HW 15 rounds. Who you would pick ???? Actually, I know most people will pick Max.....but do you think Gibbons would have a good chance here ?? How do you see this fight going ?
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The word "better" is only constructive to this type of debate, if two fighters are stylisticaly similar. Here this is not the case.
Gibbons has a great chance. Some say nobody was better at making a guy miss in that era, and there are a few beauties. My guess is the you could get two different results with two different sets of judges. I reckon Gibbons would outland Schmeling with Schmeling doing the harder punching.
Gibbons didn't really have any obvious weaknesses, except that he often fought the wrong type of fight.
Very well said J :good. I'll have to watch a bit more of Gibbons to have an opinion on this one. Any suggestions on where to start?
Gibbons Bloomfield is the clearest footage of him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNy9fJbSPZk The full Dempsey Gibbons fight and Gibbons Tunney are both on Youtube as well.
I haven't seen that fight before, Gibbons is primarily a left hooker and it's a beautiful short whipping punch and brutal when he gets it going. He does have some decent head movement and his jab is decent when he actually uses it but he also commits fundamental defensive mistakes, like coming into range with his hands down without punching. As primarily an in fighter you can see why he was never going to match up well against a bigger stronger Dempsey. His right isn't bad when he actually uses it, but he rarely does, maybe he had less confidence in it, maybe he has a right hand or maybe he'd fallen in love with the left hook. Against Tunney he really gets picked apart, he uses his jab much more but he's moving over to the left to get his left hook off and keeps getting smashed by Tunney's straight right because of that. A smaller left hooker is always going to struggle against a top right hand counter puncher because they have to expose themselves to counter rights when moving to the left to throw that left hook. Both Tunney and Schmelling have great counter straight rights and that would be the story of this match up. Schmelling like Tunney would knock Gibbons out and you can bet it would be with the right hand.
I'll put his fundamental mistake in the same category as Ali's "fundamental mistake" of holding his hands too low or pulling away from punches ;-) . You already know that when you've been fighting as long as Gibbons has, it no longer can be considered a mistake, but a conscious choice by a fighter who knows what does and doesn't work for him. More likely this was merely the strategy he'd devised to fight Bloomfield. I'm sure he studied the man closely beforehand (the Gibbons brothers were both known for that) and decided that this was the best tactic. You have to remember that Tommy was known for his crippling right hand (he beat Greb in their initial fights with the right and clobbered Kid Norfolk, among others, by using the right). He was quite the whacker and could take you out with either hand. I realize that you are merely making observations from the limited amount of film we have, but I'm sure that you'll agree with me that using this fight as a benchmark for anything is a bad idea. This is the final fight of Tommy's long career. He was well past his best. It gives no indication of how a prime Gibbons would have done against Schmeling (or Tunney, for that matter). If a counter right was all it took to beat Tommy Gibbons, we probably wouldn't even be discussing his career right now. If Jack Dempsey isn't stopping Gibbons (and Tunney wouldn't have stopped a prime Gibbons either), the slower Schmeling isn't stopping him. Gibbons rolled with Jack's fast punches, so I don't see him having any problem rolling with Max's slower shots. Gibbons has excellent footwork, excellent speed, exceptional power in BOTH hands, a solid chin and some of the best defensive skills of the era. I see Tommy making Max miss badly throughout this fight, feinting him into knots, countering his right hands and winning a UD.
Both are technical errors, Gibbons is a bit worse though because it's a mistake he's presenting to his opponent rather than a defensive error. However both fighters were punished for these errors in their losses. He also was focused on using the left hook against Dempsey, a very poor gameplan against a murderous left hooker in Dempsey. He focused on the jab and left hook against Tunney. It looks more left hook happy than someone using a strategy, that doesn't mean he has a bad right hand, it looks good when he throws it but punchers often focus on their best punch. I do agree he generates allot of body torque in both hands, although his right doesn't cover much range. He was certainly past his prime at 34 but I see the result the same with a younger version. I've outlined why he's open to right hands and why it's a nightmare style for him to face, that and the fact Tunney was the best he ever faced imo It's not only needing a 'counter right' either, it's about having 2 of the best counter rights/lead rights in history that Schmelling and Tunney both had. Both men also have what 15lbs, it's 1 thing walking a man down and making an infight with a decent right hand if you're the same size, but another thing against a bigger man. Dempsey doesn't have as good a right as Schmelling though and Gibbons fought on the book foot spoiled and was probably only looking to survive. Yes he could do something similar against Schmelling if he wasn't trying to win. Maybe you're underrating Schmelling as a puncher? This is a man who knocked out Prime Joe Louis, Mickey Walker, Risko, Hamas, Stribbling, amongst others. These weren't guys who anyone else was stopping. If he was to win it wouldn't be by countering, it'd be on the inside, he doesn't do outfighting.
j, about two years ago I saw on youtube a different and much clearer film of the Tommy Gibbons/Jack Bloomfield fight in London Oct 24, 1924. In this version from a different camera, Gibbons looked absolutely awesome flattening Bloomfield with devastating punches. I ,though I've been watching boxing for too many decades was under the impression that Tommy Gibbons was just a rugged and wily master boxer, but he could hit, koing 48 opponents in his 57 wins. Just TEN months after his ko of Jack Bloomfield, Gibbons at a worn out 34 years of age retired. I put him in the same category in his prime with Tunney, Charles, Conn, Moore in the LH mix... To think that the smaller, half blind Harry Greb beat Gibbons several times, is quite a feat for the dynamo that was Harry Greb... P.S. when I was a young man I dated a girl whose stepfather was a younger brother of Jack Bloomfield...At that time I knew little of the boxer from London, Jack Bloomfield...I know now...
