Rating Bob Fitzimmons

[cfang]

He seems to me to be an enigma. A guy who fought through the bare Knuckle era into the gloved game, if you take out his Jeffries losses and the dodgy dq against Sharkey, he was 15 years unbeaten.

He certainly didn't look much and the film of him isnt impressive either. So where do people see him? I find him hard to rate. Was he perhaps?

A tough and very hard punching boxer whose record looks more impressive due to the prehistoric skills of his opponents.

Or..

A light heavy version of Tommy hearns thrown into the 1890s. An all time p4p top ten boxer who only ever lost due to unsumountable disadvantages and would have been a match for anyone his size in any era

Views?

[chrisjs1985]

In a historical sense you've got to measure fighters from certain era's relative to their era and in that case Fitzsimmons rates very, very highly. I don't think there's a case for him being outside the top 20 ever pound for pound whereas there is a case he's top 10.

[Onetimeonly]

Top 75 probably for me these days.

[BitPlayer]

I have him at number 1.

I think anyone would look terrible on film, if the only film you had of them was early in a fight with a very fast reflexive boxer (who was also bigger than them), and in the 12th round in grueling heat when they were 46 and their health was failing.

[Tuan_Jim]

The ugly old time style is still a winning one. Look at Vitali Klitschko and Deontay Wilder. The restored espn footage I once saw of Fitzsimmons was impressive. You could see he was a man slugging with some freakish, otherwordly force.

[APerno]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

[BitPlayer]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

I don't think really accurate. Corbett did damage early, but I think Fitz was turning it around. The fight was a stylistic nightmare and that he won it at all speaks volumes to his quality. Part of it was that Fitz was an incredibly tough man, you can see how long he was out on his feet for in the Lang fight, before being stopped.


https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... nge&page=1

Also it's hard to say how many of his wins were really against novices, because we don't have good records from then, Abe Cougle is down as having no previous fights, but I found he'd previously fought a 54 round draw

[Tuan_Jim]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

He was what, 45 when he fought Johnson? No serious person would even mention it. And you think fighters are novices because Boxrec doesn't have their records? You're not worth reading, you don't know what you're talking about.

[BitPlayer]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

He was what, 45 when he fought Johnson? No serious person would even mention it. And you think fighters are novices because Boxrec doesn't have their records? You're not worth reading, you don't know what you're talking about.

He was also injured against Johnson (who for what it's worth rated Fitzsimmons very highly, higher than Langford)

[APerno]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

He was what, 45 when he fought Johnson? No serious person would even mention it. And you think fighters are novices because Boxrec doesn't have their records? You're not worth reading, you don't know what you're talking about.

You should put me on ignore and not waste your time reading my non serious replies.

[APerno]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

I don't think really accurate. Corbett did damage early, but I think Fitz was turning it around. The fight was a stylistic nightmare and that he won it at all speaks volumes to his quality. Part of it was that Fitz was an incredibly tough man, you can see how long he was out on his feet for in the Lang fight, before being stopped.


https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... nge&page=1

Also it's hard to say how many of his wins were really against novices, because we don't have good records from then, Abe Cougle is down as having no previous fights, but I found he'd previously fought a 54 round draw

Yes even Corbett's numbers are very low; a different poster just the other day suggested that Corbett claimed to have 39 fights total. -- Granted there are way too may fighters making their debut for the all of them to be true but it was also a time when local tough guys thought they were fighters and often had to be sent packing with a quick defeat. But in the end there are an awful lot of debuts and fighters with less than ten fights on his record so we can't just brush them all off as Boxrec's incompetence.

[BitPlayer]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

I don't think really accurate. Corbett did damage early, but I think Fitz was turning it around. The fight was a stylistic nightmare and that he won it at all speaks volumes to his quality. Part of it was that Fitz was an incredibly tough man, you can see how long he was out on his feet for in the Lang fight, before being stopped.


https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... nge&page=1

Also it's hard to say how many of his wins were really against novices, because we don't have good records from then, Abe Cougle is down as having no previous fights, but I found he'd previously fought a 54 round draw

Yes even Corbett's numbers are very low; a different poster just the other day suggested that Corbett claimed to have 39 fights total. -- Granted there are way too may fighters making their debut for the all of them to be true but it was also a time when local tough guys thought they were fighters and often had to be sent packing with a quick defeat. But in the end there are an awful lot of debuts and fighters with less than ten fights on his record so we can't just brush them all off as Boxrec's incompetence.

In truth we don't know, it's not even boxrec's incompetance so much as the enormity of the task of finding all recorded boxing matches. Also there were loads that weren't recorded at all (as was commented around the time by Johnny Coulon), there are fighters with literally hundreds of fights missing. There are a number of fights only known from later references, that no one has found reports of at the time.

It's really easy to find fights missing from boxrec, doing a quick search on Paddy Duffy, I found one card that had two missing fights of opponents of Ike Weir (a world champion). Billy McMillian's first three fights on boxrec are against Pete Lally, Paddy Duffy then Tommy Ryan. Lally has no other fights on boxrec, but Jake Kilrain mentioned refereering another of his fights.

