Why is it assumed fighters from 12-15 round eras cant go 45rounds?

Rounds were 3 min rounds once the gloves were put on.

Corbett Fitz, Gans Nelson, Johnson Jeff, all fought 3 min rounds, with a min break in between rounds as is the case with today.

The Barekuck era is other matter though.

 

Tommy Ryan, Sullivan, McVey, Jeanette and a few others went 45+ rounds.

 

Throw in George Dixon Kid Lavigne Jim Corbett and Peter Jackson.

Batt Nelson twice went 42 before being DQd and TKOd respectivley.

Torpedo Billy Murphy went 40.

 

Probably not.

Needless to say a lot more all time greats have participated in a fight scheduled for 45 rounds than have completed one. In practical terms 45 rounds generaly meant a fight to the finish.

It was only with the introduction of 20 round fights that world class fighters were consistently able to last the distance unless actualy knocked out by the efforts of the other fighter.

 

3 minute rounds came in with the Queensbury rules so guys like Lavigne realy were fighting 50+ 3 minute rounds.

The legal status of boxing was a bit of a grey area around the time. Somtimes the police turned a blind eye. Somtimes they intervened only when things got ugly.

 

I can't even begin to imagine how busted up two guys had to be after fighting for 40+ rounds. Every inch of your body had to ache for weeks following the fight. Their jaws were probably so battered and faces so swollen that even trying to eat anything must have been a *****. That says nothing about the exhaustion. Good thing those days are over, or a lot of guys would have wound up dying.

 

Come on, I think Wlad and Iggy could have went the entire 45 round fight pace, with out much injury on one or the other.

There was hardly no punching at all, with Wlad landed 2 or 3 punchings a round, and Iggy nothing lol.

 

Unfortunately a lot of these guys paid a verry heavy price for fighting this way. They either died verry young or ended up in nursing homes.

Nelson and Wolgast who probably set the record for the greatest number of punches thrown in a boxing match both ended up as basket cases at a verry young age.

It is a blessing that fights of this type are a thing of the past.

 

What is the source of your information?

 

Ah, found it, it's from Monte Cox.
But he only attributes Nelson with throwing 85 punches per round, not both.
There are a couple of problems, though.

The fight ended in 40th round, not in 42th (source: Oakland Tribune's sports editor Eddie Smith, who was the referee of this fight; and two round by round reports, one from San Francisco Call and another wire report in many newspapers). I just corrected this thing at boxrec, but it obviously shows that Monte Cox did not read any fight reports about this bout when he wrote the above article. The error may be coming from Conley-Attell fight the same day in Los Angeles going 42 rounds.

According to all sources, Nelson was too exhausted to throw many punches from 30th round on, some go as far as claiming he started showing signs of tiredness by 20th round already. By 38th round he is all but out (one of his seconds wanted to throw up the sponge in 34th, and then again in 38th round, but was prevented).

Eddie Smith noted:
It has always been a custom for Nelson to run to his corner at the end of every round, and during the last rounds of yesterday's contest when he was so tired that he could not start a run he would throw himself forward in such a position that when he lost his balance his tired legs would have to jog along at a rapid rate to keep him from falling.

San Francisco Call:
The last 10 rounds of the fight Wolgast should or could have departed from his carefully planned method of battle and sailed in and possibly dropped the champion. Nelson was too tired to raise his arms. He had to content himself with occasionally chopping down a punch--it was too much to raise his arms shoulder high.


And last thing, I believe the film of the fight that has been preserved, is not complete, am I wrong? I only have very short highlights myself.

 

Michael Hunnicut claims to have watched the entire fight and counted the punches. It is fair to say that he has probably done more direct analytical study of early film than any other historian. It is possible that he has access to versions of the fight not available to meer mortals like us.

 

Sorry, but the story about Nelson throwing 70 punches in 39th round doesn't stand up the test against all I've read about this fight, neither does the story about 90 punches in 30th round. My guess is he saw the limited footage and just averaged the rounds he had seen (probably mostly the early rounds where Nelson was still active) to the whole fight, as for those two separate rounds, he just made them up (as nobody has the footage the test the credibility of his claims).

 

He specificaly states that that number of punches was thrown on film in those rounds.

Now either he is lying or that is how it happened. If the film evidence contradicts the newspaper acounts on the number of punches thrown then we have to go with the film evidence.