Ketchel vs GGG. 15 rounds. Who wins?

[keithmoonhangover]

Going on the footage posted, Golovkin could compete on good terms with either man. There were hardly any clean punches landed that I seen and it seemed both guys like to wrestle on a scale Ricky Hatton would have been proud of.

I've read Ketchel gave Sam Langford a very good tussle and as far as the footage I've seen of Sam, he looks very good indeed. So it's a tough call.

I do agree that GGGs opposition hasn't been stellar, to say the least.

Langford took it easy on Ketchel to set up a larger fight. Langford was the better, but Ketchel came on strong at the close of round six.

Nonsense.

[dempseyfire]

No, the footage starts in the first when they are nearly fresh as possible, yet even at that stage they're holding repeatedly and the punches are wide, telegraphed, fairly slow, and rarely come in combination, with virtually no head movement being shown. This is very much rudimentary boxing and technique of that level or better can be seen very frequently today.

I never said that resumes are irrelevant, but someone doesn't win a fight because they have a better resume and hence analysis of these type of bouts should consider the qualities the fighters displayed when ACTUALLY fighting, which is what the footage is for. Moreover, if you have seen close to nothing of one's opponents, how can you be confident that he really was beating vastly better opposition than someone like GGG? Perhaps the standards were lower in the earlier 1900s, when from the available footage it seems like boxers only threw one punch at a time, were technically crude, rarely moved their heads or showed anything more than basic defense, and clinched practically every 10 seconds.

So when virtually no one has seen more than a tiny bit of a fighter and his opposition in action and the extant footage reveals many limitations on both ends, I don't see how you can dismiss these types of match-ups on the basis of GGG being the one with too many unknowns.

Your admitting we only have a "tiny bit" of footage and then judging his own career on it!

The 4th Ketchel-Papke fight was considered a horrible fight AT THE TIME. Both fighters knew each other very well and sometimes that results in a good matchup; other times it results in clinch-fests. This was a clinch-fest.

[crusader]

No, the footage starts in the first when they are nearly fresh as possible, yet even at that stage they're holding repeatedly and the punches are wide, telegraphed, fairly slow, and rarely come in combination, with virtually no head movement being shown. This is very much rudimentary boxing and technique of that level or better can be seen very frequently today.

I never said that resumes are irrelevant, but someone doesn't win a fight because they have a better resume and hence analysis of these type of bouts should consider the qualities the fighters displayed when ACTUALLY fighting, which is what the footage is for. Moreover, if you have seen close to nothing of one's opponents, how can you be confident that he really was beating vastly better opposition than someone like GGG? Perhaps the standards were lower in the earlier 1900s, when from the available footage it seems like boxers only threw one punch at a time, were technically crude, rarely moved their heads or showed anything more than basic defense, and clinched practically every 10 seconds.

So when virtually no one has seen more than a tiny bit of a fighter and his opposition in action and the extant footage reveals many limitations on both ends, I don't see how you can dismiss these types of match-ups on the basis of GGG being the one with too many unknowns.

Your admitting we only have a "tiny bit" of footage and then judging his own career on it!

The 4th Ketchel-Papke fight was considered a horrible fight AT THE TIME. Both fighters knew each other very well and sometimes that results in a good matchup; other times it results in clinch-fests. This was a clinch-fest.

Where did I say that even a tiny bit of footage shouldn't be a factor in judging someone? I think it should, as people can say anything about a particular boxer but footage shows us a portion of what that boxer actually did in the ring; if people consistently tell me one thing about a fighter but then I see something very different, I'm going to be skeptical of what I'm being told. Of course we have our limitations when such sparce footage is available, one of which is judging the strength of someone's opposition relative to the opposition of fighters in much later eras, but to me that means rather than glossing over such footage as so many in this section do we should hold back from confidently saying that someone like Ketchel was levels above GGG, and that it's in fact the latter who must prove himself more before even being considered in this type of match.

