Max Baer vs. Tony Galento

1. What's your definition of pro sport?
2. How long does bareknuckle fighting exist as a professional sport?
3. Do you also call fame MMA fighters professional? After all, they are getting paid for fights, they have contracts signed so they have to be professional by your definition right?
4. Even assuming that it's professional sport (which is not true really) - what does it have to do with boxing? The rules are much different and Joe never fought against pro boxer. You're comparing him to Max Baer who was a ****ing champion and fought for many, many years...

Yeah, tell me what Savage showed to call him a good matchup against someone like Louis, Schmeling or even Baer. He showed that he couldn't defend himself against overweighed Cooper who was nothing special even in his prime...

Wrong...

Baer would likely beat prime Cooper, but you can believe whatever you want

 

Savage doesn’t look like a power puncher in that fight anyway.
He was throwing pitter patter like arm punches.
Even allowing for their crudeness Baer and Galento would decimate him.

 

I missed this one ....

You're wrong,
Joe Savage was not a bareknuckle fighter ("world champion" or "champion of Britain" he claimed) with 42-0 record, he was just a standard night club doorman who claimed to be that, he was a self-promoter and publicity seeker who was ultimately prepared to get in the ring with Bert Cooper, and seemed to fool a few people in America especially, and made some sort of career as a semi-celebrity and even a Hollywood film consultant.
He was a pleasant enough fellow.
You shouldn't believe every tall tale you're told.

"The dark arts" just refers to a whole array of FOULING and getting away with it. Which Baer was pretty good at. In professional boxing bending the rules so effectively and brutally counts for something.

You do understand that boxers and trainers understood that boxing means techmique, balance, and skill, and fundamentals in the 1930s, no ?
Apparently you don't accept that. Which is bizarre. Really strange.

And Baer was winning fights in his own day against guys with more skill, technique and better fundamentals, right ?
Of course all of those things matter, no one says they don't matter. But there are fights where the less skilled and less correct and well-drilled fighter wins because he's a physical freak of nature, tough and determined.
And no, Joe Savage wasn't any of that. He was an average bouncer who liked to fight and publicized himself into a pro fight and did some interviews for magazines and TV, a Z-list celebrity.

Yes, I've seen hundreds of tough guys come and go.
But the likes of Baer is not just another tough guy, he was an outstanding and uncommon talent. They don't walk in every gym. They are quite rare.

 

It's ironic that this guy who accuses others here of hero-worship and believing myths of old-timers, was so quick to believe that Joe Savage was actually a professional bareknuckler with 42 wins and 42 KOs in 42 fights.

Joe Savage had 42 bareknuckle fights that no one apart from Joe Savage has ever claimed to have witnessed. No one on the unlicensed scene, no one in the gypsy fighting community. No one in boxing.

The guy might have had some brawls in a pub or outside a kebab shop, like about 50% of the rest of the male population of England. He probably wrestled a few drunks out of a night club on every Saturday night. Or even been stabbed by a thug for his troubles. He might have stomped someone's head in a car park one day, maybe the guy had it coming. He might have tussled with some hooligans on match day. That type of thing.