Why was Hart lineal, but Maher not?

Totally. And he is a lawyer too. Ha! Adam garners the respect that Fleischer did whilst also being so much more objective, fact based and logical.

We need @apollack to at least volunteer his opinion (pontification) on Maher-Gate, but I understand he is more than busy working on In The Ring with JD Part 2.

I’m about halfway through Part 1 - brilliant book and really makes you lament not seeing JD’s tear to the title on film - as described, very impressive with apparent exponential improvements in the quality of JD’s performances heading toward Willard.

 

The usually accepted line is:
Corbett > Fitz > Jeffries (Retired) > Hart (vs. Root) > Burns > Johnson

I would say it is more like:
Corbett (Retired) > Fitz (vs. Maher) > Jeffries (Retired) > Burns (vs. O’Brien) > Johnson

 

That’s one way to skin the cat. Drops Hart but retains Burns. Good stuff.

 

I might also put an asterisk next to Corbett’s name, because I’m not entirely convinced that he was ever really lineal champion.

Sullivan retired in 1890, leaving Jackson as #1. Slavin probably leapfrogged him by beating McAuliffe. The question for me is whether Jackson’s draw with Goddard dropped him to #3 behind Corbett, and therefore who was #2 following the Corbett-Jackson draw in 1891. If Slavin-Jackson in 1892 was a #1 vs #2 fight, then you can argue that Jackson had established a new lineage, meaning Sullivan was not champion when Corbett beat him later that year.

If Slavin-Jackson was a #1 vs #3 fight, then Sullivan has a stronger claim to still being champion at the time of the Corbett fight, making Corbett lineal champion.

That’s probably a topic for another thread, but if Corbett is not champion he certainly can’t gift the title to Maher.

Thankfully I think Fitz vs. Maher starts a new lineage regardless.

 

Gives you a fresh respect for Tommy Burns really, the way he unified a scattered championship after Jeffries' retirement. He beat Hart, then O'Brien, and then the champions of Britain and Australia to become undisputed world champion.

 

Selections from In the Ring With James J. Corbett:


On November 11, 1895 in Long Island, New York, 26-year-old Peter Maher knocked out Steve O’Donnell in the 1st round. Following the bout, James J. Corbett announced his retirement and gave his championship title to Maher. At that point, Corbett’s heart was more aligned with the theater than the fight game.

Ironically, Peter Maher previously had been defeated by Peter Jackson (1889 LKOby2), Bob Fitzsimmons (March 1892 LKOby12) and Joe Goddard (December 1892 LKOby3), so he really was not deserving of the title.

...

Steve O’Donnell was a chief Corbett sparring partner and was essentially managed by him.
...

The public still considered Corbett the champion. The Police Gazette wrote of Maher, “He has been hailed as the champion, but conservative, reasonable, thinking people, appreciate the fact that the simple act of handing a title to a man on a gold plate is not the only thing that is requisite to make him a champion.” Corbett years later wrote of his handing over the title to Maher, “This, of course, I had really no right to do, for you cannot hand a championship to a man; he has to win that with his own hands in the ring.”
Even Maher did not consider himself champion. The Clipper said,

Jim Corbett…took occasion to informally announce his retirement, and to declare Peter his successor to the championship. Of course, Corbett had no right to resign the championship in favor of Maher or any other man, and Peter, understanding this, afterwards said that he did not wish to get the title in any such way, even if he could have it, but that, if Corbett did not fight Fitzsimmons for it, he would issue a challenge to him therefore.

Maher said that he would rather win the title in the ring than to accept it as a gift, showing a “disposition to repudiate Corbett’s generosity in handing over the championship.” Maher had “declined to accept a title which Corbett, without authority, presumed to bestow upon him.” He wanted to fight for the honor, feeling that he at least needed to defeat Fitzsimmons to deserve the title. So, to his credit, Peter Maher recognized that he was not the champion, and did not call himself champion.

---

In early December, Bob Fitzsimmons scheduled a February 1896 rematch with Peter Maher for a $10,000 purse and the world championship.

