BoxRec

There is color home movie footage shot of Marciano-Vingo. Unfortunately it lasts only about twenty seconds. It shows a brief exchange puncuated by what I believe is the last punch Marciano lands in the fight, then the film cuts to Vingo lying on the floor unoncious with doctors hovering over him.

most movies of fights that weren't televised or filmed were done by members of the boxers' entourage....usually from a close seat with a hand held camera. this is how i saw some of ezzard charles's light heavy fights....usually made in cleveland or cincinnati. there is a bootleg of either the first or second zale/graziano around and i may get a chance to see that. i don't know how to advise how to get any of the ones you're looking for, but maybe somebody here knows somebody who knows somebody......and the internet is supposed to be able to locate anything and everything these days. in your case you might try contacting someone from marciano's family. larry holmes can probably tell you how to get ahold of rocky's brother. he might even have a photo of marciano's jock strap.

Early boxing matches that were televised dont exist because they didnt start filming TV boxing with a kinescope until the late forties early fifties and then it was somewhat rare. Prior to kinescope TV broadcasts were simply beamed out like radio and just dont exist anymore on hardcopy unless they were actually filmed as well.

The bootleg that exists of the second Zale-Graziano fight is extremely short as well and was taken by a fan at ringside who wasnt even shooting footage of the fight specifically. He was shooting footage of some woman he was with and apparently just shot a little tidbit of the fight. Not much exists on it.

This bothers me very much. I got another question too. They say the first heavyweight title fight ever filmed was Fitsimmons vs Corbett but the first title fight actualy filmed was John L Sullivan vs Corbett but the film was bad because it was filmed inside. So why did they wait so long to try filming again. Alson why arent any of Jim Jeffries championship fights on film? If these fights were on film now thed be worth a shit load of money.

..there is a bit of a spectator film of jeffries vs. sharkey taken from a seat a few rows back from ringside. the piece i've seen is just a glimpse...no idea if more exists. the jeffries challenge of johnson is much more easily available.

the graziano/zale film i am aware of is nearly complete....unless i've been misinformed. i hope to see it eventually and will report on it here if i do.

there were lots of films of fights before television existed. they were made to be shown in movie theatres shortly after the fight itself. i have a lot of good footage of joe louis. alas, the only known film of sugar ray as a welter if his decision over charlie fusari in a title defense, for a charity. he was also charitable to fusari whom he carried and essentially put on a boxing exhibition.

The Graziano-Zale 2 film is not complete, its not even close. Its very short.

Film exists on Jim Jeffries from his fights with Johnson, Sharkey, and Ruhlin. The Sharkey fight film was not a spactator film it was a professional film. The original doesnt exist anymore, the film youve seen is actually a bootleg shot at an old movie theatre playing the film, so in fact its a film of a movie screen displaying the fight. This is why it looks like a spectator film.

There is a lot of footage of Robinson at welterweight. Thats another myth. Robinson-Docusen, Robinson-Fusari, Robinson-Curcio, Robinson-Riccio, Robinson-Flores, Robinson-Abrams, Robinson-Angott 3, and seems like a couple others. Plus there are two or three of his amateur fights available.

I dont believe that Sullivan-Corbett was ever filmed. If I recall thats another one of boxings myths.

When I said that film of televised fights only existed if filmed seperately of television I meant filmed seperately for theatre release. As I state before, prior to the use of kinescope television fights were not recorded on hardcopy, they were simply beamed out like radio and thus many great fights which were shown on television dont exist anymore.

klompton..thanks for the corrections. the information i based my jeffries/sharkey film on is from a note i received from nat fleischer many years ago. robinson as a welter....it's been stated so many times that there's no existing film of robinson in this period that i just took it as fact. i'd love to see the one against docusen. as i recall, docusen... a very fast and good boxing welter...was holding his own with the sugar man until robinson came on strong in the late rounds. do you have any information as to where i could get any of this and the other fights you mentioned?

re:zale/graziano....my source insists there is a nearly complete film...but it's one of those "i know a guy who knows a guy who has it..." situations...so now i'll really follow up and ask for proof...i.e. which means that i see it myself.

for a detailed description of what is called "the first use of a motion picture camera to film a fight" (the books words) see the nat fleischer/ sam andre
write up in their "pictorial history of boxing." the fight is betwen corbett and peter courtney. it also states the film has never been seen...but it has..by me..and i own it and also have it converted to video tape. obviously i'm not the only one as it wasn't hard to find when i got it about 30 years ago.

back to corbett/courtney. corbett was heavyweight champion and fleischer said therefore his title was at stake, even though the film was made under most unusual circumstances. corbett won by a knockout.

Corbett-Courtenay is pretty common but doesnt exist complete anymore. The entire fight lasted something like six rounds. Nat Fleisher erred by saying the HW title was at stake for the simple fact that the fight was scripted. The rounds were short rounds and each round was filmed with a specific set of "scripted events" (my quotes). The knockout was planned to add more excitement. Had the fight been real its unlikely that the inept Courtenay would have lasted as long as he did with Jim.

The Robinson-Docuson fight is incomplete and is not in circulation. Only one collector and the Docusen family own the fight. Its probably one of the rarest boxing films in existence which is why nobody has ever heard of it. As for the other fights of Robinson they vary in degrees of accessibility. His fights with Abrams, Angott, and Fusari are fairly common, as are his amateur fights (which are awsome by the way, he was a monster). The other films listed are fairly rare and tough to find.

If your friend of a friend of a friend has a near complete copy of Graziano-Zale then hes been hiding it from people who would pay a small fortune for a glimpse. My bet is he has the short bootleg clip which is the only version known to exist. I hope Im wrong.

Nat Fleisher always thought that the Jeffries-Sharkey bout was a bootleg taken at ringside because the collector who found it told him that it was a bootleg filmed with a makeshift camera inside a cigar box "from the audience". Fleisher assumed that from the audience meant "from the fight audience" when in fact it was from a MOVIE THEATRE audience. You can tell because at one point in the film the camera pans right and you can see the edge of the movie screen.

It was long rumoured that a complete copy of Jeffries-SHarkey existed as recently as the 70s because it was briefly glimpsed in the film "The Night They Raided Minskys". The problem was that what was shown was actually a mutoscope reel, basically a crank operated flipbook that they used to have in penny arcades. So goes the idea that the film still survives, sadly.

klompton..thanks again. I've seen some of the robinson amateur films and he was almost scary, wasn't he? I mean...he was so incredibly fast and his combinations were almost a blur.


..ah yes..i remember those penny arcade flip films. that was thr first way I saw the dempsey/tunney "long count" when i was a kid. i was so fascinated by it that i kept watching it over and over until i ran out of pennies or my arm got tired...whichever happened first.