Sugar Ray robinson vs Jim Corbett

Robinson tried to make afight with Moore ,but Moore vetoed it because he said Robinson wanted all the money.

 

Sounds like a case of he said she said, where the truth might be hard to get at.

I do suspect that Maxim was the ideal light heavyweight champion for Robinson to make his move against, eg no power and hence totaly reliant on strengths of speed and boxing ability that Robinson could surpass.

 

Well, this is the fight I would use to make a case for his stamina. LaMotta claimed he was drained making the weight, but critics could point out that he went 15 with Mitri and Dauthuille and even came on at the end against Dauthuille.

What is for certain is that LaMotta is totally gone by these rounds against Robinson. He fights back some late in the 11th, but I did not see a serious punch from LaMotta in the 12th at all. Robinson had target practice against an open target whose hands were low and who was not punching back and moving very little. This is impressive to some extent, but there no way this LaMotta stands up to Fitz and other big punching heavier men. Murphy got him out in 7 their first fight. Nardico in 8. I don't think LaMotta would have seen any of these rounds if his opponent had been Fitz.

And I think someone like Corbett, a half a foot taller than LaMotta, and 25 lbs heavier is going to be another kettle of fish entirely.

 

He may not hit as hard but Lamotta is the concensous toughest post-war Middle. Unless you have a genuine bias towards the pre-war fighters you cannot claim that being more recent means that Lamotta couldn't conceivably be as tugh as Fritz, regardless of how big the guys were he faced. They would've had much better technique for starters which slightly evens it out.

Look, we all know men who can really punch. Every area has one. Fitz is basic by todays standards, although as I have admitted this may have made him more awkward.

But I go for what is more proven; a Ray Robinson would went 5-1 with Lamotta and here is shown given him a shellacking. For me this is what Fitz would look for by the 2nd round (if it goes that far); not as physically damaged but totally clueless at how to deal with what's in front of him.

 

1. "LaMotta might be as tough as Fitz"

And then maybe not. Bob Murphy and Danny Nardico stopped him. I think it is a judgement call. It certainly seems to have been easier to knock Fitz down than LaMotta. Keeping him down or actually stopping him was another matter. Only Jeff did that between 1890 and 1905.

2. "They had much better technique"

Murphy and Nardico were the crudest of sluggers in my judgement.

3. "We all know men who can really punch"

Well, all I would say is that if LaMotta were as helpless against Fitz as he is for a couple of rounds against Robinson, simply a walking punching bag, I would fear for his life, and I'm not kidding.

4. I just don't think LaMotta is quite the world beater the younger folks seem to think. He was considered an above average but not outstanding champion until that book and movie, RAGING BULL, came out and sort of made him a perverse folk hero.

 

He didnt destroy Fitz

 

Was Frazier incoherent after the fight?
Was he coverd with heat blisters ?
Did he drag Futch into the shower with him?
You keep quoting Daniel .why not read what other writers said about it?
How about checking WC Heinz or Peter Wilson or AJ Leibling out?
Or does their ring side opinion not jibe with your own?
Dr Nardiello ,Robinson's physician, said he had never seen anyone act like Robinson before.
Robinson did NOT blame the heat he insisted, after dragging first Nardiello ,then Mayor Vincent Impellitiri,and finally Gainford under the shower with him.
"Im not crazy,you may think I am but God beat me".
Maxim went to Toots Shor's after the fight and sat there eating mounds of water melon,he said he had nearly gone with the heat too.
That heat sure affects you strangely,when Robinson was down I wanted to step on his face-anything so hed just stay down,I said to my self ,whats wrong with me-am I crazy,I had sunstroke twice and I would have gone if he didnt"
This was in interview he gave to Wilson , in Shor's. Maxim lost 9lbs in weight and Robinson 11lbs.
Wilson weighed himself before and after the fight and he lost 7lbs just watching it.
Wilson wrote his copy at 3 o clock in the morning in an apartment overlooking the East River,the temperature was 83 degrees.

 

Gil Clancy actually considered him underrated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfdfKrbWBS4
5:50

 

Well, here is what A J Liebling actually wrote in his evaluation of this fight: THE SWEET SCIENCE--"Kearns by a knockout."

"The heat was the same for both men. This much is sure, though. Whenever a man weighing a hundred and fifty-seven has to pull and haul against a man weighing a hundred and seventy-three, he has to handle sixteen pounds more than his own weight. The other fellow has to handle sixteen pounds less than his. And when you multiply this by the number of seconds the men struggle during thirty-nine minutes of a bout like this, you get a good idea of why they weigh prizefighters. The multiplication is more than arithmetical, of course; a man who boxes four rounds if more than four times as tired as if he boxed one."

"I talked to Kearns a couple of days after the fight, and he left no doubt in my mind about what he wanted me to believed had happened. . . 'The heat talk is an alibi and an excuse,' Kearns said. 'Robinson was nailed good in the belly in the tenth round, and again in the twelfth, and he got a left hook and a right to the head at the end of the thirteenth, when he was on the ropes. If the bell hadn't a rang, he'd be dead. I didn't move Maxim until the twelfth round. I didn't have to. I knew I could win in any round when I got ready. The only reason I shoved Maxim in at all was because I wanted to win with a one-punch knockout. Robinson escaped by luck.'
I paused to commit this to memory, and then asked Dr Kearns, who seemed in high good humor, to what he attributed his victory. 'Oh, I don't know,' Kearns said modestly. 'Anybody who was around those old-time fights we used to have in the hot sun on the Fourth of July knew you had to rate any athlete according to what the heat was. Robinson figured he had any one of fifteen rounds in which to win in. He was going to try for a knockout in every round he fought. But I just told Maxim, 'Just keep this fellow moving, moving. Then he will have to clinch and hang on.' After that, it just depended how quick I decided to move Maxim. It was up to me to pick the round. Next time I'll knock him out quicker.'"

