Jim Corbett vs Jem Mace

Jack Johnson named Corbett,though they disliked each other,in later years Corbett called Johnson the best defensive boxer he had seen in the premier division.

 

Corbett was Jem Mace with a left hook. Broughton was the Father of Modern boxing; Mace the Father of gloved boxing, the first big name to take the gloved sport seriously, Corbett himself would admit that.

As for who would win; Mace would be a warm favourite under London Prize; as for Queensberry, Corbett would have the edge, as he was the bigger man.

 

Corbett transformed boxing to a stationary stand, wrestle and trade type of game to using footwork, feints, jabs, and speed. I think he would outclass a smaller Mace. Mace knew boxing well. He knew where and how to hit, but never incorporated what Corbett did for the game.

 

Corbett took it to another level, but Mace began the revolution away from wrestling. Jem certainly took the jab and footwork to a new level.

 

This thread should have got more of a response.

Corbett and Mace Actually sparred in England and later in america. Here is Corbett's account of one of the american sessions.

http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc/cgi-bin/cd...=-------en--20--322-byDA-txt-IN-jem+mace----#


What is particularly interesting is that Corbett seems very impressed with professor Mike Donovan. He does make an interesting distinction between the American style of fighting and the English fighting style. I always thought Corbett to be more in line with the English style, but it seems not.

 

The thread title made me laugh, in a good way. I would say John L did more for gloved fighting that Corbett as without putting gloves on nobody could fight for the World Title when O'Suillivan was around.

For some reason I'm thinking back to the old fooage of Corbet and Fitz and its fairly primative stuff by todays standards. Johnson still grabbed and wrestled as had Jeffries. It only really changed dramatically with Benny Leonard then Dempsey and Tunney.

Corbett formalised and publicised his boxing philosophy which garnered him attention but Joe Gans was surely the more finished article of the two men when it came to matters of technicality and slickness.

 

Just an article I stumbled upon, to add to Corbett's own observations.

1896-12-26 Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY) (page 15)
ART OF HEAD SHIFTING.
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Joe Donovan Compares a Method Common to Mace and Corbett.
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Chicago, Dec. 25.--Joseph Donovan write in the News:

A little incident that happened in New York the other day, a friendly set-to in private between Jem Mace and Jim Corbett, is apt to stir a reminiscent strain in the mind of one who has tried to grasp the thread of the unfolding of the manly art of self-defense. In these two, the young Jim and the old one, though there is a great gulf separating them, as measured by the pugilistic scale, one thing is found identical. That is what is properly known as the art of head shifting. Mace, in whom the bare-knuckle period culminated in science before passing into the glove-fighting stage, entered the ring nearly half a century ago: his idea from the initial part of his career has been that one's head should be faster in shrinking out of the way than shots from incoming fists. This was the principal department of the fighting game to him, other things being subsidiary, and how well he succeeded in proving up on his theory the history of the pugilistic field must always tell.

He was a champion of heavyweights for many years, though it is very probable that he might have come in strong for battle at not more than 150 pounds at any period of his active fighting life, eight pounds less than what is now generally held to be the middleweight limit; indeed, when Mace defeaetd Bob Travers, being then in his prime and about the same age as Jack McAuliffe, who is now ditched in old age, Mace was known to be at what we now call the welterweight limit--between 140 and 152 pounds. The next year following his defeat of Travers Jem won the heavyweight championship of England from Sam Hurst, who stood over six feet, Mace himself being really a welterweight the way we measure them at the present day. It was Mace's phenomenal agility with his head that allowed him to cope successfully with such big ones as Hurst and Tom King, by which he spliced out his reach and got under or by their leads to work on their bodies and heads. Up till Mace's time no such head work had ever been seen, except occasionally, perhaps, by the very little ones, the bantams. It was generally held that a comparatively bigger man, as in Mace, could not overcome such natural advantages of gigantic opponents.

During the bare-knuckle period in which Mace flourished, it is to be noted, the prime requisite of a heavyweight champion was a capability of taking punishment; pluck was matched against pluck; to beat one another in the face till the "peepers" were locked tight occupied the same eminence that the knock-out does to modern glove fighting. In such a time as this then up rose Jem Mace; slight as he was against some of his opponents, it made no difference; his head was too fast for a solid counter; he went in to one side or under the thumps meant to close his eyes and he put the gaff to the adversary at every such sortie. Englishmen who had imagined only bantams or feathers could perform such jugglery beheld the exception. Duckers there were, of course, besides Mace in his time; anybody could do something in the line, but Mace polished it off and of all the big ones of his period he was the king-pin. He made it almost into an accurate science. As a blindfold bat is said to fly among a network of cords without ever touching one, so did Mace, after long years of practice, learn to shift his head through a thicket of punches.

I have said that the identical thing common to Mace and Corbett is to be found in this lightning head work; after that, of course, they are on different lines, for the acme of science in knuckle fighting calls for different tactics. With the incoming of the padded glove the fist was not apt to be shattered on an opponent's head or elbow, which opened up a path for the swinging blow and with this "dancing tactics," running in and out, came along naturally.

To the science of avoiding with the head, as originated among the big ones by old Jem Mace, Corbett added lightning foot work and half-curve blow, and armed thus he presented a few years back the ideal of all a big man could be in all-round boxing science.

Talking of Mace and his long ring experience brings to mind the contrast between him and John L. Sullivan as regards wear and tear of pugilistic life. Here is Sullivan only a trifle past 38, yet four years back, according to his apoligists, when he went down before Corbett without getting a chance to land one solid thump, he was already a wreck of what he was supposed to have been. Personally I never believed that Sully was so crippled and aged with the rapidity of his life as common clamor made it out to be upon that occasion. He was, at the bottom of facts, simply against a fresh opponent, whose superior science could not have done otherwise than master the Sullivan style, little matter about the latter's condition or age. But, however common opinion may be on this that Jem Mace is younger at 65 than Sullivan at 38.

Some have claimed that what brings the glove fighter down to the practical old-man stage so quick is the extremes he subjects himself to in passing from rigorous training to out-of-training liberty. Perhaps there may be something in that. Mace puts in the claim to have lead a moral and somewhat abstemious life. However, pugilists trained more rigorously in his time than at the present and if that part of it has any claims on aging, "the Gypsy" has been proof against it.