It wasn't that long ago people were talking about how nearly everyone Jimmy Wilde fought were on their debut, then prewarboxing looked into it, and found a ton of fights of his opponents.

[Ambling Alp II]

Fitzsimmons had kind of a herky jerky style, but it was effective. He won the middleweight title, beat most of the top heavyweights of his day. Worth mentioning that he knocked out a guy outweighing him by about 90 pounds. It's often overlooked that he won the light heavyweight title at the age of 40 after the Jeffries fights.

He was actually winning the rematch with Jeffries before getting caught.

How he would have done in a rematch against Corbett as Al Perno asked is a good question. Have always been on the fence on that one. Fitzsimmons certainly didn't want a rematch, which does make you wonder.

He was truly an ATG. Probably Top 20-30.

[BitPlayer]

Fitzsimmons had kind of a herky jerky style, but it was effective. He won the middleweight title, beat most of the top heavyweights of his day. Worth mentioning that he knocked out a guy outweighing him by about 90 pounds. It's often overlooked that he won the light heavyweight title at the age of 40 after the Jeffries fights.

He was actually winning the rematch with Jeffries before getting caught.

How he would have done in a rematch against Corbett as Al Perno asked is a good question. Have always been on the fence on that one. Fitzsimmons certainly didn't want a rematch, which does make you wonder.

He was truly an ATG. Probably Top 20-30.

More impressive than that he went into the Gardner fight injured, and ill (collapsing a few days later).

[elmersalsa]

Fitzsimmons had kind of a herky jerky style, but it was effective. He won the middleweight title, beat most of the top heavyweights of his day. Worth mentioning that he knocked out a guy outweighing him by about 90 pounds. It's often overlooked that he won the light heavyweight title at the age of 40 after the Jeffries fights.

He was actually winning the rematch with Jeffries before getting caught.

How he would have done in a rematch against Corbett as Al Perno asked is a good question. Have always been on the fence on that one. Fitzsimmons certainly didn't want a rematch, which does make you wonder.

He was truly an ATG. Probably Top 20-30.

According to his great accomplishments, I have him rated at #12 pound per pound. A true all time great by any standards. Of his 61 wins, 57 of them were won by knockout, which shows that he was a tremendous knockout artist. I have him rated at #6 in the top 100 Greatest punchers pound per pound of all time.

[elmersalsa]

Bob Fitzsimmons was clearly the best fighter from England of all time! What a fighter!

[APerno]

Thank god a good old fashion American kicked his butt and brought the title back to America where it belongs. Now all we need do is have Wilder get rid of the pretenders Fury and Joshua and silence these British upstarts once and for all.

[oogiebe]

Thank god a good old fashion American kicked his butt and brought the title back to America where it belongs. Now all we need do is have Wilder get rid of the pretenders Fury and Joshua and silence these British upstarts once and for all.

LOL!!! Wars have been started over lesser things!

[Caractacus]

some interesting trivia-Jack Johnson was one of Bob Fitzsimmons sparring partners when Fitzsimmons was preparing to fight
Jim J. Jeffries in 1902.
Jack Johnson later wrote about his actual contest with Fitzsimmons years later(July 1907) in his unpublished prison memoirs(1920-21)
and said Fitzsimmons was (at least in the first round)was able to make Johnson miss punches (something that rarely happened to Johnson)
But that was when Fitzsimmons was 44 years old
he didn't write about Fitzsimmons boxing ability in the earlier 1902 sparring sessions when Fitzsimmons was only 39 years old. .

[prewarboxing]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

You might remember that I had a long discourse about this subject last year with our "friend" Kalan. He stated that Jimmy Wilde's record was padded because all of his opponents were novices or debutants. I referred him to the record of Billy Padden. At the time Boxrec had a handful of bouts for him and yet I had found 58.

You are falling into the same trap. It is not "part of the era". The reason that so many of Fitzsimmons early opponents appear to be 'novices' (your words, not mine) is because no-one has done the research on them that is necessary. Boxrec is NOT the be-all-and-end-all for early records. Rather than being "part of the era" it is actually "part of the current status of the Boxrec database".

Bob Fitzsimmons early opponents were not novices and Boxrec is not the yardstick that they should be measured against as it is very incomplete.

No offence intended old chum but this really does need to be understood and appreciated

Miles Templeton

[Caractacus]

What about some of Rocky Marciano's early professional opponents,
has anyone ever done a more thourough check on their ring records ?
( I remember the subject came up years ago,and also someone asked which if any of Marciano's
ring opponents were still around,( this was about 10 years ago)
The only one that I remember being mentioned was Joe Dominic ( who had Rocky Marciano fought in November 1949).
who they still was still alive and working in New Jersey or somewhere.
Dominic also had done an exhibition with Joe Louis around that time too)
I'm sure someone tried to track down anyone associated with Marciano's career
who was still alive when they wrote those books.

[oogiebe]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

You might remember that I had a long discourse about this subject last year with our "friend" Kalan. He stated that Jimmy Wilde's record was padded because all of his opponents were novices or debutants. I referred him to the record of Billy Padden. At the time Boxrec had a handful of bouts for him and yet I had found 58.

