Of course Joe Savage was an apparent undefeated British bare knuckle fighter, but more interestingly is how did he get a fight with Bert Cooper?
It was savages debut in a boxing ring but obviously didnt last long.
According to research Savage was apparently knocking out professional boxers back in England in the 1980's and would be interesting to know who these boxers were that fought Savage.
Where did Savage go after the Cooper fight? Did he go back to bare knuckle fighting and dominating the UK?
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 16:28
by Taansend
Interesting stuff, mate. Thanks for the video. I bet Cooper was chuckling away to himself the whole fight
Time to do some research on this Savage fella
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 16:45
by Taansend
Well here's a thread on the subject on a forum called Sweet Science.
Not sure if the author is tongue in cheek or not. I bloody hope so.
According to Boxrec, Savage was only 31 at the time of the fight. He looks a lot older.
Aaaah on further research it's coming back to me now. They did this Prizefighter type thing with the Heavyweights back in 1993 & he entered & was going to destroy them all but apparently shite himself after watching Bonecrusher Smith & Tony Tubbs sparring (although he claimed a wrist injury). The fighters & results in that tournament are here in this link
Mimmy wrote: ↑22 Jan 2018, 17:03
Nice research there fella.
I should be a Private Dick
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 17:08
by gilgamesh
Went about the way you might expect. Isn't it funny how these "Bareknuckle Legends" are absolute dog sh*t in a Prize ring. It's almost like they're just drunks that don't actually know how to box and haven't actually fought any credible opponents...but nah that couldn't be it
Mimmy wrote: ↑22 Jan 2018, 17:03
Nice research there fella.
I should be a Private Dick
you need to find a bit more on the apparent 42 ko's and which 80's boxers he knocked out before you can be boxrec's Columbo.
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 22:14
by Dart340
I want a crack at this one....
Joe Savage was a master self-promoter and, in my eyes, a master con man of the first order.
He was doing interviews in the early 90's in the UK proclaiming himself the Bare Knuckle Champion of the World and making grandstand challenges saying he could beat Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson in the same night. He parlayed this pub into getting a spot in the aforementioned Million Dollar Heavyweight Tourney that was supposed to be on Pay Per View. The promoters themselves recognized someone who could help draw interest and he got all kinds of mainstream facetime, even making a shot on David Letterman, and getting in all the boxing magazines of the day.
Story is that he started training in Vegas before the tournament and got an eyeful of Tubbs and Bonecrusher sparring and decided to fabricate a quick injury, to his arm or something, and ducked out before getting exposed as he clearly saw he was overmatched. That should have ended the con.
Almost two years later, Savage just shows up in British Columbia in a poorly promoted and hardly noticed fight against Bert Cooper for you would assume was peanuts, maybe barely enough to justify the plane flight from the UK. Savage looks like a complete clown and a whole lot closer to Ralph Kramden than anyone who had even ever won a bar fight, much less a proficient "Bare Knuckle Champion". No balance, no coordination, and can't even throw a credible punch. Gets flattened and looks like a grandiose fool. That should have ended the con.
Not so fast. Big Joe is still working the marks back in the UK. He purportedly owns a scrap metal company there and gets all kinds of local pub in the papers and magazines there claiming all kinds of Bare Knuckle victories and claiming to have had a knuckle on one hand amputated because he hit someone so hard it shattered and telling weary tales of all his many battles and fight-related injuries.
Watching Cooper clobber him with zero effort is an all-time guilty pleasure of mine. I don't think Savage could beat the majority of us on this board.
To answer the original question, nobody knows how he ended up against Cooper in British Columbia, but best guess is old Joe believed a good deal of his own self-created hype and convinced himself that he really could hold his own with those heavyweights he saw a year and half before and put himself out there for promoters and they nabbed him for a grand and travel expenses.
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 22:41
by Taansend
Dart340 wrote: ↑22 Jan 2018, 22:14
I want a crack at this one....
Joe Savage was a master self-promoter and, in my eyes, a master con man of the first order.
He was doing interviews in the early 90's in the UK proclaiming himself the Bare Knuckle Champion of the World and making grandstand challenges saying he could beat Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson in the same night. He parlayed this pub into getting a spot in the aforementioned Million Dollar Heavyweight Tourney that was supposed to be on Pay Per View. The promoters themselves recognized someone who could help draw interest and he got all kinds of mainstream facetime, even making a shot on David Letterman, and getting in all the boxing magazines of the day.
Story is that he started training in Vegas before the tournament and got an eyeful of Tubbs and Bonecrusher sparring and decided to fabricate a quick injury, to his arm or something, and ducked out before getting exposed as he clearly saw he was overmatched. That should have ended the con.
Almost two years later, Savage just shows up in British Columbia in a poorly promoted and hardly noticed fight against Bert Cooper for you would assume was peanuts, maybe barely enough to justify the plane flight from the UK. Savage looks like a complete clown and a whole lot closer to Ralph Kramden than anyone who had even ever won a bar fight, much less a proficient "Bare Knuckle Champion". No balance, no coordination, and can't even throw a credible punch. Gets flattened and looks like a grandiose fool. That should have ended the con.
Not so fast. Big Joe is still working the marks back in the UK. He purportedly owns a scrap metal company there and gets all kinds of local pub in the papers and magazines there claiming all kinds of Bare Knuckle victories and claiming to have had a knuckle on one hand amputated because he hit someone so hard it shattered and telling weary tales of all his many battles and fight-related injuries.
Watching Cooper clobber him with zero effort is an all-time guilty pleasure of mine. I don't think Savage could beat the majority of us on this board.
To answer the original question, nobody knows how he ended up against Cooper in British Columbia, but best guess is old Joe believed a good deal of his own self-created hype and convinced himself that he really could hold his own with those heavyweights he saw a year and half before and put himself out there for promoters and they nabbed him for a grand and travel expenses.
Great post Mate although his fight against Cooper was just five months after the Heavyweight tournament.
He lives in a council estate in Wednesbury nowadays.
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 15:51
by SenorPipino
Savage looked like your typical out of shape truck driver.
The real question is how would he have fared against Too Tall Jones?
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 16:07
by gilgamesh
SenorPipino wrote: ↑24 Jan 2018, 15:51
Savage looked like your typical out of shape truck driver.
The real question is how would he have fared against Too Tall Jones?
You have your answer in "Too Tall". That Jones was just too damn tall and athletic
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 25 Jan 2018, 08:59
by HomicideHenry
From my understanding, nobody who was legitimately in the underground world had ever even heard of Joe Savage. Gorman, Shaw, McLean, Fields, etc never once mentioned him. I speculate that he was nothing more than a bouncer with the gift for gab and claimed he was something he wasn't.
Re: Bert Cooper v Joe Savage
Posted: 25 Jan 2018, 10:46
by milpool
And Cooper was able to flatten him just eight days after being stopped by Larry Donald in seven due a swollen eye...
