Papke-Carpentier footage.

You don't think Carpentier got stonger , more resilient , and durable as he aged and filled out?
I know you don't rate him but I would not give a defiinitive opinion on any fighter as they were at 18, irrespective of how much or little their style changed as they aged. For the record Carpentier rated Klaus stronger than Papke.

 

Billy Papke was one strong individual as well as a terrific in-fighter. It is obvious that Georges Carpentier couldn't do well when there was a lot of infighting during a bout.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Carp was a much better fighter in his prime and anyone can see this. This fight it looked like a man beating up a kid. Carp looked weak ...no power in that right which was a powerful weapon years later.

Carp was rated as the best fighter to come out of Europe for many years.

 

Carp looks better in his "prime" because he was fighting lesser opposition. Guys like Beckett, Dick Smith, Arthur Townley (who threw that fight), and Georges Grundhoven were never as good as Papke or Klaus. When he stepped up he either won in controversial fashion (Levinsky and Gunboat) or lost. By this point Carpentier was already known as a powerful right hand puncher. But again, whenever he stepped up that power was nowhere near as in evident as it was against the stiffs he was fed to pad his record. Prior to fighting Georges Gunther the first time Carpentier had 8 KOs in 9 fights. BUT the only fight he had against a world class fighter was Harry Lewis, which went the distance. Then Gunther goes the distance. Then Carp gets another KO against a local fighter and then faces blown up, ancient glass jawed welterweight Willie Lewis. Lewis dominated Carpentier over the first ten rounds dropping him several times he faded late allowing the larger Carpentier to come on but it was still a controversial decision. How Carpentier went 20 rounds with a guy who was being knocked out by everyone is beyond me. He then loses his next two against the world class Klaus, and Papke who by this point was having difficulty making weight, was past his prime, and didnt like training anymore. Then surprise surprise Carp gets three straight knockouts over less than stellar competition before being taken the distance one again by Gunther. Then four straight knockouts against Euro stiffs before once again facing a world class fighter and once again being taken the distance. Then three more knockouts over sub par competition before being taken the distance by a world class fighter. Notice the pattern? Then four straight knockouts over nobodys before winning a very controversial DQ over Gunboat Smith. How many times have we seen in the modern era a guy with a ridiculously built up KO record and all of this talk about his prodigious power only to never score a KO over a world class fighter. Now dont get me wrong. Carp had a big right hand. No doubt about that. But my point is he always had that big right hand. What he NEVER had at any point in his career, and films back me up on this, is the versatility needed to facilitate that power getting rid of world class fighters. He was unbelievably predictable. Watch him. Jab, leap in with a wild swinging right hand, clinch, wait to be seperated, wipe the gloves on your trunks, jab, wild swinging right hand, cling, and repeat. I have literally hours of Carpentier from early in his career to the end of his career and even afterwards (He was the most filmed boxer of that era by a mile) and his style literally never changes. That may have been good enough for the club level fighters of Britain and France, but really good/great fighters were able to figure him out and once you rendered his right hand impotent or were able to absorb it he was nothing. As far as Im concerned his biggest legit win was over Jeff Smith. But Jeff Smith was a guy who could naturally weigh 154 or less at that point while Carpentier had forsaken the middleweight division and was much bigger naturally than Smith. Smith was able to befuddle Carpentier with his boxing skill but was just too small to really mount any kind of offense.

 

How much weight did Smith concede to Carpentier who papers claim beat him decisively , was it more than the 3 lbs the 18 yrd old Carpentier gave to Klaus?

 

Frank's words on the matter don't count for anything considering his 6 round fight with Ketchel was considered a uninspired joke. Stanely was supposed to fight again in Pittsburgh after that bout against Ralph Calloway but the promoters cancelled it due the fans backlash and disinterest in seeing that type of performance from him again. He clearly never saw the best of Ketchel, i would be interested to hear what guys like T.Sullivan, Kelly, Thomas had to say about both of them.

Wow awesome info. Is that the only known footage of Smith? He should be in the HOF.

 

But that's not quite true of prodigies. Benitez, Cuevas, Chang, Harada, etc.

 

No, I have Smith Carpentier. Carpentier clearly won but he looks to be at least ten pounds heavier in addition to having advantages in height and reach. Smith fought too defensively, as was his habit on occasion. He fights in a very modern style though.

 

Things learned. Papke can't jump rope for **** and The Orchid Man can not split wood.

Things I already knew but which this great footage illuminated. Papke was a beast. Damn.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Crazy. Is there any footage of Leo Houck?

 

NICE! My opinion of Papke just went up a notch, and you could say Ketchel's stock rose a little too.

 

FYI i counted 78 punches thrown by Papke...in the 17th round. Well above the modern average.

 

Yes but that requires 78 openings. The modern boxer type doesn't offer that kind of easy target. Hell, probably the ancient boxer type didn't.

But this was the 17th round. Carp was on empty and openings were sprouting like mushrooms after a rain. The tenacity and stamina of Papke exploit these, and in some cases create them, is pretty spectacular.

 

None that I know of. Its possible he was filmed in Europe but Ive never seen evidence of it nor anywhere else for that matter.

 

See you edited your post, good points and i agree. I was going to say it was mainly a point about the stamina but also that most of what he threw was on the inside and Papke could find/create those openings on just about anyone i suspect. Secondly put a modern fighter in there with him for 17 rounds and they wouldn't look much different.

Granted we don't get to see much of him fighting on the outside so you could argue a modern fighter may outbox him for a while but he was fighting out of a crouch, keeping his body at an angle, chin tucked, using his shoulder to protect himself, etc. He may not get the better of it at long range but he wouldn't be out of his depth and in the second half of a 20 round fight he would break most modern guys down.