You are falling into the same trap. It is not "part of the era". The reason that so many of Fitzsimmons early opponents appear to be 'novices' (your words, not mine) is because no-one has done the research on them that is necessary. Boxrec is NOT the be-all-and-end-all for early records. Rather than being "part of the era" it is actually "part of the current status of the Boxrec database".

Bob Fitzsimmons early opponents were not novices and Boxrec is not the yardstick that they should be measured against as it is very incomplete.

No offence intended old chum but this really does need to be understood and appreciated

Miles Templeton

Nice post Miles. I purposefully don't usually comment on fighters from those eras because I haven't done any research to complete the records picture, so to speak. Even fighters like Archie Moore have fights not listed or lost in history. I cannot imagine how many fights are lost for fighters like Fitz as well as his opponents.

[APerno]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

You might remember that I had a long discourse about this subject last year with our "friend" Kalan. He stated that Jimmy Wilde's record was padded because all of his opponents were novices or debutants. I referred him to the record of Billy Padden. At the time Boxrec had a handful of bouts for him and yet I had found 58.

You are falling into the same trap. It is not "part of the era". The reason that so many of Fitzsimmons early opponents appear to be 'novices' (your words, not mine) is because no-one has done the research on them that is necessary. Boxrec is NOT the be-all-and-end-all for early records. Rather than being "part of the era" it is actually "part of the current status of the Boxrec database".

Bob Fitzsimmons early opponents were not novices and Boxrec is not the yardstick that they should be measured against as it is very incomplete.

No offence intended old chum but this really does need to be understood and appreciated

Miles Templeton

Something weird just happened, I replied to your post but it disappeared into the Internet's ether, so if two replies should eventually show up -- sorry.

Anyway what I said the first time is that 'I stand corrected' ! -- no doubt something else is going on, there are way too many debuts and fighters with just three or five fights.

What I am wondering: since most of these fights took place between 1885 and 1895, I wonder if some were not primarily bare knuckle fighters whose records Boxrec just ignores.

[BitPlayer]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

You might remember that I had a long discourse about this subject last year with our "friend" Kalan. He stated that Jimmy Wilde's record was padded because all of his opponents were novices or debutants. I referred him to the record of Billy Padden. At the time Boxrec had a handful of bouts for him and yet I had found 58.

You are falling into the same trap. It is not "part of the era". The reason that so many of Fitzsimmons early opponents appear to be 'novices' (your words, not mine) is because no-one has done the research on them that is necessary. Boxrec is NOT the be-all-and-end-all for early records. Rather than being "part of the era" it is actually "part of the current status of the Boxrec database".

Bob Fitzsimmons early opponents were not novices and Boxrec is not the yardstick that they should be measured against as it is very incomplete.

No offence intended old chum but this really does need to be understood and appreciated

Miles Templeton

Something weird just happened, I replied to your post but it diapered into the Internet's ether, so if two replies should eventually show up -- sorry.

Anyway what I said the first time is that 'I stand corrected' ! -- no doubt something else is going on, there are way too many debuts and fighters with just three or five fights.

What I am wondering: since most of these fights took place between 1885 and 1895, I wonder if some were not primarily bare knuckle fighters whose records Boxrec just ignores.

I get the impression bareknuckle fights were really pretty rare by this time. Like AFAIK Paddy Ryan only had two, his fight with Goss was his first for sure.

Does anyone know of any LPR fights after Sullivan Kilrain?

[prewarboxing]

Was being out boxed, and out fought by Corbett when he pulled out a rabbit . . . you have to wonder, if he fights Corbett ten times, does Corbett win nine, or does Fitzsimmons catch up to him every time?

He could handle Sharkey and Maher, but was dominated twice by Jeffries because of size/strength, and couldn't stay with Jack Johnson either, so if he gets a high rating it has to be for P4P not as a HW. (Granted Johnson came late in his career.)

Ran up may wins against novices, but that's part of the era.

You might remember that I had a long discourse about this subject last year with our "friend" Kalan. He stated that Jimmy Wilde's record was padded because all of his opponents were novices or debutants. I referred him to the record of Billy Padden. At the time Boxrec had a handful of bouts for him and yet I had found 58.

You are falling into the same trap. It is not "part of the era". The reason that so many of Fitzsimmons early opponents appear to be 'novices' (your words, not mine) is because no-one has done the research on them that is necessary. Boxrec is NOT the be-all-and-end-all for early records. Rather than being "part of the era" it is actually "part of the current status of the Boxrec database".

Bob Fitzsimmons early opponents were not novices and Boxrec is not the yardstick that they should be measured against as it is very incomplete.

No offence intended old chum but this really does need to be understood and appreciated

Miles Templeton

Nice post Miles. I purposefully don't usually comment on fighters from those eras because I haven't done any research to complete the records picture, so to speak. Even fighters like Archie Moore have fights not listed or lost in history. I cannot imagine how many fights are lost for fighters like Fitz as well as his opponents.

Perfectly put.

Beware of early records.

It'll come good, in time

Miles Templeton