Joe Gans vs Roberto Duran

Are you by any chance, related to Johnny B ?

 

In which era? Duran wins in his own era, but put him against Gans in the 1900s I would certainly favour Gans

 

Was looking at Terry McGovern's record the other day and noticed he knocked out Gans in 2 rounds , never knew that . Gans was the same height as Duran with a small reach advantage. I make Duran the favorite in a scorcher of a fight.

 

Gans would quite literally murder you with his bare hands completely dry off the couch.

 

Duran fought a lot like someone from Gans era would with the 70s gloves.

 

No he wouldn't, he sucks.

 

Who ?!???

 

Whilst the footage looks plausibly legitimate to me, the fight was strongly suspected to be a fix, with extreme betting irregularities detected, so much so that it caused boxing to be banned in Chicago/Illinois, IIRC.

 

I've seen Gans' statue in the foyer of MSG.


I couldn't find yours!

 

What about Gans on film make you think you can take im? Genuinely curious btw not trolling

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Just another everything now is better than the past troll.

 

Joe Gans had fight to the finish stamina and we saw it on the film recorded at Goldfield. Duran has NO hope of wearing the Old Master down. We have footage of him decking Nelson with a single left hook and a single right hand in completely self contained events within the classic Championship Distance. People forget exactly who he did this to, the Durable Dane of all people, a competitor who was only stopped three times in 134 bouts and himself had insane endurance, stamina and punch resistance. Roberto has NO shot at beating Joe down like he did Vita in DeJesus II.

During the classical Championship Distance era, Goldfield would have been stopped in 15 rounds, as we can see on that footage. But in round 42, Nelson pulled a flagrant No Mas, as we can also see on the celluloid. Since Vita decked a peak El Cholo in two separate bouts with his left hook, Gans could very definitely put Roberto on the deck multiple times with either hand at any time.

Punching power is equal at the least. Joe had 101 knockouts. Don't ever forget that when contemplating punching power comparisons. Again, unlike Greb, we have the footage from Goldfield and of Kid Herman.

Endurance is massively in the Old Master's favor, something Manos de Piedra could not have been prepared for in his era. As for absorbing body shots, Gans was hit by MUCH smaller gloves in his era. Duran has NO chance of pulling a Vilomar Fernandez in this fantasy bout.

Speed is in the favor of Gans from everything I can discern. So is defense. We see his toughness at Goldfield.

Late round power? Check. A knockout in round 17, four knockouts in round 15, a Championship Distance win over the mentor of Joe Louis, Sam Langford (he who later knocked out Harry Wills twice with a single left hook while past prime) failed to put an exhausted Gans down in 15 rounds and rated the Old Master the GOAT, even over Greb and SRR. (Joe had fought Dave Holley the previous day in Philly, then took a train to battle the Boston Bonecrusher in Sam's hometown, something the Terror always appreciated.)

Barbados Joe Walcott had to settle for a 20 round draw. By the time Gans defended on film against Kid Herman, he was 154-10-21. Roberto never sniffed this kind of ridiculous experience.

Look, I consider Duran the P4P best since SRR, but Joe Gans was the GOAT LW, and has an extremely strong claim to being the P4P GOAT. I think Goldfield Gans proves to be a miserable experience for the Duran of DeJesus II & III. (I consider the Vita III LW Title unification to be El Cholo's peak performance.)

No stoppage here, but Roberto has to climb off the deck one or two times in dropping a pretty clear Championship Distance decision. Joe had four 25 round decision wins (one over Elbows). The Championship Distance was child's play for him. Duran had an excellent jab, but in his title winning rematch with Erne, Gans made Frank pay dearly for his outstanding jab just 1:40 into the first round. Erne was only ever stopped by legends Terry McGovern, Jimmy Britt, Rube Ferns and the Old Master. Nobody starched Frank like Joe did in their rematch. Gans had 15 successful undisputed LW Title defenses to Duran's 12 WBA and Ring defenses. (He only unified the LW Titles in his LW finale with DeJesus, although nobody questions his supremacy at LW during his WBA reign.) Duran did have serious issues at his peak in three bouts with the Viruet brothers, whose cruel taunts really got under his skin.

I've enjoyed reading the texts of the Old Master's interviews. The first African American World Boxing Champion was as big a star as he could have been during his career. His fully desegregated Goldfield Hotel in Baltimore must have been great fun to hang out at.

Because of Gans, SRL is a distant second as the greatest boxer to ever compete out of Baltimore. (Plus, the Old Master was a NATIVE of Baltimore, while Ray came from Wilmington, North Carolina. I do kind of value nativity.)


Benny Leonard versus Duran would be more competitive and interesting. The Great Bennah's psych job when southpaw Lew Tendler hurt him in round eight of their first bout wouldn't work on El Cholo, who unlike Lefty Lew would have immediately gone for the kill.

