure these are the same old men who talked about how graceful and beautiful Corbett was in the ring. What a master he was. And then when shown films of him by Jim Jacobs they said "who is that? He looks ridiculous." Only to be told by Jacobs it was their hero...

So what? Id be impressed too. Im as much of a fan as Tunney was. But, Id be willing to bet Tunney would have thought hed have beaten Corbett (especially if he saw him fight) and so would I.

 

People are so fickle when judging old time champions. Every little error exposes their "ancient styles." Modern boxers display silly tendencies all the time.

 

Styles in combat sports adapt quickly to the rules, because nobody likes to get punched in the face. Once it's close to optimal, the changes are slower.

That's why the ~30 year period from Jeffries to Louis saw a lot more changes than the ~75 years from Louis to Wilder.

Same deal with Edwards and Corbett.

I agree with some of this. However, I hope you won't mind some questions in return:

(1) Can you name another combat sport -- even with a tiny talent pool -- where the competitors didn't figure out how to fight effectively under their own rules for 200 years?

(2) Do bare knuckles, legal chokes, legal holding-and-hitting, and legal trips and throws force boxers to adapt their style? If so, how?

(3) If modern boxing is better suited to London Prize Ring rules, why did the preferred style become less like modern boxing as the 19th century wore on?

 

Klompton (and others)

Let us assume you are correct about Corbett's style and the improvement in the conditions (leaving aside the argument about whether the style differences are due solely to rule changes or not). How important do you guys necessarily think style and technique matters. If we assume the fighters could actually throw the basic straight left rights with their weight behind them, whether or not they telegraph them.

How would someone like Say Muhammed Ali who was similar in style to Corbett if he had fought in Corbett's style. Could a 60s style Ali have beaten Cooper, Banks, Moore or even Liston if he developed a style identical to corbetts. Do you think his physical gifts could still propel him to be a world class fighter?