Tell me about fitzsimmons as a heavyweight

Luf, If you truly want to learn about the great Bob Fitzimmons, get hold of
The Fireside Book of Boxing, by W.C. Heinz and Ward. Read in that book the
article by Edgar Lee Masters,the great American poet and boxinbg fan,who saw Bob Fitzimmons and all other champions until his death in the 1950s.
It will enlighten you...

 

His no contest with Boston Tom should've been a draw. BTM stached his face up something fierce! Believe that!

 

I think that if any 190lb fighter had beaten the oponents that Fitzsimmons beat the way he beat them, then we would be seing him on a lot of top 20 lists.

Fitzsimmons gets sold short due to his size IMHO.

 

Yep.

Fitzsimmons' ability to be competitive with the big guys, and dominant actually, is quite astounding. Even at a very old age he was still a coiled snake waiting to strike. Possibly the most disarming appearance and build for such a deadly puncher in the history of the game.

If only he had fought Peter Jackson....

 

I also think that Fitzsimmons still has a case for being among the greatest heavyweight finishers of all time.

Not p4p, but outright!

 

By the time Bob was an active heavy Jackson was hitting the high(or low) life.

 

Actually, it would be more like Froch knocking Wladimir, Haye, Adamek, Povetkin Chagaev, Peters, Sosnowski and a quite a few others, before being stopped by the next all time great champion to emerge twice, but not before giving that all time great two huge battles. Then going back to beat light heavyweight to beat light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins before eventually dropping that title to Jean Pascal (who would by this time be an all time great) in the second of their bouts after Froch would have been pretty much in semi retirement. We wont go on to consider the next part of his heavyweight career where he eventually fights other heavyweight champion and even fights a decently impressive no decision fight on even terms with the world champion of the future). And of course Froch's middleweight reign would have needed to have been an awful lot more impressive.

Like everyone (including those of his own time), Fitz as the only undisputed world champion to weight under the light heavyweight or middleweight (not supermiddleweight) weight limits, will always be doubted due to his size. If no one else could ever do it, how can he possibly be so far ahead of everybody else. Of course the flip side is that if no one else has ever been able to do it, he must be just that good. Still, as a pure heavyweight his record is underated vastly because of his size. If he was the same size as Jeffries or Willard, and did exactly the same thing, i think at least some would rate him as the greatest of all time.

 

Bob beat Maher, Sharkey(truly) Choynsky, Ruhlin, Corbett, Gardner-6 top 5-10 Heavyweights of the era, the kind of performance that top 20 ATG HW's do.
Did any of "bowe, norton, patterson, johanneson, corbett, norton, sharkey, baer, braddock, spinks, carnera" achieve that? Sharkey beat Godfrey, Schmeling, Loughran, Wills.Godfrey;Bowe didn't, Johansson(Patterson, Machen, Cooper) Baer (Schmeling, Carnera) Corbett(Sullivan, Choynsky, Kilrain, McCoy) didn't either.Patterson(Moore, Johansson, Jackson, Chuvalo, Bonavena, and others-yep he did it) Norton(Ali, Quarry, Young) not really and def not Primo or Spinks, off the top of my head Fitz resumee at heavy stacks up.

 

When you have Dempsey at roughly 5th then you can make a case for Fitz where ever you so choose.

 

Thanks.