Nat Fleischer's Top 10 Heavyweights

Please do. Jack Sharkey is his ratings in 1943 is a surprise as is John L Sullivan. He left both of them he left off his final list. He must have changed his mind about both, in 1949 and earlier with his top ten.

In 1949 Fleischer's top 10 was:

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

 

It is infinitely more likely that Ali whups everybody on that list than that three fighters on that list whup him. It's a terrible list.

 

Fleischer was the sort of old reactionary who was too obtuse to acknowledge Ali's
greatness for various reasons such as politics.Those old-timers found it impossible
to be objective about Ali.
Besides,what the hell was going on with Fleischer rating all those guys above Joe Louis ?
You're right,Fleischer's list was indeed terrible.

 

Louis should be numbers one on that list.

 

Agreed.

 

Seems (to me) an odd sort of political reactionary to rank Johnson as #1.

 

Good point. I don't think he was a "political" reactionary as much as an "old timer" reactionary.

As someone who was around in the fifties and sixties, the idea that sports were better in the old days was very widespread across the board.

I think it was the impact of Pete Rozelle which began changing this perspective. He sold NFL football on the basis that the current players were better than those of the past.

Another factor was that the old films were not as available as today. I remember that when Jim Jacobs in, I believe, 1962, showed his collection to the boxing writers, it was clear that most, if not indeed all of them, had not seen these films. One comment by a prominent boxing writer was used as the title of the article:

"I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry."

Prior to this he had only heard the old timer myths and had accepted them.

 

Makes sense with context. I believe Fleischer made the list in 1967, and Ali's only good win by this point was his win over Liston.

 

So the article author's takeaway was that the old-timers seriously underperformed on film compared to what he was expecting?

 

Certainly agree on the Joe Louis point - seems inexplicable to have rated him in the lower half of the ten.

Re Ali - I guess it begs the question: When did Ali go from being a startling 'Phenom' to a bona fide 'Great'?

 

Exactly.

 

You wouldn't happen to have a cite for the article?

It's a great anecdote and an interesting "natural experiment."

 

Can't help you. It was a boxing yearbook put out I think by True Magazine. There were several of those put out by different publications every year. And sixty years past, who knows where to find it.

 

No worries. Thanks for giving me the lead if I ever need to track it down on a rainy afternoon. And it's a neat story.

 

I don't know if it is the same article, but I read a similar article in the special annual edition of Ring Magazine in which they named their fighter of the year, round of the year, etc. and other special featured articles. I believe this would be the March issue of the magazine. The first I remember, in 1968 or 69 featured a debate between Nat Fleischer and Angelo Dundee regarding old time fighters vs moderns. Dundee related an incident where some old films were shown to a group of veteran boxing people. At one point, someone asked "Who are these bums?" to which the answer was "Corbett vs Fitsimmons." It was an interesting article in which both debaters made some good points. Another year Fleischer debated Jim Jacobs the film collector on who was the most crowd- pleasing fighter. Fleischer supported Jack Dempsey while Jacobs supported Sugar Ray Robinson. The Ring Magazines of the late sixties (when I first started reading it) and early seventies had a lot of good articles filled with good stories and information. Nat Fleischer was elderly then, as were several writers who contributed heavily to the magazine like Sam Taub and Dan Daniel who were also eyewitnesses to many boxing matches over the years.