About a month before the Maher-Fitzsimmons fight, in late January 1896, Corbett again announced his intention to re-enter the ring and challenge the winner. This essentially put him back on the scene after a brief two month retirement and made it more difficult for Maher or Fitzsimmons to be viewed as champions in the public eye, in part because they had not yet fought.

 

One factor in considering championships, especially in the early time under discussion, is the matter of popular acceptance by the public of who deserves to be champion. If the public at the time truly accepted Maher as champion then he probably would be so recognized today. The primary gauge of what people thought is reflected in the newspaper articles of the time. I think SimonLock's post pretty well nails what people thought about Maher's claim at the time. To gain general recognition, he would have had to defeat Fitz, which of course he didn't do.

One thing that interferes with the clarity of the line of succession is Corbett's re-entry into the field. Once again, it appears that people generally were willing to give Corbett a pass on his return to the field and still consider him champion. Again, there were no commissions or governing bodies back then, so the popular opinion at the time is the one that has prevailed. I certainly think it is an ill-advised idea for us, as participants in this thread, to presume to rewrite history at this late date and declare Maher a past champion. It would be an insult to the boxing public which settled the issue according the norms of the time as they existed years ago.

 

I have seen newspapers articles written by people saying Fitz should be regarded as champion and not Corbett in that period for what its worth.

 

Less problem's with Hart's claim in my opinion, though these things often turn on public acceptance.

Hart had beaten Johnson, and Root had beaten Hart.

It wasn't ideal, but it might be good enough that you would run with it, rather then try to squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube.

I think that one reason why a lot of people accepted Jeffries claim, after he came out of retirement, was in order to retrospectively obliterate Johnson's title reign.

If Jeffries had beaten Johnson, then they could have argued that Johnson was just another Maher.

Obviously Johnson put a stop to this change of the narrative, so the concept was unceremoniously dropped.

 

Joe Louis did much the same thing when he retired by naming the leading contenders to fight in the elimination tournament in 1949. The difference was that he worked it out with the NBA which was in existence at the time to give it the stamp of authority, at least in the U. S. He also stood to benefit because he was a participating member of the consortium IBC which benefited by promoting the Charles-Walcott title bout in Chicago. As I recall, it was the IBC's first promotion.

 

Excellent info. Thank you Adam for generously supplying relevant excerpts from your book.

Maher was a very upright guy, wasn’t he? Particularly so in the context of relatively lawless times when one might be more prone to take advantage of not so uncommon improprieties.

And he cut to the chase by rematching Fitz straight after the O’Donnell fight.

Mucho respect for the man.

 

Yep, that’s how I’d see it IF a Jeffries’ victory over Johnson was seen as a pick up from Jeffries active reign (rewind all the way back to May 1905) and basically an insanely delayed defence of Jeffries’ title.

Personally, I would just see it as Jeffries regaining the title he gave up when he retired so many years before and prior to the 3 champions since that retirement - with Burns in the middle of that group, establishing himself substantively by way of the volume and breadth of the quality comp. he defended against.

As someone more or less stated earlier in the thread, Burns “legitimised” the post retirement Jeffries- Hart tangent by beating Marvin and all comers thereafter and ultimately facing the # 1 Johnson, who was also # 1 during Jeffries’ active reign.

But of course, Jeff played the colour line card even though public sentiment was turning against that rationale - so there we have public opinion, however much that counts, most definitely not in Jeff’s full favour during his actual reign.

And, for what it’s worth - Corbett was clearly framed as Champ when he faced Fitz, while Jeffries was essentially recognised as the challenger vs Johnson.

If Jeff had won, even at the time, I think Johnson’s reign would’ve remained in place and Jeff seen to have regained the title.

Finally, if Johnson wasn’t properly recognised as a Champ in the first instance (which he definitely was) then Jeffries wouldn’t have come back or be so pressured to do so in the first place.

Jeff came back for the very purpose of knocking Johnson off from the throne and “restoring” white supremacy.