Young Stribling Discussion

Yeah, everyone beat Maxie Rosenbloom and Tommy Loughran multiple times.

This is silly. Now we're calculating percentages of total fights with guys boxrec says had a good record?

The guy fought eight Hall of Famers and has seven wins over them.

He defeated five light heavyweight champs - Maxie Rosenbloom (twice), Tommy Loughran (twice), Battling Levinsky, Jimmy Slattery and Mike McTigue. He beat a heavyweight champ (Carnera) in addition to top heavyweight and light heavyweight contenders.

He didn't spend months sparring and fighting exhibitions. He just fought nearly every week against other pros. He lived in Georgia, so he fought a lot of those within driving distance or a short train ride from home. He wasn't some hobo like Dempsey. He had a home he returned to after fights.

When he stepped up, he beat world-class opponents.

Who cares about the percentages. How many freaking Hall of Fame light heavyweight champs did Matthew Saad Muhammad or Dwight Qawi beat?

He was a fine fighter and very well respected in his day.

 

Why base it on percentage ?

If Stribling wants to fill his time knocking over 250 bums on some sort of carnival circuit, that shouldn't distract from the number of times he stepped in the ring with proper fighters.

I'm not a massive expert on the era, but I see lots of recognizable names on his record :

Max Rosenbloom, Jimmy Slattery, Chuck Wiggins, Jack Renault, Mike McTigue, Tommy Loughran, Paul Berlenbach, Jack Sharkey, Max Schmeling, Jimmy Delaney, Primo Carnera, Johnny Risko, Phil Scott, Bud Gorman, Ernie Schaaf

Some of them were good, some were champions.

 

Totally agree. He was out there trying to feed his family, not building a legacy for keyboard warriors 90 years later. Look at his important fights to ascertain his worth... both in their quantity and quality... and I think they were sufficient to consider him a very important fighter in this history of the sport.

 

Jack Dempsey, the biggest fighter of that generation, I believe had five wins against Hall of Famers: Willard, Miske, Carpentier, Gibbons and Sharkey.

Stribling faced and beat more Hall of Famers than Dempsey did. He beat more world champs than Dempsey did. Stribling wasn't some loafer (in terms of quality of opposition) or protected compared to his peers. He just fought weekly against whoever he could get to because he wasn't making the same kind of money. When he was offered more for a fight, he traveled further.

He wasn't a pimp. He wasn't getting wasted with other fighters in bars. He wasn't getting shot in the back because he was fooling around with someone else's wife. He wasn't a homeless guy riding the rails. He didn't live in a fight capital. He was a normal guy from the south who liked where he lived, who boxed, who was just as good or better than a lot of champs who traveled the world or were more high profile.

That's all.

 

Stribling was a real hero to boxing fans back in the early 30's. It was a devastating loss when he died so tragically.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think that Young Stribling was a fine fighter and had excellent athletic ability. But one should try to assess boxers' records in an objective manner. I tried to compare Stribling's record with those of other top fighters of his era, warts and all.

- Chuck Johnston

 

He fought many third raters but his record vs top notchers was very good. He had excellent ability as a fighter.

 

Stribling was heavily protected. Thats not even up for debate. You can talk about him beating Rosenbloom and Loughran (two very light hitter BTW) but lets look closer:

Stribling would spend months and months fighting total stiff and has beens in small venues building up his record. He has an enormous amount of knockouts but believe it or not he was not considered a puncher in his prime. This alone tells you that he was fighting a ton of stiffs. He would build his record up on these long streaks and then fight a real classy fighter and lose. He often turned in poor performances against those guys and was forced to go back to barnstorming in order to rebuild his reputation. This is a theme you see throughout his career. Look at his performance against guys who actually good, not even great but just good fighters. He often went the distance, lost or drew. Hardly the dynamo he was billed as being. His big break was against McTigue who he legitimately beat both times and based on that should have been a champion but in all honesty McTigue was one of the worst champions in history so thats hardly a feather in his cap. But it shows he was a good fighter and better than "C" level but he wasnt an all time great IMO. Levinsky was totally shot when they fought. That fight is meaningless on his resume. If you cut out all of the absolute garbage from his record, total tomato cans, you will see that his resume gets super thin and much less impressive and his vaunted KO record drops off to nil.

 

Others fighters spent months on end not fighting at all.

I think if you throw away all those fights against stiffs, Stribling's record against good fighters is still quite extensive.

Yes, it's true he did not always win, and certainly he lost to the leading heavyweights (Sharkey, Schmeling and Schaaf), but he has a decent amount of wins over some good fighters.

I'm not sure in what way he was "heavily protected". He was matched with some, or several, of the leading fighters, to the point of losing.
That doesn't seem like being heavily protected.

 

You have to look at when he fought the "names" he fought, why he fought them, and when he got big fights how did he get them i.e. what did he do to deserve them? His resume is incredibly thin in that context. How is he any different than the guys today that fight bums and nobody's building up unbeaten streaks, get a title shot or a money fight, and then fail miserably. Thats the same thing Stribling did. He wasnt out there in the trenches. Compare his record to his contemporaries and he wasnt even fighting the level of competition of say a Gene Tunney who was also rightly accused of protective matchmaking.

I give the guy a pass when he was young because they had a right to match him selectively but the fact that this went on his entire career tells you they knew his limitations and werent trying to throw him in against just anyone. For instance, what did he do to earn a shot at the title held by McTigue? Nothing. The fact that he was robbed in that fight tells you more about McTigue than it does Stribling. When he fought Loughran the first time that fight was a six round undercard bout that Lougran took on less than a weeks notice. Loughran himself was only 21. When he fought Berlenbach the first time it was another six rounder. Berlenbach hadnt even a pro for a year and two fights earlier had been held to a draw by Augie Ratner who isnt and shouldnt be in the HOF. Some papers felt that both Loughran and Berlenbach were robbed in those bouts. Those two fights look good in hindsight but at the time they were fairly pedestrian. His next fight with Loughran was arguably his best win but that fight was panned and critics said both fighters looked horrible. The fight was so tepid that those present petitioned the state athletic commission to launch an investigation.

Somehow he got a shot at the LHW championship held by Berlenbach and completely stunk out the joint. He was dominated. As soon as he got hit by Berlenbach he just fought to survive. He did the same thing against Schmeling prompting reporters to call him "Willie the Clutch."

He then went on his predictable bum fighting tour. His next decent fight was a young Maxie Rosenbloom. Again, an impressive name but again, Rosenbloom was a light hitter, and was never unbeatable at any point in his career. During this period he was losing to guys like Art Weigand, Frankie Schoell, Lou Scouzza, etc. In short it didnt take a HOFer to beat the 23 year old Rosenbloom.

Like I said. He was a good fighter. Not a great one. His chief assett was his speed and experience but his record is ridiculously padded and he never really showed an ability to take his career beyond "B" level at best and even at that level he had to be carefully matched against guys who couldnt punch.