Does anyone know if Len Wickwar has been inducted into the IBHOF. If not, why? He had the most fights and I believe, the most wins out of any boxer? If I'm not mistaken his record stands at 342-86-43 (with some minor disputes). I don't see this record being broken any time soon ...
Seems he’s not hall of fame worthy despite being prolific as he never won so much as a British title, did he? Just a few regional baubles, so he wasn’t ever regarded as best in his own country much less world class. It’s a nice footnote. I think it would be good for Halls of Fame to have a small wing with plaques to recognize peculiarities and such but as a fighter to me I don’t see how he’d belong based on his body of work.
These numbers are mind boggling! Especially compared to the number of fights under the belts of some of the more “elite” fighters of today who are guessed to prevail over all those who came before then <cough, splutter!> Apparently in boxing the wheel has turned - or in fact become square - LESS supposedly being so much more. Welcome to the Nouveau ATG Cuisine. Entrees are the new main meals. WTF? We’ve become severely malnourished. More, please Sir?…..More!!????
I wonder how much these guys could actually teach you. I’d be genuinely interested to see these guys coach.
Here he is in action if you want a gander. This content is protected Thing is, in these days of guys fighting several times a month (sometimes several times a week and in Len’s case I think occasionally more than once on the same day) we have enough tales and information that guys might not have been going all out to kill each other every time. Some of these fights (certainly not all) might be more equivalent to what in soccer would be called ‘friendlies’ where they are actually doing something more akin to public sparring. There’s a glimpse of this on Len’s record in the mid-1930s. He wins a fight where his opponent is DQ’d for not trying. One month (and four fights) later, the ref stops the fight and calls it a no content for both not trying. That’s a heck of a thing to happen twice in a calendar month, and I suspect the refs would go along a lot of the time and maybe nudge the boys to pick it up a bit to keep from having to wave it off. Then there are a lot of mixes where he will fight a veteran, have a few fights against guys with little or no record for an easy win (keeping in mind in his day you didn’t have pros with dozens or even 100 or more amateur fights, so a novice was a true novice) then fight another veteran. It’s not to take anything away from Len or the guys of his day but fighting that frequently then isn’t akin to Ali having five title fights in one year with both fighters bringing their A games to win — it was more of a punch-the-clock job for guys like Wickwar where the trick was always to live to fight another day … and bring home another paycheck to put food on the table. And these boys were all in that same boat together and understood how things worked.
Even back in the day of the black dynamite crew - Langford, McVey, Jeanette and other black contenders - these guys were forced to fight one another over and over due to the embargo on progressing to an actual title shot. The description of quite a few of their round robin matches were suggestive that they simply went through the motions - and they were often criticised for an apparent lack of effort. Doesn’t mean it happened all the time but it was an occasional by product of the ridiculous amount of fights these great fighters were forced into having against one another. They clearly weren’t dumb - they weren’t going to beat the absolute sh*t out of each other every time out.
