BoxRec

Burns was an all-time great that should be mentioned right alongside fighters like Sam Langford, Harry Greb and Stanley Ketchel. I've said this before, but if Burns would have fought nothing but fighters in his own weight range he would be in the argument of who is the greatest middleweight ever, but like Langford, Burns wanted more competition and went after bigger game. I rank Burns at 20 in my top 20 heavyweight list and mistakenly left him out of my top 20 light heavyweight list, of which he shoud have been in the top 10.

Burns' record is loaded with great competition and top fighters!

Well a great fighter is an all time great surely?..... Burns was 5 feet 7 and little more than a pumped up middleweight yet beat many of the best Heavies of his time. I don't rate him as high as Langford but the man was a great fighter for acheiving what he did against much bigger opposition... his natural weight was probably middleweight.
Philedelphia Jack O'brien is another from that era who is vastly underrated... O'brien was really a middleweight yet fought the top light-heavies and heavies of his day...

It's a shame Burns never fought Langford...

Whether or not he was deluding himself, Tommy really believed he could still beat the best heavyweights in the world. I have a letter written by Burns in 1910 in which he mentions a proposal to fight Langford and others. Apparently, the deals fell through because of a lack of financing. Some promoters were shying away from Black vs. White contests. At one point, Burns briefly ran a boxing arena in New Orleans where he promoted Harry Wills amongst others. This was years after the tragic Pelkey-McCarty fight in Calgary.

Cap

Decagon wrote:

barry wrote:Burns' record is loaded with great competition and top fighters!

Sorry, but I'm not too sold on turn-of-the-century fighters.

yes as we can see. u already informed us of how "much" u think of ketchell.





here is a Tommy Burns article in PDF format after he won the title from marvin hart


Ogden Standard Examiner The Ogden Standard Newspaper 1906-02-24



C:\Documents and Settings\Nick Gamble\My Documents\ogden9a&CISOPTR=37162.pdf

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:C:\Documents and Settings\Nick Gamble\My Documents\ogden9a&CISOPTR=37162.pdf

Try hosting the pic... On a site like image shack.

You can't post pictures off of your hard drive.

>>>Sorry, but I'm not too sold on turn-of-the-century fighters.<<<

I know, that happens when people have done very little research on the time, which I'm not trying to be a smart ass about, that's just the way it is.

I can't really see how any serious boxing fan/historian would have anything but the greatest respect for the fighters of Burns era.... these are guys who thought nothing of fighting 20+ times a year, against top opposition, ...you wouldn't find many of them taking 6 months out just because they got a little cut up in a fight...

>>>you wouldn't find many of them taking 6 months out just because they got a little cut up in a fight<<<

You would even find any of these guys taking three months to prepare for one opponent either, hell, they often fought the opponent three times in three months. Out of the 10+ fights that those guys had a year they fought best. Unlike fighters of today who may go three years between facing the very top guys, the early generation may have went couple of months of fighting rather inferior competition, but that would more than make up for it by fighting four, or five of the top fighters in the class before the year was out. It's like I stated, the only people that you ever hear downing the old fighters are the people that have done very little research on the time!

barry wrote:>>>you wouldn't find many of them taking 6 months out just because they got a little cut up in a fight<<<

You would even find any of these guys taking three months to prepare for one opponent either, hell, they often fought the opponent three times in three months. Out of the 10+ fights that those guys had a year they fought best. Unlike fighters of today who may go three years between facing the very top guys, the early generation may have went couple of months of fighting rather inferior competition, but that would more than make up for it by fighting four, or five of the top fighters in the class before the year was out. It's like I stated, the only people that you ever hear downing the old fighters are the people that have done very little research on the time!

I have to say that these old timers were better fighters for it. How can guys from today compete with a fighter like Burns who fought so often at such a high level.

I sometimes think that TV is way too impressed with an undefeated record. Losing fights should not be such a taboo. Leonard was a much better fighter for losing to Duran. Hagler benefitted from losing early in his career too.