This ends the analysis of the bout. Liebling obviously felt that Kearns had pinpointed what had happened. Besides the Fitz-Robinson debate, this fight shows that you better be careful in assuming the old-timers don't know something you might not, and glib putdowns of "primitive" boxing. Robinson lost because the septuagenarian manager of Maxim remembered the fights in the boiling sun and remembered the strategy you had to use to survive and wear the other man out, and that old-time knowledge destroyed Sugar Ray.

 

1. On weights, James P Dawson gave the precise after the fight weights in the New York Times as 166 for Maxim and 150 for Robinson on June 27. I accept those weights. Maxim might have lost 9 pounds easily. Robinson 11? I don't think he would ever have gotten up to 161, but I guess it is possible.

2. Incoherent after the fight--a lot of fighters have been incoherent after being knocked out.

3. Dr Nardiello was Robinson's personal physician--I might be too cynical, but I remember Elvis' personal physician swearing Elvis never did drugs the day after Elvis died.

4. Maxim went to Toot Shor's--He went to a nightclub for a party. You would think that if he was utterly spent he would have gone home and to bed. He seems to have survived this ordeal pretty well.

5. There are probably all sorts of "the heat did it" takes from the ringside press. I posted Liebling and the quotes from Kearns. I respect what Kearns said not so much because he said it as because it jibes with what I see on the film. Maxim backed the tiring Robinson against the ropes and stopped him with a right uppercut. Could Robinson have survived that punch if he was not exhausted. Strongly probable to all but certain, but Robinson was not the first fighter to go down from a punch late in a gruelling fight that he would have shaken off earlier.

 

3. you're totally misunderstanding my point. I'm saying in everday life there is always a tough guy capable of knocking out the other supposed tough guys of the area. That is all Fitz's age is to me, their 'skills' seem unapparent on film. One punch, clinch, grapple, couple of punches, thrown with the chin pointing up at the sky, clinch, grapple. If it was like this no wonder they managed to last 20, 30 rounds, regardless of whether 'a kd constituted a round'

for me they are just well-conditioned tough guys. Not the efficient athletes we started to see from Tunney onwards.

All my opinion I'm not flaming you. I think you make valid points, but there's no way I'm not possibly making valid points either as there is little film to judge and, let's be honest, hardly any pre-Tunney footage is that impressive. Not in my opinion, not even Jack Jonson. Even Tunney I find a wee bit amateurish.

I know I'm setting myself up to be flamed but I don't care; I've been over this hundreds of time. Whilst interested in all aspects of boxing, I consider these guys innovators and starts of the boxing we know now. No doubt they invented some little things and made it possible for the fluent style we know of the best fighters from history.

But in terms of matching up against any 'ATG' from their respective weightclasses; Fitz would never have seen anything like Robinson. Robinson would have someone with a punchers chance in front of him, and not much of one because he would get blitzed.

Again ONLY MY OPINION hope you don't think I'm being a dick about it, thi is a discussion after all :good

 

atsch

I have the book, NOWHERE does Liebling say he agreed with Kearns analysis, that is your spin on it, NOT Liebling's
Nowhere have I mentioned primitive boxing or put down any old timer .
I rate Jack Johnson as the second best heavyweight of alltime ,with Dempsey immediately behind him,I think you must have me confused with some one else.

Kearns was a proven bull**** artist , he claimed he doctored Dempsey's gloves in Toledo..While managing Maxim he told anyone who would listen Maxim was better than Dempsey.
He was talking out of the managers side of his mouth.

 

Robinson was NOT knocked out he retired, which punch did you see Maxim land that floored Robinson ,let alone kod him?

No you are not cynical ,just highly selective about what you want to post and comment on, anything which doesnt fit in to your scenario you ignore. A cherry picker,shades of Mendoza atsch

 

"Again ONLY MY OPINION hope you don't think I'm being a dick about it, this is a discussion after all"

Why should I hold it against you for giving your opinion when the purpose of this board is to give our opinions?



That said, I think you are wrong in that you carry a perception that I agree is true--Robinson and the fighters of his era had far advanced over the 1890's--beyond a point that I think is valid. Fitz and Corbett were not just "tough men" or they wouldn't have been champions. After all, there were many bigger and stronger men around, up to 6' 7" and 260 or so lbs in the case of Fitz (off his biog by Gilbert Odd) whom he easily defeated. He had technique. He could outbox an untutored fighter. So could Jack Johnson. And so could Corbett.

This thread is about Corbett. I agree that Corbett had never seen anything like Robinson for skill, but he had fought and beat men who were much bigger and had some skills themselves. The little remaining footage of Choynski shows a man in his mid-forties with excellent footwork.

Robinson never defeated a good fighter above middleweight. It seems to me to be too much of a stretch to assume he handles a man probably taller by inches than any he faced and probably a harder hitter than any he faced and probably even quicker on his feet than all but a few Robinson faced, and with all that about thirty pounds heavier.

By the way, because the best boxers of the fifties had more skill than the best of the 1890's, in my judgement, does not mean that i think just everyone did. Nardico, Murphy, and Graziano were all crude and wide open, but still top fighters. I think Fitz and Corbett had better skills, on balance.