The Middleweights,WW's and LW's of 1890 to 1910

Mysterious Billy Smith is a welterweight..... There is Frank Klaus who did start fighting at during the mid 1st decade... Choynski I found hard to find weight measurements,, he must have been a MW at some stage but I need LHWs in a thread soon to come to fill out that thread, I don't know about the "Black Pearl" as far as I know only English Rugby League Great, Ellery Hanley had that nickname. I know of Jim Hall and Dan Creedon, Creedon was an Austrlian and had some good wins but his record is not as good as most I have named but I will include him and Jim Hall, 46-14-8 with 40 KO's... yeah I must add him, he has an awesome KO ratio. U cannot find a record for a Tim Pritchard atm. Alec Greggains had only 14 bouts and lost near half so will forget him. Looking through some others I have to include Jack Root whose record is really good 47-3-3, he has wins over George Gardner, Dan Creedon, Marvin Hart, Kid McCoy, Fireman Jim Flynn and two fights with Tommy Ryan, one a draw and the other a no contest and he lost twice in 5 fights with Gardner and once against Marvin Hart....... he is a seriously good MW...

As for Peter Maher he is way too big a guy for this weight.

Thanks for your great input

 

1st Tier - Stanley Ketchell, Bob Fitzsimmons, Nonpariel Jack Dempsey, Sam Langford
Tier two - Jack Blackburn, Tommy Ryan, Kid McCoy, Young Peter Jackson, Joe Walcott, Billy Papke, Jack "Twin" Sullivan, "Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, Tommy Burns,..................... new additions, Jack Root, George Gardner, Dan Creedon, Jim Hall.

I looked at George Byers, not a bad fighter but I don't think he is up in the class of the men above. We now have a pretty good pool here for the middles now

 

OK now for the first step in the welterweights.

Tier one : Tommy Ryan, Joe Walcott, Mysterious Billy Smith,

Tier Two : Jimmy Gardner, Mike "Twin" Sullivan, William Honey Melody, Rube Ferns, Jack Britton (early career), Jimmy Clabby, Matty Matthews

Come on guys I need a few more names here and your thoughts

 

I understand Tommy West was a fair fighter but I cannot find any record of his weight for a fight where he qualifies as a welterweight, the few times his weight is recorded he is a middleweight. Tommy fought a lot of great fighters but recorded few wins over them, he fought on several occasions, Joe Walcott, Tommy Ryan, Kid McCoy, Joe Choynski, Jack Root, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, Marvin Hart, Mysterious Billy Smith and Young Peter Jackson. This tells me that West was certainly a very brave gutsy fighter, he fought Joe Walcott 6 times with 2 wins, 3 losses and a draw. 9 great to very good fighters 3 at least ATG's. Boxrec has his record at 53 fights, 27-10-8 with newspaper decisions 3-2-1 which is a bit confusing, there are two bouts unaccounted for as that adds up to just 51 bouts.

On the 27th of August 1900 Tommy had his second win over Joe Walcott at Madison Square Garden but this seems very fishy according to this report is from the Durango Democrat...........

"The bout had gone eleven rounds very much in Wolcott's favor, as he had punished West very badly about the body and head and had him in a very weakened condition. When the bell rang for the twelfth round, to the surprise of everybody, Wolcott refused to go on, claiming he had injured his left arm. Referee Charlie White, suspecting crookedness, insisted upon Walcott continuing, but the negro refused to do so, which left White no alternative other than to declare West the winner. There was quite a large sum of money wagered, with West as favorite and the referee is very outspoken in reference to Walcott's peculiar actions. Manager Kennedy, on behalf of the club, announced that Walcott's share of the money would not be given to him, but would be donated to some charitable institution. "

 

Another fighter I can put in the second tier of welterweights is a pretty impressive guy called Danny Needham, 64-11-5.... Needham seemed to be a guy who didn't do much cutting of weight as his weight fluctuates between lightweight and middleweight so I will include Danny in the WW list. I have found the welterweight division in this era confusing to say the least, I don't think many fighters worried about cutting weight, preferring to go in at full strength. The problem is that there are a handful of real standouts and then a second group of good fighters that is large but they all seem to be about as good as each other, sharing wins and losses among themselves, sort of like "the Murderers Row" only difference being that this MR consists of like 100 boxers.

My list for the welterweights currently stands as

Tier one : Tommy Ryan, Joe Walcott, Mysterious Billy Smith,

Tier Two : Jimmy Gardner, Mike "Twin" Sullivan, William Honey Melody, Rube Ferns, Jack Britton (early career), Jimmy Clabby, Matty Matthews, Danny Needham

I will name 3 fighters in a tentative order.

#1. Tommy Ryan
#2. Joe Walcott
#3. Mysterious Billy Smith
The rest named above.
Jimmy Clabby comes in very late in this period and is yet to reach his peak at this weight. Clearly the two greatest fighters in this division are Tommy Ryan and Joe Walcott but do I have them in the right order ? any thoughts on this are very welcome.

 

Now for the Lightweights, now this was a very strong division in this period I feel, a lot healthier than the welterweight division I think. I will need more names and suggestions, perhaps you have some favourites here, let me know.

Tier ONE : Joe Gans, Battling Nelson, Packey McFarland, Young Griffo, Jack McAuliffe, George Kid Lavigne, Rube Ferns

Tier TWO : Willie Ritchie, Freddie Welsh (both of these two hit prime after 1910). Jimmy Britt, Owen Moran, Ad Wolgast.

Some like Young Griffo were natural featherweights but Griffo fought many lightweights and even weltwerweights and as any Griffo fan knows, he would never train let alone cut weight but he was just so great that he handled any lightweight with aplomb and often humiliated great fighters. He won't end up on top in this division but he has no peer in the Featherweight division in this era, George Dixon comes pretty close but no cigar.

 

I will soon start on the light heavies and heavyweights from 1890 to 1910 but is there any lightweights I have missed so far ?

 

Thank you Senya, tomorrow I will look into all these guys and see how they stack up.

 

I thought I had Frank Erne in there but he isn't but I did mean to put him high