Re: Footage of legends/disappointment etc

What difference does it make what he was doing?

 

Why would it make any difference?

When did I say I knew what he was doing?

 

I don't know, but he's not fighting or shadowboxing here.

Watch Jack Johnson doing similar things on "training" footage and then watch him fighting. He didn't fight that way.

 

We know what he was trying to do. He was shadow boxing, then light sparring. The reason some are questioning what he was doing is that fundamentals and rhythm of movement were lacking. Some think fighters look bad because of the black and white film which is clearly not the case. Some fighters look good on B&W... Benton, Ruben Carter, Henry Hank, Ali, Lloyd Marshall, are some that I've seen recently.

When a fighter lacks fundamentals and moves like a robot, it's not the film. It's the footwork, the "chicken wings" (elbows out away from the body), the balance, etc. Make the film as "jerky" and blurry as you want and fighters like Evander Holyfield, Duran, SRL won't cross their feet, leave themselves off balance consistently, have chicken wings, etc. They'll still look like well schooled fighters who were filmed on blurry, jerky film.

 

What do you think of the Gibbons brothers?

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Then explain me why fighters all fighters from that era played for cameras the same way and none of them fought similary.

 

I can't tell much about them from the way it was filmed. Without seeing their feet I wouldn't want to give an opinion about them. IMO, boxing starts at the feet, if I can't see what the feet are doing I can't tell much about a fighter.

 

Fair enough. There's more footage of both brothers, depending on how interested you are

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I love Stanley Ketchel, I have read every piece of work on him I could find, clips from papers, books and interviews but he looks like **** in the footage available of him. Of course one of those fights was against a Johnson who was much bigger and ahead of his time and apparently his recorded fight against Papke was one of his worse performances.

 

They just play for cameras, it's clearly to me. Film was still a relatively new thing back then.