Concerning the holding, it seems like a disporportionatley large porportion of bouts from circa 1900 were clinch-fests on levels rarely seen today, and the holding in Kethchel-Papke is so extreme that I don't see how them being familiar with each other fully explains it; plenty of other fighters have fought each other three or four times without the type of incessant grappling seen in that footage. To me it seems to be a common feature of bouts from that period, and even the heavily regarded Jack Johnson can be seen outdoing Wlad with the amount of holding he engages in.

[misterpunch]

you're on shaky ground crusader - look at amir khan - he looked really good, awesome, in his first ten fights - blew everybody away! - well, blew stiffs away. how would you have assessed khan after 10 fights? ready to take on henry Armstrong? no, didn't think so. the world had to wait until decent opposition turned up. its like that in boxing. I remember Vernon Sollas in the 1970's being hailed as a future great, and he did box well, the kid, until....he got found out by lesser skilled opponents who were able to work him out.

wow! you complain that fighters from the earlier era "only threw one punch at a time" well, if one of my boys tried to throw two punches at once I'd kick him out the gym!

greb was known as the windmill - this was NOT because he hailed from Holland (he probably never heard of the place) - guess why he had that nickname? I told you crusader, you're on shaky ground

check out jim driscoll - still think those guys were crude?

you talk like the armchair champion you are. sorry, but your arguments do not stand up to scrutiny in the real world of our sport.

[crusader]

you're on shaky ground crusader - look at amir khan - he looked really good, awesome, in his first ten fights - blew everybody away! - well, blew stiffs away. how would you have assessed khan after 10 fights? ready to take on henry Armstrong? no, didn't think so. the world had to wait until decent opposition turned up. its like that in boxing. I remember Vernon Sollas in the 1970's being hailed as a future great, and he did box well, the kid, until....he got found out by lesser skilled opponents who were able to work him out.

wow! you complain that fighters from the earlier era "only threw one punch at a time" well, if one of my boys tried to throw two punches at once I'd kick him out the gym!

greb was known as the windmill - this was NOT because he hailed from Holland (he probably never heard of the place) - guess why he had that nickname? I told you crusader, you're on shaky ground

check out jim driscoll - still think those guys were crude?

you talk like the armchair champion you are. sorry, but your arguments do not stand up to scrutiny in the real world of our sport.

There are several problems with your post.

The first is that your opening paragraph rambles on as if I asserted that resumes are irrelevant. Perhaps it's due to you having poor reading comprehension, failing to read all my posts, not having a good memory, or some of each, but I already suggested that one's opposition should be considered when evaluating fights like this. Obviously opposition must be considered because as you mention, fighters can blow through one level of opposition and impress in doing so, only to flounder when their opposition gets tougher. Yet I don't think a technically competent fighter would suddenly look like a slob upon a marked jump in competition and fights are not won based on who has the better resume, so by picking Ketchel because of his supposedly stronger record you are giving no weight to how the fighters' abilities and styles compare, meaning you're assuming simply because GGG hasn't fought at a particular level that he probably wouldn't win at that level, which is no less an assumption than thinking that he'd win at that level even without fighting at it. Moreover, since my initial posts herein were directed toward the notion that GGG has no place in this type of match because he's apparently much less proven and has many questions to answer, let me reiterate that it strikes me as odd that people would reach this conclusion when they've seen hardly any footage of Ketchel's opposition in action, and ask the question of who Ketchel beat that makes this hypothetical absurd? Since you want to talk about records, a look at Ketchel's record indicates that he fought loads of novices (which GGG certainly isn't) and was still facing opponents with under ten bouts and losing records late into his career.

You then fail to grasp what I meant when I stated 'only threw one punch at a time', which surprises me given that this phrase is commonly used and understood by those in the boxing community in the manner I intended it. In that sense the phrase denotes a tendency to rarely throw combinations, and from the video I've gleaned of Ketchel and his opponent the tendency is towards single shots and the occasional two punch combination, but very little or nothing more advanced than this. While fighters can still have significant success without being combination punchers, it makes their attacks much more predictable and typically easier to cope with.

