Should Joe Gans be ranked above Benny Leonard?

I've been becoming more accustomed to thinking Gans may be above Leonard for some time now.

 

No "almost" about that certainty, my friend :smokeKeanu Reeves could do Hamlet more convincingly than Gans sold me that he was legitimately "kayoed".

 

Nat Fleischer , had been around boxing since David fought Goliath, always
wrote that Benny Leonard dominated the greatest collection of Lightweight contenders in history for SEVEN YEARS
Look at a few of the great fighters he Kod, never seen on film----
Freddie Welch
Johnny Kilbane
Ritchie Mitchell
Charlie White
Rocky Kansas
Joe Welling
Ever Hammer [a bull]
Leo Johnson---Harlem Hotshot 1 rd
Eddie Dorsey---harlem 2 rds.,,1 week later
And 62 fighters in addition, Never filmed or seen on film.
he is seen only twice on film against one of the very greatest southpaws
of alltime, Lew Tendler....,
What if todays critcs saw films of Leonard in these fights flattening these
alltime great lightweights.? What would they say ? He was considered
every bit as good as the later great NY Welter Ray Robinson, by the
boxing consensus,who saw them both in their respective primes...
Caveat: To be fair I must report that Nat Fleischer had Gans #1,followed
by a whisker Benny Leonard #2, for what it's worth !

 

hahaha, i was just gonna make a thread about this. i FINALLY watched it and it was PAINFUL. gans just fell, nah FLOPPED on macgovern. often without even getting hit with a punch. on the rare occasions he was actually hit with a decent shot he nearly ****ing died. then, the second the fight was stopped, he got up, clear headed, shook some hands and walked off. it was pathetic, terry had to use more timing in two rounds than in his entire career just to move out of the way of gans lunges

 

great post bb and (not that it matters) but i believe you're right about fleisher

gans was #1 at lightweight, walcott #1 welter, ketchel #1 middle and johnson #1 heavy. to be fair, nat's opinion was very based in his "fanboy" preferences.

he saw more boxing LIVE than i could ever dream of seeing on film but he let his love of certain fighters cloud his judgement and influence his rankings

 

Gans fought in a deeper era and was somewhat more consistent than Leonard for me.

 

curious about the consistent comment:think

 

Fewer off-nights or hard close fights (where there was disagreement about the winner).

 

that's fair:good

 

Yup. Fought rival Dave Holly (exceptional Lightweight of the era) in Philly on the 7th, then hopped on a train for a 300 mile ride to Boston to face Langford directly afterward.

 

Of all the alleged thrown fights, this one rings a doubt in my opinion. McGovern was certainly hitting him with solid shots. Why did Gans bother hitting the floor so many times if he wasn't legitimately hurt? Wouldn't it have been easier to stay down once rather than keep getting up? He was getting nailed with punches on the back of the head which definitely cause equilibrium issues. And the next to last time he gets KD's that right hand looks really legit and really hard. I am not even saying he wasn't taking it easy on McGovern for perhaps a higher paying rematch but he looked legitimately sparked. I am not sold on this being a total dive.

 

the handshake seconds after he was supposedly knocked silly did it for me

 

i've interviewed boxers immediately after getting sparked who were coherent as William Buckley. Doesn't mean ****. In the ring, he looks exactly like a guy who has been rabbit punched, or at least connected repeatedly towards the back of the head, as he was in the first round. His equalibrium is ****; he's all over the place. And there were some very stern punches landed by McGovern. Why go down half a dozen times if you are throwing the fight? Why not just do a Bruce Seldon and go down once?

And I've read all the accounts and newspaper articles, no need to post those. To me, it looks like a gentlemen's agreement gone bad, a la Ketchell-Johnson. Maybe the agreement was to let it go a full ten and bank up for the rematch, a common practice at the time, a la Langford-Ketchell (that guy again)... Gans looks like he's ready to dance in the 1st but McGovern isn't following script. Just my take.

In regards to the topic question, I consider Leorard the best, but Gans is certainly in the argument and anyone who wants to make that case is no idiot.