Yeah, these fighters kept in shape mainly by fighting, which is really a fitness you can't get just training in the gym for 3 or 4 months.
I was looking at Battling Levinskys record recently and at one point he had 3 fights in one day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening all at different locations, which added up to 32 rounds I believe. Today a fighter (some in particular!) think they've had a hard year if they've fought 2 or 3 times in a year!. And it should also be remembered that a lot of these guys like Levinsky had dozens of fights that never reached their records for various reasons!.

I know, that happens when people have done very little research on the time, which I'm not trying to be a smart ass about, that's just the way it is

barry,


very true. i used to dismiss dempseys competiton thinking the best fighter he beat was a old willard, until i studied his opponents and realizes tommy gibbons was a great HOF master boxer, and guys like bill brennan was a great boxer puncher and bily miske were very good elusive boxer. i realized dempsey beat some formidable foes.

- because of research on old timers, i now rate gans and blackburn in my top 5 lightweights.(of course there are those who say whitaker would easily beat blackburn based on whitaker was a modern fighter)

- harry greb is now my # 1 middleweight


i could go on and on, i mean i think its vital for everyone to look at all the eras, and its common that people neglect early 1900s figthers.

>>>I was looking at Battling Levinskys record recently and at one point he had 3 fights in one day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening all at different locations<<<

I’m pretty certain that fairly recent research has shown that Levinsky actually did not fight three times in one day and that it was just a myth ballyhooed out by Levinsky’s very colorful manager, Dan Morgan, who handled Levinksy from 1913 thru 1922. But regardless, Levinsky is very under rated and gets very little recognition, but look over his record at all of the top heavyweights that he beat, not even mentioning light heavyweights. Levinsky is another all-time great that is often left off all-time lists, but he was one of the top light heavyweights to ever step through the ropes...I rank him 14th all-time at light heavyweight!

BB--One problem is that some people, and I'm not speaking of anyone specifically just speaking in general, read a boxing history book and they think they know everything they need to know about boxing and after reading another book, they're instantly top historians of boxing.

I've been following boxing since 1978 and I have been researching boxing since around 1985 and there is so much more that I have to learn. If I live till I'm 100 there will still be much that I never learned. If I don't know anything about a fighter, or a certain question, then I will not pretend that I do know, but I will make it a priority to research whatever it may be, but a lot of people will just look over the record of a fighter being discussed and that is the extent of the "research" that they have done on the fighter and they will try to comment and make an argument based on that...even though they had not even read the first fight report for the fighter and in the end they not only turn out looking clueless, but often stupid as well.

If someone is interested in boxing history and they have done very little pre-1920 research then I don't see how the era would not just jump out and grab the attention of the fan because it was a very interesting time and boxing was absolutely full of great fighters in every division and the era was really full of great stories and great fights. I stated this before, but a writer of the day, might have been Bob Edgren, stated that it was a time when you could find a quality lightweight on a street corner in every city in the United States, and that statement was not far-fetched at all.

barry wrote:>>>I was looking at Battling Levinskys record recently and at one point he had 3 fights in one day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening all at different locations<<<

I’m pretty certain that fairly recent research has shown that Levinsky actually did not fight three times in one day and that it was just a myth ballyhooed out by Levinsky’s very colorful manager, Dan Morgan, who handled Levinksy from 1913 thru 1922. But regardless, Levinsky is very under rated and gets very little recognition, but look over his record at all of the top heavyweights that he beat, not even mentioning light heavyweights. Levinsky is another all-time great that is often left off all-time lists, but he was one of the top light heavyweights to ever step through the ropes...I rank him 14th all-time at light heavyweight!

Well thats a shame in a way if its not true, its in his record in one of my Ring Record books... I know they are not always 100% but would have thought that Nat would have done his research before putting the fights in. Having said that it doesn't change my opinion of Levinsky either way, he often fought 2 or 3 times in a week and I think a lot of his fights aren;t documented, especially '06 to '09. Morgan was a colourful guy, I've read quite a few stories about him...

