Nat Fleischer's Top 10 Heavyweights

Presumably you don't expect him to have a high appreciation of fighters whose careers were after his death?

 

The fighters in red, are ones who he would have seen from ringside, in meaningful fights.

 

A person can know a lot about something without being an actual participant. And for what it is worth, I believe Nat actually was an Amateur boxer. He also refereed and judged more than 1000 fights.

"Fleischer has refereed and judged more than 1,000 fights."

"A fortnight later he took up boxing and became, in time, captain of the boxing team as well as president of the Oregon Athletic Club in New York City, which was sponsored by the Brace Memorial School for Newsboys. Nat also played first base and catcher on the Oregon AC baseball team, did trick bicycle riding, broad-jumped 19 feet 10 inches and ran the 100 in 10.2 at New York's City College, from which he graduated with a B.S. in botany and chemistry in 1908. With his longtime friend Dan Daniel, at present a sports columnist for the New York World-Telegram and The Sun, he organized CCNY's first basketball team. "Mr. Daniel and I both set intercollegiate basketball on its feet," Fleischer says. "We had an outstanding team. We beat MIT and Army." Fleischer's boxing career—he weighed 122 pounds—came to an end with what he calls "a bing on the chin." One Joe Gordon, who outweighed Nat by 10 pounds and was, in addition, a ringer, or a professional fighting under an assumed name, knocked him out. Nat awoke with two of New York's most celebrated ladies, sponsors of the Boys' Club where he fought, ministering to him, Mrs. Oliver Harriman rubbing his forehead and Mrs. Jay Gould patting his hand."

My Source: https://vault.si.com/vault/1962/08/06/mr-boxing-himself

 

Nitpicker.

 

He could at least have tried I guess!

 

So he moved Dempsey and Louis up and Burns and T. Sharkey out. In 1949 this makes his placement of Johnson and Jeffries very solid. But Dempsey beat no one on Nat's list.

 

Nat was around early enough that he would have seen plenty Tyson never saw.

 

I'm not sure you could make a sensible top 10 with no one high up that didn't beat anyone else on the list. Especially if you don't count beating someone completely shot.

Langford didn't beat anyone else on the list either.

Johnson beat Jeffries and Fitz, but Jeffries was shot to bits and Fitz was even worse when he beat them.

Corbet didn't best anyone on the list, and Fitz only has Corbett.

 

Does anyone know a good medium?

To confirm they’re not a crock, I believe Nat’s afterlife code word is JOHNSON.

Keep that under your hats, will ya?

 

Just for the hell of it, let’s throw in Tiny Tommy Burns’ rating of the top fighters as he saw it circa late 20’s.

Love Burns’ final comment: “As to myself, you may rate me where you like”. Where ever you rate him, you’ve got to respect the little battler.

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I agree.

 

Good stuff. When did Tommy Burns say that? In the 1930's?

 

I’m guessing late 1920s as Burns prefaces that he is rating all the HW Champs to date - Tunney retired in 1928.

However, in his ratings Burns includes Philadelphia Jack O’Brien who beat Bob Fitz for the LH Title in 1905 but never defended it, moving up to contest at HW thereafter.

I’ve seen a clip of Dempsey giving his ratings at some stage also - I’ll see if I can find it.

 

I've also read that in 1943 Fleischer's ratings were:

1. Jack Johnson
2. Jim Jeffries
3. Bob Fitzsimmons
4. John L Sullivan
5. Jack Sharkey
6. Jack Dempsey
7. Joe Louis
8. Jim Corbett
9. Gene Tunney
10. Tommy Burns

Jack Sharkey there, obviously a bit of a surprise. To the point where I wonder if it's a mistake and Fleischer actually gave Tom Sharkey the #5 spot. Still weird, but not impossible when the person making the ratings is a big Jeffries, Fitzsimmons and Corbett fan.

https://ibb.co/zQsDDPq