Joe Gans v.s Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Random pick. An article from Oakland Tribune, dated June 6, 1903, from a witness of Gans' fight vs Fitzgerald:


The Gans-Fitzgerald fight proved two things. First, it is certain that Gans never will fight at the lightweight limit of 133 pounds ringside. He must have weighed at least ten pounds more than that when he fought Fitzgerald and he was in perfect condition. He never once took so much as a heavy breath and the going was fairly fast. To take ten pounds off the Gans of today would have him in very bad shape, and a good man could take his measure.

But the second thing proven by that fight was that with Gans at 140 or thereabouts, Jimmy Britt has no business in the ring with him. No such master of the art of boxing and fighting is in the ring today. He is quite as clever as Corbett and far more cool; and added to that cleverness is the ability to knock out his man with a short arm punch. In other words, he is the type of the sullger and boxer combined. Britt, with all his quickness and ability is not in the game with that dark-skinned master of the fistic art.

And, when you come to think of it, the negro is coming to be recognized as the world's great pugilist. Look along the line from Johnson and McVey, through Walcott and Young Peter Jackson, Fans, "Dixie Kid" and "Mississippi." The old time supremacy of the Irish-American stock in the ring is very much in danger.

 

Joe Gans was by no means primitive, not by any stretch of the imagination. However if you take the greatly diminished light middleweight Floyd who fought De La Hoya, and you compare him with Gans, you're basically dealing with the same type of fighter- one or two shot offense and a lot of defensive movements following. In this scenario I favor Gans' real power punching to prevail over Mayweather's pitty-pat, but the lightweight Floyd was too much of a machine for Gans, I think.