Finally, you mention certain fighters that you consider not to fit with the generalizations I've applied to old-time fighters, but keep in mind that I never suggested that all old-timers fit those trends. Nowhere in this thread will you see me suggest that EVERY old-timer was crude or that EVERY old-timer clinched frequently. You seem to think that by mentioning people such as Greb and Driscoll you've proven me wrong, but you haven't come close to doing so. By the way, I've watched Driscoll and even an apparent technical wizard from that supposedly superior day showed virtually no head or upper-body movement based on the extant footage, just like his opponents.

So I think your arguments are fairly weak but I'm not going to resort to immature name-calling. For what it's worth I've won multiple boxing titles, so I'm not simply an armchair champion and how accomplished I am has no bearing on the strength of my arguments anyway, which you should know if you have even a basic understanding of logical fallacies. My positions are based on sound logic and existing evidence, and I'm not one to unskeptically accept claims about how good certain fighters are without seeing them or their opposition for myself.

[Tomasino]

Grebs parents hailed from Germany. He almost certainly knew where Holland was. Must be one of the strangest comments I've ever read

[misterpunch]

we have no evidence about grebs knowledge of Holland - but I was making a point about his nickname not his geographic prowess

to crusader - please give me the names and years of your great multiple boxing victories. I need to check 'em out. you write in a long winded, verbose manner, more like a lawyer than an ex-boxer - so I'm sceptical.

your point is invalid as really good boxers often lose to lesser ones. resumes do count - as you say - for something. but they count just as much as skill in my book when assessing an imaginary match up.

the point you made about a fighter not looking like a slob when he moves into better levels makes me wonder if you have ever laced on a pair of gloves at all! the variables and twists and turns of a boxers form are numerous and a good guy can look bad against a clever but less gifted opponent. this you should have worked out during your decades of success in the squared circle. but maybe you were so busy busting everybody up that you failed to notice those other guys.

[Caractacus]

I'm not sure about that Keith, didn't Stanley smack Jack on the sly? I imagine if Golovkin hit Johnson with his Sunday punch when he wasn't expecting it he'd have some effect.

I cant believe this faslehood id still being circulate
(No thanks to that rust-head Ken Burns)

It was Jack Johnson that tricked the crowd and movie audience
along with Stanley Ketchel who paid with some teeth.Johnson admitted to planning the" knock-down"
in advance to have more people go to the cinema too see it.
Man, there is an entire thread to this somewhere here,I suggest you look for it.

[crusader]

we have no evidence about grebs knowledge of Holland - but I was making a point about his nickname not his geographic prowess

to crusader - please give me the names and years of your great multiple boxing victories. I need to check 'em out. you write in a long winded, verbose manner, more like a lawyer than an ex-boxer - so I'm sceptical.

your point is invalid as really good boxers often lose to lesser ones. resumes do count - as you say - for something. but they count just as much as skill in my book when assessing an imaginary match up.

the point you made about a fighter not looking like a slob when he moves into better levels makes me wonder if you have ever laced on a pair of gloves at all! the variables and twists and turns of a boxers form are numerous and a good guy can look bad against a clever but less gifted opponent. this you should have worked out during your decades of success in the squared circle. but maybe you were so busy busting everybody up that you failed to notice those other guys.

I find it odd that you've dedicated a sizable portion of your recent post to the success I had as a boxer. It's irrelevant to the quality of the arguments presented--which anyone with even a basic grasp on logical fallacies should know--and it strikes me as a tactic someone would use if they're seeking to divert attention from a response which they know is wanting. You also continue to display your trouble with basic reading comprehension, as I never suggested that I had 'great' victories as a boxer or 'decades of success in the squared circle." I had a solid but unspectacular amateur career of roughly 30 bouts in which I won about several more than I lost and captured multiple regional titles, so I know what it's like to be a boxing champion and not simply an armchair champion; I'm not going to vouchsafe more because I don't want to give people I don't know too many clues about my identity and I don't feel the need to prove myself to someone you

My previous post thoroughly addresses the issues you raised yet is only a few paragraphs long, so I don't think it's prolix, but maybe a few minutes of reading is excessive for you; reading certainly doesn't seem to be your strong point given some the comprehension issues you've shown. You also fail to address several points I've made, which is one of the most serious flaws an argument can have yet typical when someone struggles to think of good response.

