Stanley Ketchel vs. Dick Tiger

McGrain true fights are not decided on paper...If you or I have never seen Stanley Ketchel fight [ forget the Jack Johnson fiasco or the Bill Papke fight in 1909..Ketchelwon a 20 round dec. with a BROKEN HAND ] how do you honestly judge such a fight between Tiger and Ketchel ? Tell me ,so I can learn how to judge the merits of fighters I or you have never seen, except by the time honored record of their respective careers ? And what historians of the time,said about them...We have to have some timeless standards to judge fighters of different eras, I believe...

 

Mcgrain, as I have just posted , there are two available films of Stanley Ketchel.which I have seen numerous times..The first one on film today was on July 5,1909, between Ketchel vs Papke..Ketchel won a 20 round decision over Papke, fighting with a Broken Hand, during the bout...The other film is the infamous mismatch with the great heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, Oct.16, 1909...Hardly representative of the great Stanley Ketchel who knocked out 49 fighters in 64 fights...Truly Mcgrain like watching 100 years from now Ray Robinson vs Tiger Jones, in 1955, when Robinson took a terrible drubbing from Ralph Tiger Jones, a trial horse, and the fans in the future concluding, that " Ray Robinson wasn't that good ". Wrong with Stanley Ketchel, and wrong with Robinson's true legacy, I say....

 

Tiger gets terrific recognition today,and thats good, he deserves it ,but he wasn't considered an immovable object or an irresistible force when he was fighting.He had his share of losses and was vulnerable to skilled boxers.
Ketchel was not known for his skills , he was lauded for his freakish power, I beleive he is one of the few middles capable of koing Tiger, possibly the only one.Ketchel kod Jack O Brien twice, he was a monster puncher ,and carried his power all through a fight. He was the master of Billy Papke a brutal uncompromising terror ,who ,I think would give Tiger a very hard tussle.Apart from Langford, I can't pick any other man at 160lbs to have a realistic chance of stopping Stan.
Tiger may have had more subtlety about his work ,but he relied on weathering a lot of shots, watch his fight against Henry Hank. If that had been Ketchel landing those punches I think Tiger would have been on the canvas.
It may be heresy ,but , I think revisionism may have begun to slightly overate Tiger nowadays, and ,conversely, because of the minute amount of film of Ketchel, he has had his reputation eroded somewhat over the recent years.
I go for Ketchel by late tko.

 

Actually, Tiger wasn't at his best yet for most of those fights. He showed clear cut improvement between '59 and '61 that is clearly visible on film - and demonstrated by the fact that he decisively beat fighters like Webb and Greaves in rematches. On top of that, a number of those losses were on close/controversial decisions.

How was he "not a world beater"?? He was very arguably the best MW of the '60s, a two time MW champ with multiple wins over HOFers, twice winner of The Ring's "Fighter of the Year," and is the only fighter in the modern era to become the unified world champ at both 160 and 175.

And in a number of his fights, he couldn't lose unless he was stopped. If they went the limit they were just called "no decisions" or declared draws. A number of reports thought he could've/should've lost to Sam Langford or Frank Klaus for example, had decisions been rendered in those fights.

Tiger. He has a total of five wins against three separate HOF MW champs in Gene Fullmer, Joey Giardello, and Nino Benvenuti, and twice beat a HOF LHW champ for that title.

 

Tiger could be outboxed but he was perhaps the strongest middle that ever lived, had explosive power, very good hand speed and an amazing chin .. Ketchell is a legend but seems so crude. I just don't like the match up for Stanley.

 

he grant ,again on what rational basis do you call Ketchel so crude? Are you still basing your judgement on those two not relevant films of Ketchel/Papke,[ketchel broken arm] and 40 lb heavier Jack Johnson,travisty ?If so, Robinson's career could be based on his fight with Ralph Tiger Jones...One swallow does not make a spring, I say...I have in my posession a book, called the Michigan Assassin, writtrn 65 years ago by a man called Nat Fleischer...Fleischer covered all of prime Ketchels career...He was not "crude" as Rocky Graziano was Ketchel hiut with both hands to the body and head,with tremendous force, and was seldom out of punching position...He kod the 10lb. heavier Phil Jack O'brien really twice,in 1909...and other larger men...As to his N.D. fights to Frank Klaus in 6 rounds...So what ? Klaus was a great fighter then,strong as a bull...It was a 6 round bout, not a 15 round or longer bout that Ketchel relished...As for his N.D. 6 rd ,bout with the immortal Sam Langford , who was much larger than Ketchel,in 1910, it was a close bout and there were mixed opinions as to the winner..Not too bad for little Stanley.against Langford who was whipping heavyweights at that time...I base my opinions on old books, and contemporary reports of the times ,of experts who SAW Ketchel fight...Ketchel was no Willie Pep ,but to ko 49 out of 64 fighters, he must have been as great as the scribes of that time described him, unless all of his ko victims suffered heart attacks in the ring...Keep punching...

 

I'm glad I bumped this. Good volleys.

My feeling is that in fifteen or less Stan would increasingly need (but not get) the KO. We would more than likely see Dick hit the deck, however.

Particularly if we're talking about Tiger from the first half of the sixties. Don't sneeze at losses (not blowouts, mind you) to guys like Archer, Giardello, and Griffith.

Of course we can't be too picky as we don't have much of a selection to sample from for Ketchel (in a couple of senses, actually), but of what we can see it's clear he'd smash a hole in the face of many very good middleweights more brittle than Tiger (which is to say most very good middleweights).

 

Again I take my man Tiger in this one. It would be a war, but unless you're considerably stronger than Richard, if you engage him inside, you will lose. Ketchel fights valiantly and lands lots of good shots, but will end up on the wrong end of a UD.

 

Burt, you may very well be right ... I wrote he seems so crude and I do base that on the footage. I just don't see that sort of wild man slugger matching up well against Tiger who I do rate higher than you do ... I also would not give Stanley too much credit for going six with Langford as it is pretty widely known and accepted he was carried to set up a huge title bout rematch which never materialized.