Roy Jones v. Fitzsimmons

Small gloves arguably change the range, types of defense you can use, and clinching / inside fighting technique. The different fight length changes fight pacing and strategy. The lax approach to allowing clinches and holding-and-hitting back then benefits fighters from Fitzsimmons's day who literally trained with wrestlers. An extreme example of this last bit can be viewed in the Ketchel/Papke footage, which is a horrible looking standup grappling match that's basically unwatchable.

The $10,000 question is whether the different guards, punches, footwork, etc. from Fitzsimmons's day existed as they did because they worked better under those rules (a widely held opinion) or just because better stuff hadn't been invented yet (also a widely held opinion.) Without access to an elite fighter from that era, and no modern competitions under those rules to send normal boxers to compete in, we can't be sure.

 

If Fitzsimmons is genuinely just a bad boxer with underdeveloped technique, he should probably get beaten by elite lightheavyweight amateurs, not just Canelo.

 

I believe he would get beat by elite amateurs.

 

Right, so you the first interpretation I mentioned. That's not an unreasonable position.

 

You make some good points, so I'll address them.
Small gloves do change the type of defense one can use, but IMO Fitzsimmons won't be able to lay a single punch on Roy, therefore glove size won't matter one bit.
As for fight length, IMO that only matters when boxers are pretty even skill wise. In our case, Roy is lightyears in front in this area, so the fight will end whenever Roy wants it to end.

 

*Assuming* for purposes of this response that Fitz had good reasons for his technique (i.e., I'll assume he wasn't just underdeveloped and amateurish, but competing in a different sport), I'd say the following:

I actually agree with you that as fighters go, Roy may be a good pick to fight in a time machine bout, because he had the insane reflexes. Roy was fast and adaptable, which gives him an advantage fighting what's essentially a different striking art under its own rules. I'd be much less confident of, say, Winky Wright's chances against an elite opponent from that era.

The long bout time is relevant because the old timers would deliberately grind it out with clinches. Think Ruiz, but worse. The amount of clinching that they'd be allowed get away with to extend Jones into the later rounds and stall out the bout would get them DQ'd today.

 

Again, your take about religion here is extremely arrogant and it shows misunderstanding of the topic.

Somehow you're the one who call others imbeciles.

 

So let me put this straight - you basically believe that no man back then was smart enough to use some highly scientific adaptations like putting his hands up simply because they had limited perception of reality.

Seriously, if you think that Fitzsimmons was so bad that all you need to beat him is a few training camps, then it means that all boxers back then only faked that they could fight and that any reasonable man would beat them.

How is that more convincing idea than allowing the interpretation that rules wete significantly different and forced fighters to fight differently?

 

The only clear footage of him that runs and resonable speed is when he was 46. I wouldn't expect 46 years old, tired and ill Fitzsimmons to move like peak Roy.

 

Of course, modern boxers are too advanced for rishiki!

Well, the difference in rules isn't that drastic but it's a good point. Hakuho would toy with every single boxer that exist inside dohyo.

 

Read the thread carefully. Looks like I gave up too soon

 

It looks horrible, but they showed a lot of skills inside and they neutralised each other pretty well (especially Papke who did tremendous job).

I know it doesn't look nice for modern fans, but Papke would probably dominate any MW under 1900s rules.

 

It's a shame that you deleted the comment in this post about the differences in mobility, since I was going to follow up on it. It's an interesting point.

AFAICT, Fitz was indeed relatively immobile, and it seems to have been deliberate. (In the same way that Louis preferred his slow shuffle, presumably.) Even by Fitz's own day's standards, his stance was weird, right down to the fact that he kept his front foot rather than rear foot slightly elevated on the ball of the foot, as in some modern Muay Thai stances. The footwork and movement is all different from modern boxing. Or most boxing even in 1900.

 

A lot of your answer is going to depend on how quickly you believe a combat sport's technique can adapt to rule changes, too.