SMARTEST FIGHTERS IN HISTORY

bennie · Post by **bennie** » 14 Sep 2003, 08:22

Benny Leonard was smart. I remember reading about him buying time in one or two fights by insulting his opponents. Benny had been badly hurt but would draw his opponent into a slanging match and give himself precious seconds to clear his head. I'm sure he did that after he was floored by "the best left hooker you ever saw", Charley White.
Benny was once famously quoted as saying: "The hardest fighter to fight is a stupid fighter. When you feint him, he doesn't even know you're doing it."

Ric · Post by **Ric** » 14 Sep 2003, 10:58

I wonder whether Jack Johnson was in fact one of the "smartest" boxers in history, but I was reading some 1910 newspaper sports pages the other day, and there was an account of the Jack Johnson-Stanley Ketchel title fight by a ringside spectator. This spectator mentioned that Ketchel kept away from Johnson throughout the fight. So Johnson allowed Ketchel to "knock him down," believing that this would make Ketchel charge in once Johnson got back up -- which Ketchel did. When Ketchel charged in "like a mad bull," Johnson finally was able to knock him out. (There was also some pre-fight argument between the Johnson and Ketchel camps over who would get the better dressing room. Johnson won the argument. Apparently this made Ketchel angry.)

TonyJ · Post by **TonyJ** » 14 Sep 2003, 15:14

I think De La Hoya is one of the smartest fighters of all time not just buisnnes wise but aswell as in the ring when he wants he can box an opponents ears off with his jab and right hand he knows how to change his style for a cetain fighters just like he proved yesterday.

Dave1armedTua · Post by **Dave1armedTua** » 15 Sep 2003, 17:50

Old George Foreman and Roy Jones have been known to show smarts.

TonyJ · Post by **TonyJ** » 15 Sep 2003, 21:51

yup i agree Roy is a very smart fighter.

tolstoy · Post by **tolstoy** » 16 Sep 2003, 06:40

Rocky Marciano was smart.

He quit before his limited boxing abilities were permanently exposed by the onset of age thus preserving for himself a degree of boxing immortality by virtue, almost solely, of his unbeaten record.

tolstoy · Post by **tolstoy** » 16 Sep 2003, 09:02

My example was specific. I named the boxer and the reason why I thought he was smart. There was, of course, a degree of sarcasm in my response to your post.

Contrary to your opinion, I have nothing against Marciano.

Sadly and not for the first time, I see you resort to name-calling.

tolstoy · Post by **tolstoy** » 16 Sep 2003, 10:51

terap wrote:Tolstoy---

YOU (and your very low mentality) ARE GARBAGE.

And you dump your filth and garbage on what I mistakenly hoped would be a high level thread.

Filth and garbage, eh? You clearly are a man with a skewed outlook on life and deep rooted psychological problems. Perhaps your puritanical values would be better employed elsewhere...

You seek to discredit anyone and everyone who disagrees with you or who's style or content of posting isn't to your liking. You have all the hallmarks of an American psycho.

I wish you well in your quest to be normal.

tolstoy · Post by **tolstoy** » 17 Sep 2003, 06:11

Terap

Please go away...

wouter · Post by **wouter** » 17 Sep 2003, 07:12

I'd say Jim Smart, with Willy Wise not far behind....

Tomato-Can · Post by **Tomato-Can** » 17 Sep 2003, 08:55

terap wrote:Tolstoy and his kind stink up this website with their LOW mentalities, lack of knowledge of boxing, and emotional poison.

Their purpose appears to be to stop any chance this website has of acheiving its best purposes----to be a valuable boxing information site.

Instead these retards work unrelentingly to turn it into their own repository for their useless, momentary, petty, and mindless non-thoughts and petty emotional reactions.

Terap...If you are really concerned with the quality of this site, let me assure you that your immediate departure would be the best and most welcome of all possible improvements. I realize you are trying your best to be a complete asshole but your attempts only make you appear childish and severely insecure.

btw - Eric Crumble and Stan Johnson continually show great intelligence in the ring by by refusing to make it to the bell ending round one.

enrique · Post by **enrique** » 17 Sep 2003, 10:55

Gene Tunney and Rocky Marciano were very smart. They knew when to retire.

enrique · Post by **enrique** » 17 Sep 2003, 13:12

WILLIE PASTRANO TOLD THE STORY OF HOW ARCHIE TALKED TO HIM CONSTANTLY....LOOKING GOOD WILLIE, YOU ARE SHARP TODAY, ETC. THEN MOORE SAID "STOP" AND WILLIE WAS DISCONCERTED BY THE COMMAND, GETTING NAILED WITH A SOLID RIGHT HAND BY THE OLD MONGOOSE.

Dave1armedTua · Post by **Dave1armedTua** » 18 Sep 2003, 00:02

I didn't give specific examples in my post because there were so many, I figured everyone had seen atleast one of the fights. I'll give a few now:

Roy Jones vs. Montell Griffon II

After struggling with Griffon in the first match, Jones studied him inside and out, and knew exactly how he avoiding certain punches. He ended up knocking poor Griffon out in round 1, also the fastest KO of his career.

George Foreman vs. Michael Moorer

After losing the first 9 rounds, Foreman dupes the young heavyweight into a right hand in the 10th and wins the fight with, literally, the first power punch he threw all night.