Another fighter of that time that doesn't get much credit is Jack Dillon... was only 5 : 8 and a middleweight yet fought mostly light-heavies and heavies...

defintley underated is marvin hart. hart beat a prime jack johnson, and yes most of the fight reports were that johnson was robbed, HOWEVER the fact hard was fighting competively with johnson on even terms shows u how good he really is

other guys underated and never talked about

jack root
jack blackburn
jim barry
Jack Dillon
packey macfarland
battling levinskey
george kid lavigne- the man twice beat joe walcott
Jack delaney
battling nelson- never see him high on anyones lightweight list
Battling siki

>>>Having said that it doesn't change my opinion of Levinsky either way, he often fought 2 or 3 times in a week and I think a lot of his fights aren;t documented, especially '06 to '09. Morgan was a colourful guy, I've read quite a few stories about him...<<<

I agree about Levinksy! Hell, in 1914 he fought nine times in January alone! Morgan's autobiography "Dumb Dan" is a pretty good read.

I also agree about Dillon, who I've done a lot of research on during the past year, being under rated and often overlooked when he should be right beside the likes of Bob Fitzsimmons, "Barbados" Joe Walcott, Sam Langford and Harry Greb as Jack Dillon was a giant killer as well, possibly even better at fighting bigger men than the three mentioned!

Decagon wrote:

Cap wrote:No one has broken Tommy Burns' record of 8 consecutive KOs in title defences either. I'm talking the undisputed world heavyweight title, of course.

Cap

Burns didn't hold the undisputed title.

Really, he didn't? Who else held a title at that time?

elmersalsa wrote:Nobody has brought this record: 147 consecutive bouts without being stopped by Freddie Miller. He was KO'd in his last fight as a pro in 1940. That is amazing!!! This guy is waaaaaay overlooked!!! He is a top 50 great fighter in my view

I agree, Miller has a very impressive record and like you say was only koed in his last fight. He was a real traveller too.... fought all round the world...

Decagon wrote:Jeffries held the Lineal title until he lost to Johnson.

No, actually he relinquished the title when he retired and pretty much hand picked Marvin Hart and Jack Root to fight for the title. Hart beat Root and Jeffries gave him the title. Burns then beat Hart to become the undisputed HW champ. Jeffries only became an issue again when Johnson won to appease the white boxing fans. He was retired and was no longer the champ.

Decagon wrote:

Cap wrote:No one has broken Tommy Burns' record of 8 consecutive KOs in title defences either. I'm talking the undisputed world heavyweight title, of course.

Cap

Burns didn't hold the undisputed title.

Burns was recognised as the 'world champion' which is why Johnson spent so long chasing him around the world for a match.

>>>I'm not a particular fan of the Hart-Burns branch of the title. It's recognized more out of tradition than authority. I mean, what the fornicate is up with the champion picking two guys who arguably weren't top-10 fighters (had rankings existed back then) to fight for the vacant title?
Oh, and about the consecutive bouts without a kayo loss? Harry Greb had at least 250 fights after his kayo loss to Kid Graves, and he was stopped in none of them. That beats out Freddie Miller by 100 fights!<<<

It's alot better than four, or five different organizations (more like leeches that attached their name to boxing) trying to claim a world champion and for the record it is not recognized more out of tradition...go back and do some actual research...I don't think you will read any of the people at the time stating that Burns' claim was not legit! And if you don't think both Hart and Burns were top ten fighters then you have a lot more to learn than I previously thought and should just keep quite about such matters because you certainly do not have the knowledge to make any kind of arguments, just silly and ridiculous claims that you have absolutely nothing to back it up with! And as to the Freddie Miller consecutive bout stat, that was from the beginning of a fighters career, otherwise Jack Britton would hold the record over Greb...by over 100 fights!

I mean, what the fornicate is up with the champion picking two guys who arguably weren't top-10 fighters

come on decagon ur better than that


please name me ten fighters at the time that were better than marvin hart or tommy burns???