Pre 1905 heavyweights v 1905-15 lot.

Johnson -Jeffries
Langford-Fitz
Jeannette-Corbett
McVea-Jackson
Burns-Maher
Hart-Sharkey
Willard-Goddard
McCarty-McCoy
Wills-Ruhlin
Clark-Slavin

6-4, pre 1905 wins.

 

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189131435/20614207#

How Fitzsimmons Put Me Out For Ten Minutes
As Told To The Globe by
DAN CREEDON Middleweight Champion in 1892
A grand parade of fighting men stride into Dan Creedon's picture as the old Australian champion, propped up in his sick bed at the Victorian Benevolent Home, Royal Park, tells of the fun and the fights he knew in Australia and abroad nearly half a century ago.
A jab, a feint or a vigorous smacking of mighty knuckles into palm lend realism to his stories of battles of fists and wits.
"The hidings I got stick in my memory more than my victories,"
said old Dan today, "and no defeat left such an indelible impression in my mind as well as on my face as when 'Freckly Bob' Fitzsimmons threw dynamite punches at me.
WHEN Bob Fitzsimmons smacked 'em they stayed smacked. I
did, anyway. for ten minutes or so — or it might have been ten hours for all that I knew about it. Fitzsimmons taught me one golden rule: Never think a man s a soft thing until you've seen him fight. Fitz was a murderous hitter, and this scar over my right eyebrow is a souvenir I got from him in the second round of our
fight in New Orleans. Texas, in 1894. That was the year after my mate, Tommy Tracey, and I left Australia. (Remind me to tell you later about Tommy, and what a good fighter he was). I still say Fitz. did not hit me with his fist, though. It was either his wrist, which was as big as his fist, or his elbow. It was a nasty gash, and for long afterwards it would open at the slightest tap. They used to say to me: "I suppose Fitzsimmons was the heaviest puncher you've met." and I would growl, He was the heaviest elbower"
I had to kid them that I thought Fitz. beat me unfairly. That was part of the boxer's showmanship. The fight went only two rounds, and
won the first easily. Things certainly happened in that second round. I had heard about Fitz's great victories over good 'uns like big Peter Maher (the roughest fighter I've seen). Jim Hall. Starlight and Billy McCarthy, and, of course, he had won the middleweight
championship of the world by knocking out Jack Dempsey, the 'Nonpareil."
But I had not actually seen him, and Was very ****y in those days. I reckoned I would cut him to pieces with that left hand of mine before he could get set for a bit punch. Well, when I saw him stripped and ready for the fight I just laughed. Strewth. he's a bloomin' hunchback.' I said to Tommy Tracey; "he'll be easy.
What I thought was a broken back was actually the tremendous
bulging muscles behind Fitz's shoulders. Years of blacksmithing
had put them there. from his bald, sunburned head to his waist he was a heavyweight, and a heavily-muscled one at that but his
long, spindle shanks would have looked skinny on a lightweight. He was knock-kneed too. I was not experienced enough to see that this rum-looking customer was really the ideal build for a
fighter. Fitz. was really a better boxer in those days than after he won the heavyweight championship from Jim Corbett he had the same wallop, but he didn't depend on it so much as later when he
as toppling over the heavies. However, I trimmed him up properly
for most of the first round. My speed beat him. I was hitting very fast, moving in out with short punches that jarred him. I was in great nick, and I thought to myself; "Dan Creedon is champion of the world tonight!" Then I back-moved a punch and half-turned. The punch caught the small of my back. Holy Gee! that whack. If it had landed on my jaw Fitz would have been up for manslaughter.
"My Back's Ricked"
I forget whether I fell. As I flopped back into my corner I gasped to Tommy Tracey. "My back's ricked. Quick — cramp!" Tommy massaged my back for all he was worth, but I was dizzy for the second round. Fitz shuffled straight at me. banging them over from all angles. Even then I showed him a thing or two about scoring
on the retreat. I remember everything about the knock that opened my eye, but what happened afterwards I don't know. He uppercut and I ducked, meaning to come up under with an uppercut myself. His glove sizzled up past my forehead and I collected either his forearm or his elbow. Although I was stunned I felt the hot blood streaming down my face on to my chest. I heard Tommy shout:
Step back: Back!" — and the next thing I knew I was back in my corner and Tommy telling me I would soon be all right..
I had been out for the count and more. And that's how I did not win the middleweight championship of the world. I was 26 when Fitz beat me and he was 32. I was then at my top. and took, a real knockout from him — which was more than I from some who were
supposed to have knocked me out years later when money meant more than honor and glory for me.
Soon I was bowling over the best of them again, and it was not till Joe Walcott beat me in '99 — five years afterwards—that I faded off the list of possibles for the middleweight title. Fitz in the meantime had taken the heavyweight championship from Corbett.
About that time something happened that took the wind right out of my sails, and —can see it now — I then started on the downward path. I had met the sweetest little girl in the world. Katie Flynn, of Brooklyn. New York. You bet we got married! I felt then that I had something worth while to fight for. One day down in Memphis, Tennessee, I got word to say that Katie was very sick, and to come home immediately. I was back like a shot but Katie was dead, and our little son never lived I don't think I ever got right back into my stride after that.
