What if Nat Fleischer were still alive today??

I think he list stays the same.

I mean after that great showing against Frazier in 71, and STILL would not rank Ali in his top ten, perhaps over Schemling.

 

Yes and no. Nat did think Jofre was as good as any bantam ever, and he said this in the 1960's. SSR at #4 seems way off.

While I don't like all of Flesher's ratings, he saw more of the old timers and had access to more first hand testimonials than every poster in the this board combined. However, Nat was very cordial and partial to Johnson and Ketchel.

Nat died after Ali beat Frazier. It is best to draw a line on his list from 1892-1969.

 

How do you put someone in your top 10 because of a loss? It was a great showing against Frazier, but it wasnt as great as what Schmelling did against Joe Louis the first time. Or Marciano did against Walcott or Charles.

Ali, even though he was at his best in the 60s and it turned out that this version was a top 10 fighter, would ahve been very difficult to rate in the top 10 until 1974 when he beat Frazier and Foreman. And even then, it probably wasnt until he cleared the division a second time, despite being past prime that he moved into the upper echelon.

The lists are nowhere near as bad as what people think, even if some things do stick out as strange. Looking at the ratings, it seems that he places more importance on short term dominance than longevity. For this reason, i think that Tyson would have made a very big impression on him.

I also think that Old Foreman may have made him think a bit too. He was very dominant, and when he came back to succeed in the 90s, he proved he was a top of the range fighter. Accordingly, this will have dragged the opinion of Frazier and Ali, even higher with him.

The opinion on the Superheavys would be interesting. To see whether he sees the same skill advancement of the big boys or not. I tend to think not, particularly as Foreman from the 70s and Holmes from the 80s pretty much neutralised most of theSuperheavy contenders.

I dont think Holyfield would make an imprint on the list and I tend to think Holmes would struggle to make it also. Frazier is the only other possibility and he would struggle after being dropped by Foreman, to rank as high as Foreman sho he misses out.

So, i would suggest that Ali moves in somewhere around Louis. Probably one spot behind. And Foreman moves to somewhere near Shmelling. although he might go a spot or two behind. This leaves tyson as the floater, depending on whether or not he thought he was the goods ( i have a feeling he might). Tyson probably goes somewhere below Dempsey or even Marciano (which is probably more likely)

 

If he had lived on, I think Nat would have expanded at least some of his lists to top 20, and then Muhammad Ali and others would have surely been included. Late in his life he thought about adding 10 more to his heavyweight list, but I don't think he ever actually did it.

 

It would be hard for a man who saw fight from 1910's with his own eyes, to see Ali beat Williams and put him in his top ten. Now if he had seen Ali defeat Foreman, it would have probably been a much different story.


This guy has seen all these champs fighting with his own eyes. It's gotta count for something.

 

He claimed to work for the ny globe in the summer of 1916 and claimed he did an interview with young jack dempsey when demps had his bittersweet nyc sojourn that year.
I never cranked through more microfilm in my life.
No nat, no demps, no article!
Scrue you nat!!

 

....he'd be old as ****

 

Who has what he had,,,who's close? Ray Arcel before he died was a strong candidate and I have noticed he and Nat agreed on some fighters the rest of us might cringe at. It would have been nice had Nat rated Robby at welter instead of middle where he was past his prime, and whereas some old time trainers considered Ezzard Charles in his prime one of the top five pound for pound all time and almost a shew-in as top LH,,,its dismaying that Nat didn't rate him, Archie, or Billy Conn in that division. I would have liked to ask him about those ya know.

After Ali-Frazier 1 Nat said he had seen nothing to show he should change his ratings to include Ali. I guess thats not a big suprise since he also didn't think so after seeing in person his bouts with Folley and Williams where Ali was at his peak zeneth. He thought Frazier was a good fighter but not one to break his ratings. One last mention here, along with Nat not considering Ali one of the best neither did Joe Louis or Dempsey in the sixties, and Jack was also guilty of calling him Clay until he passed.

Today Manuel Ortiz is considered one of the top three bantams on most lists, but like Charles and Moore Nat didn't think he was a top ten. A very different view of things,,and more educated too.

 

Another view--While a young sailor I sent Nat a letter asking for an opportunity to be a cub reporter for the poular Ring Mag atvthat time...He graciously answered, saying I should first get a college degree upon my discharge from the Navy...
as far as his picks for the eight divisions...It seems a little odd ,for some of his choices,ala Corbett , O'Brien etc, but he saw it this way as other
boxing writers of that time, and maybe, just maybe,he was not so far off
the mark...But Robinson has to be higher, methinks....

 

Burt, thats a good story of how Nat wrote you and I'm not suprised as I had heard he was a big supporter of our service men. Hey, I bet you would have been a real good Ring cub reporter too!

 

Growing up in the '70s I used to think Nat Fleischer's opionions on fighters were nonsense. A man stuck in the turn of the century, which is mostly what his picks were in his top ten in each division. Moreover, I could see how he had surrounded himself with a bunch of yes men and 'geezers' of writers who all shared his opinion. When Nat passed, his son-in-law Nat Loubet took over Ring and a yes man was exactly what I considered him, because he and his staff of older writers couldn't call Ali anything but Clay and their writing still favored anyone but him. In '75 when Loubet and co. came out with Ring's new revamped all-time top ten ratings, I was excited to read it but let down that it was all Nat's old picks, just jumbled up a little. Same old bunch stuck in the turn of the century. Years later, when the old guard passed and new writers came along, the new Ring picks were far more palatible to me. As the years passed, I got a greater appreciation for Nat. Not for his picks, which I still feel were preposterous, but what he did for boxing. And for the fact that I realize that most of the fighters gracing my top ten seem to be from my era in the '70s. I also have a friend who was an '80s dude and he swears by his era. I like to think I have almost every era represented but realize how we are influenced in our youth. So if Nat fell in love with some fighters while watching newsreels operated by a crank handle, so be it. I think we can all relate in some way to how excited we were watching our favorites in our youth and how firmly set we are that they would have beaten anyone. So considering everything, I may not agree with Nat's picks and opinions, but I do appreciate his passion.

Scartissue

 

Lets not forgett that Fleischers legacy is a lot bigger than his top 10 lists.

Perhaps we should remember him more for championing the cause of black fighters in an era of apauling racial discrimination.

Fleischer generaly stood for what was decent.

 

Scartissue,Generally a good analysis...But I differ on two points...
1 You say in a critical manner that 'Nat and other writers had difficulty
calling Clay by his new name Ali ...Today you have no idea ,how the
members of the " Greatest Generation", who SACRIFICED everything in
the second world war, felt about a great athlete refusing,to serve his
country, while some other poor soul,had to take his place..This generation
cannot concieve how Nat and millions of others felt!!!So please don't
condemn people like Nat and others, who found it hard to feel the same idealism, that todays generation feel...They, saved our Ass,and we should not gorget that, I believe !!!
2 Nat did not make his boxing choices, watching "hand cranked newsreels"
HE WAS AT RINGSIDE since about 1905...Whatever his choices, they
should be respected right or wrong, as he was THERE...Keep punching.b.b.

 

Correction,I meant the same "idolism "..