Jaclem · Post by **Jaclem** » 18 Sep 2003, 01:12

a specific one: Jake Lamotta was defending his middleweight title against Laurent Dauthuille, a Frenchman, in Montreal. At the end of fourteen rounds Jake was so far behind he had to score a knockout in the 15th to win. Assuming that Dauthuille was just stay away in the last round, Jake suckered him into a short exchange, took Dauthuille's punches on the chin and pretented to be in serious trouble..on the verge of a knockout. The Frenchman fell for it, came in for the finish and Jake knocked him out. I forget the time but I think it was late in the round. Reporters said it was terrific acting by Jake.

General : I've read many times that Tommy Loughran was so clever he was able to move the fight around so that at the end of a round he was standing right in his own corner, so he was able to sit down as soon as the bell rang, while his opponent had to walk across the ring to get to HIS own corner. This may seem minor, but over fifteen rounds it could add up, even moreso when he fought heavyweights.

Manny Seamon said Jack Blackburn taught Joe Louis to shorten his jab just a little bit after a while to make his opponent think he was out of range of Louis's jab..so he'd move in a little closer...and into the range of Joe's dynamite left hook instead.

Irishlad69 · Post by **Irishlad69** » 19 Sep 2003, 07:39

There was a story [although i think it really applied to an earlier one involving sam langford and bill lang], on the britton/leonard fight. Most recent accounts on that fight state that leonard was well ahead on points before commiting the infamous foul, when in reality the opposite was true and jack was outboxing benny with something to spare. Ernest hemmingway was apparently in attendance at the fight and was a big britton fan. After the fight he met britton for a drink, and ask him in earnest how he was able to handle leonard so easily,to which jack replied, "well benny is a very smart guy, but see every time he was thinking, i was hitting him".

Broncano · Post by **Broncano** » 19 Sep 2003, 11:11

Down in Key West where Hemingway lived for many years theres a restaurant called Blue Heaven which suposedly stands where the old boxing ground used to be and where the author used to spar

There's also this poem by Martin Espada:

THE MAN WHO BEAT HEMINGWAY

(For Kermit Forbes, Key West, Fla., 1994)

In 1937, Robert Johnson

still sang the Walking Blues,

the insistent churchbell of his guitar,

the moaning congregation of his voice,

a year before the strychnine flavored

his whiskey.

In the time of Robert Johnson,

you called yourself Battling Geech,

135 pounds, the ball of your bicep rolling

when you sickled the left hook

from a crouch, elbows blocking

hammers to the ribcage.

Florida for a black man

was Robert Johnson, moaning:

the signs that would not feed you

hand-lettered in diner windows,

the motels that kept all beds white.

Here, in a ring rigged behind the mansion,

next to the first swimming pool

in Key West, you sparred with Hemingway.

He was 260 pounds in 1937, heavy arms

lunging for you, so you slid crablike

beneath him, your shaven head

spotlit with sweat against his chest.

Only once did his leather fist tumble you,

sprawling across canvas

white as sun.

Now, nearing eighty, one eye stolen

from the socket, one gold tooth

anchored to your jaw,

you awoke this morning

and weighed the hurricane-heavy air

of Key West in your fighter's hands,

three decades after Papa Hemingway

choked his mouth with a shotgun.

You stand before the mansion

on Whitehead Street, telling the amazed tourists

that you are the man who beat Hemingway,

and it happened here,

even if the plaque

leaves out your name

I've been to the old Hemingway mansion in Key West, but have never seen this old man the poem speaks about.
I did a search on our trusty Boxrec archive for a Battling Geech, and this is what I found:

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=128982

Irishlad69 · Post by **Irishlad69** » 20 Sep 2003, 14:57

Terap were friends, but i want this britton/leonard dispute cleared up. You may be right about hemmingway though. As one great sage said, "if you want a cock and bull story read hemmingway".

RICHARD PERRY · Post by **RICHARD PERRY** » 03 Oct 2003, 23:44

ARMANDO "THE MAN" MUNIZ IS THE SMARTEST (FORMER)FIGHTER EVER..
ALL ARMY CHAMPION IN THE 60'S...FOUGHT IN THE 68 OLYMPICS..
UCLA COLLEGE GRADUATE ....MASTERS DEGREE..HAS AN EDUCATOR IN
RIVERSIDE CALIFORNIA....THEN MUNIZ FOUGHT PALOMINO IT WAS THE FIRST TIME EVER 2 COLLEGE GRADUATES EVER FOUGHT FOR A TITLE....HE IS A WORLD BOXING HALL OF FAMER...LOOK HIM UP..YOU'LL
BE IMPRESSED.

Erratic ericjw · Post by **Erratic ericjw** » 04 Oct 2003, 18:56

Dave1armedTua wrote:
George Foreman vs. Michael Moorer

After losing the first 9 rounds, Foreman dupes the young heavyweight into a right hand in the 10th and wins the fight with, literally, the first power punch he threw all night.

Foreman threw plenty of hard rights and also some left hooks throughout the fight.

Southpaw Stylist · Post by **Southpaw Stylist** » 13 Oct 2003, 19:59

Lmfao at Willy Wise!!!