Georges Carpentier

I think he is severely underated today,he was 17 when he lost to Dixie Kid,18 when he lost to Klaus and Papke,and 20 when he lost to Jeanette.
Carpentier was 30 when he lost to Gibbons ,but Gibbons was a very fine fighter.The Frenchman took a bad beating from Tunney,but gamely hung in there,he was past it when he lost to Loughran , only 32 ,but the wars had caught up with him.
Top15 lhvy's maybe?

 

A great fighter. A great puncher.

WW1 probably did him no good as far as how he could have developed.

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQiC1wZ9DAA[/ame]

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSp4S1bbTzA&feature=related[/ame]

 

Totally overrated based on fixed fights and setup victories over euro stiffs. His entire gameplan was based on landing his admittedly deadly right hand. If you took that away from him he was nothing.

 

Which fights were fixed ?

 

I was most impressed with how easily he lifted Beckitt off the the canvas.

 

His entire gameplan was based on landing his admittedly deadly right hand. If you took that away from him he was nothing

Couldn't the same be said for Lew Jenkins and Rocky Graziano?
I beleive the Siki fight was a fix ,that became a double cross,what other fights were fixed ? You said fights, as in plural.

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I dont think Graziano was great either. I think he is incredibly overrated, like Carpentier, due to his popularity with the fans. Not because of his ability.

Carps fights with Levinsky (for the title), Siki, Grundhoven, and Townley were all fixes either obviously (as is the case with Grundhoven and Townley), admittedly (as was the case with Siki), and allegedly (as was the case with Levinsky who basically sold his title to carpentier if you research that fight). I would also add that the verdicts in his bouts with Willie Lewis (who he should have destroyed) and Gunboat Smith were unjust. Willie Lewis beat the hello out of Carpentier at both boxing and slugging knocking him down several times in the process only to lose a decision. Those who either witnessed the fight or saw films of it say that Gunboat Smith should not have been disqualified against Carp and was on the verge of a victory when he was. Add this to the fact that whenever he was losing or did lose Carpentier always tried to win via DQ by claiming or foul and when this wasnt allowed (as was the case against Klaus, Dempsey, Siki, Gibbons, Tunney, and others) he complained long and loud to the press or came up with wild stories about how the only reason he lost was because he had an injury (he was sick when he fought Dixie Kid, injured his ankle against Gibbons... in the last round of a fight that Gibbons won every minute of, he broke his thumb against Dempsey, his hand against Siki, etc etc.). Lets also not forget that he turned down an offer to face Greb for the title and elected to fight the much smaller Ted Kid Lewis only to win that fight by hitting on the break to score a KO. After this fight he was offered a fortune by Tex Rickard to face Greb for the title and elected to face Siki instead for less than one tenth what Rickard offered AND tried to fix the fight in his favor only to lose by KO. If that doesnt add up to the very definition of an overrated media creation I dont know what does.

 

There's certainly no one on Classic overstating Graziano as being some kind of P4P God.

Also, please space your paragraphs.

 

I was replying to mcvey's comment where he said the same could be said about Graziano's limited style.

 

Its a valid comparison. You can label a lot of fighters, even ATG's, and talk about their one vaunted attack.

 

He took a savage beating against Tunney in the 10th round and actually managed to make somewhat of a comeback until being stopped with a body punch (which may have been low). I thought he was giving Tunney some problems until Tunney started landing his left hooks with regularity.

Carpentier obviously had the big right hand but I think he had a bit more than that. He was making Dempsey miss a lot until Dempsey eventually caught up to him. He stunned Dempsey too.

 

I am one one of a handful of people who have the complete copy of Carp-Tunney and Carp was not giving Tunney problems. Tunney thoroughly outboxed and outslugged Carp.

Dempsey was rocked by... you guessed it a right hand. But Bill Brennan rocked Dempsey more than once and took him into the late rounds and on some scorecards even had a lead on Dempsey. Does that make Brennan great?

You can argue that some all time greats have one dimensional attacks but thats not my only reasoning for eliminating Carp as an all time great. If it were I dont think it would be valid but its not. There is more footage on Carpentier than any other fighter of the first 25 to 30 years of the twentieth century ranging from 1912 (or earlier if count training footage) to 1925 encompassing several hours worth of footage against a wide range of opponents from total tomatoe cans to legitimate great fighters and from that I think we can gain a pretty strong opinion of his abilities and safely rank him. Based on that as well as quite a lot of research I cant bring myself to rank very highly in or near the pantheon of legitimately great fighters. The best I can say is that he had a legitimately great right hand, he was almost singlehandedly responsible for popularizing boxing in continental europe (and for that he deserves to be in the HOF), and was always in tremendous physical condition. That being said had horrible footwork, no variety of puches, no plan "b" for any fight he ever fought, a sub par chin, and relied quite heavily on friendly officiating/back room shinnanigans to win when his skills couldnt do it for him.