I've already acknowledged that fighters can look relatively good or bad depending on what level they fight at, but I don't believe that such a change in levels would tend to make a good technical fighter look like a slob, though they may admittedly not look quite as sharp; even outclassed opponents can still throw straight and untelegraphed punches, move their heads, and not cross their feet. Since this thread is in part about Ketchel, perhaps you could explain what Billy Papke is doing so well in the footage that it made Ketchel's punches look slow, wide, and telegraphed, his head and upper-body movement non-existant, his combination punching sparse, and his holding incessant.

[Ambling Alp II]

I'm not sure about that Keith, didn't Stanley smack Jack on the sly? I imagine if Golovkin hit Johnson with his Sunday punch when he wasn't expecting it he'd have some effect.

I cant believe this faslehood id still being circulate
(No thanks to that rust-head Ken Burns)

It was Jack Johnson that tricked the crowd and movie audience
along with Stanley Ketchel who paid with some teeth.Johnson admitted to planning the" knock-down"
in advance to have more people go to the cinema too see it.
Man, there is an entire thread to this somewhere here,I suggest you look for it.

Johnson admitted to planning the knockdown? It makes him look better if the knockdown was not legitimate. He had every reason to lie about that.
He "admitted" to taking a dive against Willard which was not true.

You can argue that Johnson got careless, that Ketchel got lucky. You can certainly argue that Johnson could have put Ketchel away much sooner. However, the knockdown did happen.

[Caractacus]

The "Fall-Down" you mean.

[palooka]

The "Fall-Down" you mean.

If it was a fall down surely Johnson wouldn't have hit Stanley so hard in 'retaliation'?

[misterpunch]

I find it odd that you've dedicated a sizable portion of your recent post to the success I had as a boxer. It's irrelevant to the quality of the arguments presented--which anyone with even a basic grasp on logical fallacies should know--and it strikes me as a tactic someone would use if they're seeking to divert attention from a response which they know is wanting. You also continue to display your trouble with basic reading comprehension, as I never suggested that I had 'great' victories as a boxer or 'decades of success in the squared circle." I had a solid but unspectacular amateur career of roughly 30 bouts in which I won about several more than I lost and captured multiple regional titles, so I know what it's like to be a boxing champion and not simply an armchair champion; I'm not going to vouchsafe more because I don't want to give people I don't know too many clues about my identity and I don't feel the need to prove myself to someone you

My previous post thoroughly addresses the issues you raised yet is only a few paragraphs long, so I don't think it's prolix, but maybe a few minutes of reading is excessive for you; reading certainly doesn't seem to be your strong point given some the comprehension issues you've shown. You also fail to address several points I've made, which is one of the most serious flaws an argument can have yet typical when someone struggles to think of good response.

I've already acknowledged that fighters can look relatively good or bad depending on what level they fight at, but I don't believe that such a change in levels would tend to make a good technical fighter look like a slob, though they may admittedly not look quite as sharp; even outclassed opponents can still throw straight and untelegraphed punches, move their heads, and not cross their feet. Since this thread is in part about Ketchel, perhaps you could explain what Billy Papke is doing so well in the footage that it made Ketchel's punches look slow, wide, and telegraphed, his head and upper-body movement non-existant, his combination punching sparse, and his holding incessant.[/quote]

how - with only 30 bouts and losing roughly half - did you win multiple regional titles? incredible!

please do not question my reading - I am regularly asked to review fiction for various literary publications, mostly new American writers. I am regarded as something of a expert on the development of the 20th century American novel and have read widely in that area - y'know, Faulkner Updike, Philip Roth, and the wonderful Richard Ford (an ex-golden gloves competitor) who I have interviewed in the past. so your judgements are misplaced, my friend. however, I will try to up my game when responding to your marvellously written posts in future