My all time top three holy LW trinity:

1) Joe Gans
2) Roberto Duran
3) Benny Leonard

With the abolition of the Championship Distance, my top three LW ratings are forever set in stone.

 

In my previous post, I mentioned Benny Leonard versus Lew Tendler in their first bout. Benny had considerable difficulty with Tendler's southpaw stance and style, and the shot Lew stunned Bennah with is on film. Would Duran have had the same problems with Lefty Lew? See Hagler-Duran for the answer, as Marv was probably the greatest southpaw ever during the Championship Distance era.

 

This is a fight where Duran's timing would be off a bit coming in because he would have to deal with the lead right and one of the best to ever to throw it ... Not saying Gans is going to win but the stamina is there along with the caginess ... . I really have no idea who is going to win this fight .. Gun to the head Duran

 

First of all, the sheer TL;DR length of this next submission is fueled by my need to distract myself from chronic pain induced by bone spurs in my neck caused by cervical disc compressions and cervical stenosis. (That's why so many of my posts tend to be lengthy. My neck is very often, "on fire," so concentrating on these helps me think of something aside from that continual discomfort.)

Keep in mind that while Gans was still close to his prime against Herman, he had already contracted the tuberculosis which would eventually kill him. That disease hadn't afflicted him yet at Goldfield (although the stress of having to make 133 at ringside with his boxing gear on before going 42 rounds in the outdoor Labor Day desert heat of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit [37.7778 Celsius] at an elevation of 5, 686 ft [1,733 m] again demonstrates insane stamina, and the strain of making that weight was cited as the reason he contracted TB).

Stateline, Nevada has an altitude of 6,283 ft (1,915 m). When Muhammad Ali fought Bob Foster there INDOORS at the AIR CONDITIONED Sahara Tahoe Hotel, he needed oxygen during training (something not available at Goldfield in 1907), and in a post fight interview, he was asked about the effect the altitude had on him. After eight rounds, a somewhat out of breath Ali replied, "I don't like to admit it, but it did." This was the GOAT HW, someone who was noted for ridiculous stamina and late round stoppage ability (Bonavena and Wepner in 15 rounds, Carlos Padilla would have stopped Manila 45 seconds into round 15 if the high stamina Frazier didn't rally, and he had Shavers going at the end of round 15). Again, this demonstrates the completely obscene endurance and stamina Joe Gans displayed at Goldfield. No boxer in history has a chance at outlasting him in stamina except maybe Jess Willard in Havana (which wasn't at altitude, but was fought at a temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit [46.1111 Celsius], another insane achievement - SRR failed against Maxim at a temperature of 105 degrees f [40.5556 c] after "just" 14 rounds.)

Duran was excellently relentless outdoors in DeJesus II at a humid 100 degrees in Panama City, pounding Vita down for the count in round 11, but DeJesus was incomprehensively not in top condition, and Duran's body shots have Esteban arguing with his corner after round seven that he could not continue.

Yet again in their rubber match, El Cholo said afterwards to guest analyst Angelo Dundee (who spoke Spanish) that he again knew he had Esteban by round seven, and that's evident in my review of that match just now, Duran's peak performance in my opinion (where I believe him to have been superior to what he was in Montreal).

I look very closely at the ancient Goldfield footage to carefully scrutinize the subtleties of the Old Master (something also necessary to evaluate Jack Johnson accurately), and factoring in the altitude, temperature, his performance up to round 15, and then his overall stamina taking him into round 42 where Battling Nelson surrenders as egregiously as Duran in New Orleans, I just don't see the Duran of DeJesus III prevailing over Goldfield Gans.

In a condensed Championship Distance scenario, Joe would be too much for Stonehands, who simply would not be able to wear him down over that distance in any conditions, small ring, large ring, indoors, outdoors, heat, humidity, glove size or whatever. (Concerning glove size, leverage is leverage. But Gans was used to dealing with much smaller gloves than the Panamanian, so was absorbing greater impact. Getting hit with eight or ten ounce gloves might feel considerably more pillowed to Gans, especially to the body. Also, he boxed in an era without gum shields, putting a much greater premium on defense. Once again, dropping Nelson with a single hook and a single right in self contained events is crazy. If DeJesus could deck Duran twice, Gans could certainly do it.)

Yes, I've seen the Gans-McGovern footage a number of times, and I simply am not sold on the validity of that outcome as a truly not fixed result. I do have newspaper clippings covering the result of Erne-Gans I slamming Joe for quitting, but he certainly redeemed himself in their rematch dramatically, and his other results demonstrate ridiculous endurance, even a year before his death, when it took Nelson 17 and 23 rounds respectively to take him out. (Their rubber match was only 11 months before Gans died, and he actually won a ten round NWS only five months before his death. Tough indeed.)