Bourke St. Days
I RECKON I've got time to tell about my mate Tommy Tracey,
that brings me to how I developed the, left-hand punch which the papers said was the best they'd seen. It was the punch that tricked even Jim Corbett. I was born at Invercargill. New Zealand, and came to Melbourne as a nipper. We were living in Buckshead
Lane, off Latrobe Street, and I was striking for old Dan White, a coachbuilder in Lonsdale Street when I first met Tommy Tracey. He was a regular little urchin, but I took a great liking to him, and became his big brother. Tommy had no home, so I told him to
sneak in through our window and sleep in my bed.
Who the divil's this boy ?" my mother wanted to know when she
found us asleep next morning. I told her that Tommy did not have
a home, and she opened out her big Irish heart to him. "Praise be to hiven." she said, "If the Lord hasn't been kind to him then I s'pose we'll have to be."
Tommy became one of us. My mother said that even though we were both a pair of scallywags one hiding at a time was always enough for the two of us. Tommy and I became a real pair of
s****pers. One day, a tough swiped me one in Bourke Street, and I slipped him and gave him the father of a. hiding. You bet I was excited when I found that Jem Mace, our hero, had been looking on. Jem offered to teach me a bit more about boxing, and became, a regular at the boxing room upstairs in his pub in Bourke Street. Of course, Tommy Tracey came too. I thought I'd given that Bourke Street chap a tidy lacing, but Jem reckoned l wasted loo much time trying to plant the right on him. "The other side of the jaw is just as
good a place to knock 'em out." said Jem. "Any mug knows how to throw a right hand. You've a natural left, so practise it."He kept me plugging away at the heavy bag with my left for weeks — I
wondered if I would ever be allowed to use my right again. I once told Jem he was "left hand mad,"' but I later found he was right. It
was my left hand that beat 'em all. Every good natural fighter has a pet punch—generally it is the punch that brings him his first victory. If a novice knocks out another with a right swing, then you may be sure he will rely on that right swing all the lime, and unless he is properly taught he will get into a groove and become a one-punch
fighter. An ordinary ring general finds a one-punch fighter easy pickings.
Mv advice to young boxers is: Be able to do with one hand what you can do with the other. Learn a punch with the right and then become adept at it with the left also. Tommy Tracey was well in the running for the middleweight championship after Fitzsimmons left it. but he could not get past Tommy West and Joe Walcott.
Tommy and I gave the Yanks something to think about when we
first landed at San Francisco. Tommy cleaned up the undefeated champion of the Pacific Coast, Billy Gallagher, in 10 of the liveliest rounds California had seen. I always seconded him. of course and he seconded me. He was beating Walcott well until a lucky punch from the black gorilla dropped him in the 16th round.
The last I heard of Tommy he was living happily with his family in Los Angeles. He was not the mug with his money that I was.
Something To Think About Jem MACE had no time for anyone
who would not train properly. I'm glad he didn't see me when I came back from the States! "Be perfectly fit and the rest will come
easy," he would say. I hadn't seen Jem for some time till one day before I went to America. I met him and asked him would he come into my corner the following night. I think I was fighting Tut Ryan.
Jem's first question was: 'Are you in good condition ?'"
I told him that Peter Moloney my trainer — a great .. footrunner
had me jumping out of my skin. so Jem agreed. I won. Jem also seconded me at the London National Sporting Club a few years later, when I beat Frank Craig, the negro they called "The Harlem Coffee Cooler." That, I think, was my greatest fight.
With Jem in your corner your fight was already half won. And to fight in the N S.C. was in itself an experience. Remind me to tell you about that Craig fight when you come again; its worth hearing.
I'll also tell you a good story about how I met Jack Johnson before he took to the ring. Jack was another who tried to dodge my left hook — and didn t. I ran Johnson for a bet one day down in
Galveston, Texas.

 

Creedon is one of those fighters, who might have been a regular topic of discussion on this forum, if one key fighter hadn’t been around.

He seems to have been an incredible fighter!

 

Thanks.... it's just part of a series of articles of Creedon's recollections, if you look on the link and go to NEXT edition... usually the Saturday ones the rest of the articles ye shall find.. also PREVIOUS... this Globe is just full of these articles on old timers. It shows just how boxing mad the Aussie public was back then.

 

which fighter ?

 

OK now a Globe article remembering Jim Jeffries

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/181688798/20613176

 

The other that you mention is Tommy Tracey.

We have to conclude from his record, that he was a highly capable fighter, who generally lost when he stepped up.

The article suggests that there was a lot more to him than his record implies, and this might well have been the case.

 

Excellent fighter, we have to all realise that these guys like him and Creedon were very close in ability to the champs as is the case usually in boxing. Creedon's opinion of Fitz is huge but it was the big punch and his height was the only real difference between them. Tom Tracy doing well against Walcott goes the same way.... Walcott just needed to land flush even if a fluke to win instantly.