When great punching meets tactical genius - McLarnin KO1 Young Corbett III

Jimmy McLarnin was the biggest draw in boxing between Dempsey and Louis but it was 60 plus fights before he landed a title shot, due in part to his paranoid (if brilliant) manager's determination to keep him out of the hands of the mob (And anyone else) and partly because Jimmy fought for maximum bank, and the champ didn't always represent maximum bank. And when he did finally beat a champion who had a title (as opposed to the 11 champions who had dropped or were yet to aquire one) you can understand his wanting to be thorough about it, but I still think McLarnin KO1 Corbett III is one of the best - and now underated - results in boxing history.

Corbett was stopped 4 times in a career that spanned 158 fights. Two of those stoppage losses were in his first four fights. The final one came when he was taking a stab at the MW title of the world, Apostoli stopping him in 8. The other stoppage was in his absolute prime at his prime weight, he was stopped by Jimmy McLarnin in a single round.

Corbett is an underated fighter. After losing to McLarnin, he would go on to beat Apolstini - right before he lifted the title - Billy Conn, a LHW Gus Lesnenivh and Mickey Walker (just coming off a victory over Rosenbloom). Before he met McLarnin, he's got a who's who of champions, almost always in non-title fights boys like Fields and Thompson as well as guys like Joe Glick and Ceferon Garcia. He was lethal.

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Looks hard, doesn't he? Well he was, and in his first defence, he took on McLarnin who was possibly just past his very best, but was still a feared puncher and a man to be avoided. Not Corbett.

Pop Foster and Jimmy McLarnin had only met one southpaw before and been beaten, so Foster, who worked on all facets of Jimmy's career threw together a plan to bring the title to his fighter. Instead of circling left he would come in straight, and when he needed an angle to circle to the right, instead - basically it reads like they were trying to reverse the traditional advantage a southpaw carries by distorting the other fighter's mirror. Also, I think they might have recognised that although he was big and strong, Corbett was only a good puncher (21% ko rate) and that it would take more to stop McLarnin, whilst McLarnin himself hit hard enough to stop anyone he could really open up on (he hadn't run into Canzoneri yet) so they wanted to take the chance and make it rough.

The second part of the plan stemmed from the fact that Pop Foster had seen Corbett lift the title from Jackie Fields spotting that Corbett dropped his right when he threw a left to the body. So as well as all this counter-intuitive footwork, he was going to send his boy into the ring with his hands misplaced, carrying them "a little high".

All of this worked like a charm. Corbett came out aggressive (like they knew he would) reacted with Jimmy's straight ahead footwork with violence (like they knew he would) threw a left to Jimmy's open body (like they knew he would) at which point McLarnin countered with a left to Corbett's jaw (like they knew he would).

Corbett dropped like a stone.

This was, accoridng to Andrew Gallimore in "The Jimmy McLarnin Story", 'the first time Corbett had ever visited the canvas'. As would be the case when Apolstoli beat him, bouncing him of the canvas repeatedly, Corbett was back up and ready to fight, but as a contest it was already over, with that single punch. McLarnin begged referee George Blake to stop the fight before administiring the punch that forced him to do so in 2 minutes and 37 seconds of the first round.

The New York American named McLarnin the "greatest fighter of modern times".

The New York Times: "The most spectacular upset the welterweight division has known in some years."

Ring: "Corbett's helplessness was pitiful...[but] he supplied a splendid exhibition of gameness."

Wish we had film of this one.


Incidently, James J Jeffries was ringside for this one writing an article on the fight for "a Los Angeles Newspaper". I would LOVE to know what he made of such a display...anyone got any idea which paper he had been writing for?

 

I'm recommending this book to you boys without any reservations whatsoever:

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Heard you say this before - I don't quite have it that way, but I want to hear why you think this.

How highly do you think of this win? His best? Where do you have Barney Ross?