Who hit as hard as Fitzsimmons...

Dropped but not kod,Johnson sprang up and kod Ketchel immediately.

Fitz kod Sharkey twice,Maher twice, Ruhlin,and while scaling 3 lbs less than Ketchel weighed for Johnson Fitz kod the heavyweight Champ
Corbett.

Ketchel kod one minor heavyweight Porky Flynn ,who was kod multiple times.

 

yeh he had same day weigh ins though so imagine if he had an extra day to drain down.

Have only read the pages on Fighing ill flick through the rest of the manuel

 

Agreed. The shot he dropped Johnson with may be the hardest single punch by any middleweight captured on film, and it was more than a flash knockdown. Johnson did not get up on his first try, and falling over Ketchel when he retaliated suggests he was still stunned when he knocked Stan cold.

Langford took out Wills twice, apparently knocking Harry out with a single hook, and reportedly diluted his record by carrying some opponents, something Mickey Walker also admitted to doing in his autobiography. Walker's best weight was 158-159, the weight he trained himself to for the originally scheduled date with Schmeling. While he conceded that he may not have been able to defeat Max, even when in peak condition, he gave every other heavyweight he faced hell, and Schmeling did not take his power lightly either. Mickey also used larger gloves than Fitz.

For Jeffries to say Choynski hit harder is interesting, since Fitz doctored his hands for the rematch with Jeff. (That Corbett kicked Choynski's ass on the street as well as in the ring suggests that Jim was much more of a badass than his public image made him out to be.)

 

I don't think Johnson was badly hurt by Ketchel's punch ,and he stumbled over Ketchel's body ,which was on the floor at the time.
What proof have you that Fitz doctored his hands for the second fight with Jeffries?
Walker was a good puncher but never kod a top heavyweight.
Fitz kod many.
I have never quite made my mind up about the Ketchel fight, other than that Johnson carried Ketchel ,Ketchel falls to the canvas from an uppercut in the 9th ,and Johnson lifts him up bodily.
Several prints I have seen of the fight seem to indicate Johnson is falling BEFORE he is hit.
But lets not muddy the waters ,lets return to the thread.

 

I think Fitz must take some beating.To knock a heavyweight out of the calibre of Corbett,conceding 20 pounds after 14 gruelling rounds and with a body shot is really quite remarkable.The guy must have had awesome power.

 

Against Gus Ruhlin he gave up 30 lbs.

The Gus Ruhlin fight is not on film but the papers say that Ruhlin was knocked so cold that he fell forward onto his face and didn't use his arms to break his fall.

 

Common sense suggests this might be true, but if you look at his record at this weight, he really didnt seem to knock many people out at all at this lighter weight.

Sams power didnt seem to become prevalent until he started going up in the weights and fighting larger fighters.

What this means, i dont know. Did the smaller, quicker fighters trouble him more, Did he need the weight to develop his punch, was he foxing early on in his career, Did he change his style completely to a more aggressive approach, did the smaller fighters simply run away from him more?

I am interested to hear from some of the huge Langford fans as to what his power was like (at this weight).

 

I think that to some extent the same observation could be made of Fitzsimmons to a lesser extent.

Lets not forgett that the Nonpareil at 147 lbs lasted longer than most of his heavyweight oponents an probably landed more conters as well.

I think that once you get a pound for pound puncher like Langford or Fitzsimmons being bigger just tends to make you a bigger and slower target. Smaller defensive fighters at least have the speed and reflexes to hang in there and perhaps even nulify their speed advantage.

I would suggest that as Langford got bigger and moved up the weight classes his power became greater and his oponents reflexes became slower.

We are probably seeing the sme trend with Paquiao today.

 

Yeah, it is certainly strange though. In Langford's case, it really is very noticeable. And i dont dont think that Fitz and Langford are alone in the trend.

In todays times, other than the occassional exception (such as Paq) it usually works the opposite and power diminishes, but then again, is this a fair comparison. I struggle to find too many modern examples of fighters who go up in weight (certainly from say Middle to heavy) without either getting very old or simply just putting on excess weight and making themselves less effective. Chris Byrd is probably the best example, but even he had a much better record against the Heavyweight fighters than he did against the Light Heavyweights!

 

Stan threw a sucker punch, but it was still a huge shot. Jack was normally far too coordinated to stumble like he did over Ketchel.

Reports are that he messed up Jeff's face the way Resto did with Collins, then tossed his bandages into the crowd after it was over. Apparently, Jeff knew he was going to do something like this before they even stepped in the ring, but didn't care.

Mentioning Mickey was an afterthought, but I wonder how he might have done with the lighter gloves Fitz wore. Granted, he didn't have Bob's height or upper body, so suggesting that Walker's power was a match is admittedly a stretch.

Although it was a sucker punch, I think Jack did see it in time to try riding it out, and that's probably why he survived it.

Jeff's account of Choynski's power is compelling, along with the nature of Joe's starching of Johnson.

 

Look at Oscar - Pac, pretty girl couldn't get the weight back on for the fight. He was "dehydrated" - that is he lost too much weight. Similarly, G-Man's problem was that he had to lose too much weight, which some believe may have been an important factor in his demise. G-Man could not get the weight back on for the fight.

In the back of my head there is a story that G-Man was moving up in weight after the Benn fight because of his struggles with making weight. I know there was a fight planned with RJJ but I don't remember at what weight.

G-Man was a big guy who picked on (KTFO) smaller guys because he could dehydrate enough to make weight. The physiological effect of this weight drain/gain on his body was probably negative.

 

No one I can think of.

 

Langford's best fighting weight was around 165 or 168 pounds.
From what I've read this in the weight he was best at, powerful and fast.

I haven't checked sources of all his fights to see what weight he was in every single one of them, but lots of reports and articles describe him as 160, 165 in his prime.

I think he developed his punch with technique and experience, he found and refined the "knack" of punching, not because of added body weight.

 

Ketchel's "knock down" of Jack Johnson looks like a fake job to me.

Johnson was already on his way down long before that punch lands. It's clear as day, even on that old grainy film.
At best, Ketchel caught him on the way down from a slip.
At worst, it was a fake KD put on a ridiculous telegraphed punch, staged by Johnson to add drama to the fight and value to the film.

Please check the film before attacking this post. You'll see I'm right. :deal

 

I think he could simply outbox the smaller guys, but since he's very short himself (5'6"), he has to overcome that range gap with powershots, head movement, countering, etc. And since you always have to take a risk when moving in on a bigger guy, you better throw some hard shots while you're there. Think Tyson, Marciano, Tua, Frazier, Galento, etc. All short heavyweights rely on heavy artillery to compensate for their lack in height.