Rating Bob Fitzimmons

[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

I love that you put friend in quotes. So what happen to Kalan? Despite it all I learned much arguing with him.

[APerno]

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?

After Kilrain, Sullivan saw to it that all HW Championship fights would be contested under MQB rules. But bare knuckle fighting continued on, just unnoticed. -- Hell they still have bare knuckle (illegal fights) today.

It is interesting, when you read the old newspapers there was a period (during the transition) where they would differentiate a "fighter" (bare knuckle) from a "boxer." (They also for a while used the terms "fighter" and "gloved fighter") -- The retronym "bare knuckle fighter" does not appear until after gloved fighting took over the sport.

Also they would refer to a "fight" (bare knuckle) but call gloved fights "Boxing matches." -- Eventually the whole bare knuckle thing disappeared completely from the newspapers.

If you think about it, "Boxing" is the only sport where the participant is labeled by the skill he displays, i.e. a boxer. -- No other sport does that, we don't call golfers "swingers" nor do we call basketball players "dribblers" or "shooters." I believe this came about because they had (early on) to distinguish between the two types of fighters.

Personally I try never to refer to a fighter as a boxer, I have convinced myself it sounds silly. Fighters' box. no doubt, but golfers also swing and we would feel silly saying that.

[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

I love that you put friend in quotes. So what happen to Kalan? Despite it all I learned much arguing with him.

I am afraid that Mr Kalan, who actually had quite a lot of useful things to say and knew his stuff to a degree, was persistently rude to other posters, including me, and was especially rude about Jimmy Wilde, whom he called a fraud and a charlatan. A disgraceful thing to say about a brilliant boxer from years gone by. When I challenged his ass, he was found wanting.

The man was, in my opinion, not as switched on about the history of the sport as he claimed to be, and yet he was overly keen to ram his 'knowledge' down all of our throats.

Anyway, enough of him, what about Ruby Bob and where he stands in the great scheme of things. I rate him pretty highly as a MW and LHW but not so sure about his HW status.

Miles Templeton


Miles Templeton

[BitPlayer]

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?

After Kilrain, Sullivan saw to it that all HW Championship fights would be contested under MQB rules. But bare knuckle fighting continued on, just unnoticed. -- Hell they still have bare knuckle (illegal fights) today.

It is interesting, when you read the old newspapers there was a period (during the transition) where they would differentiate a "fighter" (bare knuckle) from a "boxer." (They also for a while used the terms "fighter" and "gloved fighter") -- The retronym "bare knuckle fighter" does not appear until after gloved fighting took over the sport.

Also they would refer to a "fight" (bare knuckle) but call gloved fights "Boxing matches." -- Eventually the whole bare knuckle thing disappeared completely from the newspapers.

If you think about it, "Boxing" is the only sport where the participant is labeled by the skill he displays, i.e. a boxer. -- No other sport does that, we don't call golfers "swingers" nor do we call basketball players "dribblers" or "shooters." I believe this came about because they had (early on) to distinguish between the two types of fighters.

Personally I try never to refer to a fighter as a boxer, I have convinced myself it sounds silly. Fighters' box. no doubt, but golfers also swing and we would feel silly saying that.

Well even before that Sullivan preferred to fight with gloves, but Kilrain and Smith challenged him to fight bareknuckle, and the Police Gazzette owner (who disliked Sullivan), stripped Sullivan and gave the title to Kilrain after the Smith fight, so he had to to reaffirm himself as champion.

I'm aware of modern bareknuckle matches, but not of any link to the prize ring. The rules seem to be much more modern boxing with the gloves removed than LPR. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd say another complexity is that a lot of early gloved matches didn't allowing "slugging" or atleast discouraged it. Plus you had large gloves, vs small gloves and hard gloves, and multiple rulesets including LPR with gloves, Police Gazzette rules etc.

[APerno]

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?

After Kilrain, Sullivan saw to it that all HW Championship fights would be contested under MQB rules. But bare knuckle fighting continued on, just unnoticed. -- Hell they still have bare knuckle (illegal fights) today.

It is interesting, when you read the old newspapers there was a period (during the transition) where they would differentiate a "fighter" (bare knuckle) from a "boxer." (They also for a while used the terms "fighter" and "gloved fighter") -- The retronym "bare knuckle fighter" does not appear until after gloved fighting took over the sport.

Also they would refer to a "fight" (bare knuckle) but call gloved fights "Boxing matches." -- Eventually the whole bare knuckle thing disappeared completely from the newspapers.

If you think about it, "Boxing" is the only sport where the participant is labeled by the skill he displays, i.e. a boxer. -- No other sport does that, we don't call golfers "swingers" nor do we call basketball players "dribblers" or "shooters." I believe this came about because they had (early on) to distinguish between the two types of fighters.

Personally I try never to refer to a fighter as a boxer, I have convinced myself it sounds silly. Fighters' box. no doubt, but golfers also swing and we would feel silly saying that.

Well even before that Sullivan preferred to fight with gloves, but Kilrain and Smith challenged him to fight bareknuckle, and the Police Gazzette owner (who disliked Sullivan), stripped Sullivan and gave the title to Kilrain after the Smith fight, so he had to to reaffirm himself as champion.

I'm aware of modern bareknuckle matches, but not of any link to the prize ring. The rules seem to be much more modern boxing with the gloves removed than LPR. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd say another complexity is that a lot of early gloved matches didn't allowing "slugging" or atleast discouraged it. Plus you had large gloves, vs small gloves and hard gloves, and multiple rulesets including LPR with gloves, Police Gazzette rules etc.

I agree across the board with you. -- Sullivan didn't want to fight Paddy Ryan for the HW Championship bare knuckle, but it was Paddy's title so Sullivan had no choice, but after he took Ryan's title, every fight after that Sullivan made Ryan wear gloves and fight under MQB.

After Sullivan defeated Ryan (in a winner take all fight) Sullivan who had an affection for Ryan (after all they were both Irish and both fighters) met the down on his luck (money wise) Ryan in a 'boxing exhibition' at MSG, (prize fighting being illegal in New York) with Paddy Ryan to receive ALL the gate receipts. The 'boxing match" lasted about a minute and a half until the two men could not help themselves and began to 'fight.' The local police kept a close eye on the event and as soon as a fight broke out they stopped the boxing match. The fans only got one round of action.

Sullivan then claimed that he would never fight bare knuckle again, opting only to fight under MQB rules, but the Brits had a guy named Charlie Mitchell and challenged Sullivan's right to the title "world' champion, so Sullivan met Mitchell (in France) under the London Prize Ring Rules. Drawing with Mitchell, Sullivan again announced he would never fight bare knuckle again, and then along came Jake Kilrain. While Sullivan was on stage making money with "Honest Heart and Willing Hands" Kilrain was tearing up the country side as a bare knuckle fighter. Sullivan wanted to fight Kilrain with gloves but Kilrain (smartly) refused, and as you pointed out the pressure was on Sullivan to defend and ironically it was Kilrain's activity and Sullivan's inactivity that gave Kilrain the upper hand and Sullivan once again found himself fighting (defending his title) bare knuckle.

After defeating Kilrain, Sullivan for a third time announced he would never fight bare knuckle again ad finally got his wish when (Gentleman Jim) Corbett came along, fresh from the sporting clubs where 'boxing' was king.

[pound per pound]

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.

Right, and Fitz had an arm injury going into that fight. Johnson himself held Fitz in high regard.

[APerno]