Nat Fleisher's Top Ten Heavyweights -1971

^ Interesting, nice post!

 

Fleischer said the first heavyweight champion he saw was Jeffries. You agree with his pick for number one, the best heavyweight of all time?

 

Did he though? Fleischer was 11 years old when Jeff won the title. I have a hard time believing that a kid was travelling the length and breadth of America to watch these guys fight.

 

No, because he had a writer and boxer relationship with Johnson, much like Ali did with Cosell. Johnson was around during Nat's young adult formative years in boxing.

He also loved Ketchel who was active at a similar time. Coincidence? In sports, people have their favorites, and Nat was accused of being biased often.

 

Berlenbach,

Nat was obsessed with anything boxing. How much? Fleischer wrote more than 40 million words on boxing during his career, including 57 books! He also sat ringside and 100's of fights and was also prized as a judge in his later years.

It is my best guess and logical assumption that he would see any significant match on film out there.

 

Such a horrible and misguided list that makes me pause when considering his opinions on the sport. A lesser man would be completely disqualified from credibility.

 

I don't doubt he was a boxing nut. I'm just sceptical about how much he really saw of the likes of Fitz, Corbett and Jeff. In the flesh, it would have been a handful of fights at best. On film? Which fights of theirs were filmed and would have been available for him to watch? Again, very very few. So I do take issue with the idea that him being a contemporary of theirs gives him some special authority when chances are he hadn't seen any more of them than we have today.

 

Ive seen Fleischer both say he was at Johnson-Jeffries and deny he was at it in separate articles. I think Nat was not above inflating his credentials.

 

He didn't see either Corbett or Fitz fight, by his own admission Jeffries was his first view of a heavyweight champion. Fleischer was born in November 1887.
He was 9 when Fitz beat Corbett, and 11 when Jeffries stopped Fitz.

 

Fleischer was a guy who held the people who attracted him to the sport in higher regard. The first major fight he attended was Johnson-Jeffries. So, not surprisingly, Johnson and Jeffries are one and two. Corbett and Fitz were the big names before them, and they (along with Langford) were the fighters he read about, so they rank up at the top, too. Dempsey was the king when he was a young adult, and Tunney beat him, so they are both there.

That's the majority of his top 10 right there. It's pretty understandable why he put them on pedestals, but they aren't the best heavyweights who ever lived. They certainly aren't now - roughly 50 years after his death and well over 100 years after many of them boxed.

 

I don't know if Fleisher was all rose colored glasses I don't think he'd even have Louis or Marciano in his top ten. I wouldn't even think he'd have anyone passed the 1920's in it.

 

He's got seven pioneers from his youth. Louis and Schmeling - which was the fight of the century during his lifetime. And Marciano, the only undefeated champ.

It's a TOTAL rose-colored glasses top 10.

I'm sure he only added Louis-Schmeling-Marciano because the readers at the time expected them. He was all about the guys who attracted him to the sport. Like many people are.

 

That's still three more then what I think he would have if the rose colored glasses were on. If he cared about what the readers wanted he'd have put Ali in the top ten when everyone was telling him to but he didn't.

As a side note he's interesting note from a guy who met Nat right after Marciano died. He sounds like he like the Rock and was pretty impressed by him.

http://www.thesweetscience.com/news/articles-frontpage/19261-remembering-the-rock-a-mr-boxing

 

I don't think should Nat have been trusted with the remote.

 

Fleischer was a Louis fan.

"Of Joe Louis he penned, in the April 1939 Ring, “He sails in, crashes his blows to the body and head, gives the opposition little chance to get set for a counter-attack and wards off blows with the cleverness of a Jack Johnson. Only Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey compare to Joe Louis of today in all around ability...No human body can take the punishment that Jolting Joe dishes out once he goes after his prey. That has been proved conclusively in his last few contests.”

"In the Mar. 1942 Ring, after Louis' destruction of the 6'6" 250 pound Buddy Baer, Nat Said that “Not even in the second fight with Max Schmeling did the Detroit Destroyer show as much as he did against Buddy. Joe had everything. He was magnificent. He was a whirlwind on attack, a master of defense, a terror with his devastating punches"