BoxRec

It is customary these days to denigrate the fighters of the late 1800's and early 1900's; called primitive, they are not taken seriously by too many boxing fans. Typical complaints are that they had no defensive abilities, threw one punch at a time, clinched too much and didn't move enough. I am of the opinion that these were not necessarily liabilities and may, in fact, give them an edge over a contemporary fighter. At the worst they were products of the nature of the fights the engaged in. I'll kick it off with this: modern training techniques be damned. A man preparing to fight to a finish, with driving gloves (not 10oz boxing gloves), in the sunlight, on sand, gravel, or grass, will be in better condition than a man preparing to fight 36 minutes in an air-conditioned arena with a mouthpiece, a doctor on hand to protect the fighters, and so on. Especially when the man fighting to the finish passes time between fights shoveling rock in a mine 10 hours a day, or plowing fields and tossing hay bales; between fights the other guy gains 35lbs.

I agree that the older fighters are underestimated greatly! Actually, not all fighters were of that stereo-typed style, but most of the better fighters of the early era were masters of the jab, and just recently Winky Wright showed everyone how effective only a great jab and an occasional straight right can really be, so in retrospect, it really wouldn't be that difficult to actual think that a fighter like James J. Corbett, who was a jab-master, could actually outpoint the biggest percentage of heavyweights.

I agree that some of the old timers are underrated by modern fans probaly for two key reasons;

1) In almost other sports such as soccer, american football, basketball etc athletes have improved over time.

2) The film that exists of these fighters makes them appear slow and clumsey.

I would answer these with,

1) Boxers in this period unlike other sports were not amatures and trained as hard as modern-day fighters. Although training and nutrition in particular have improved, many of the fundimentals remain the same and as mentioned above the lifestyle of fighters at this time probably gave them an extra toughness.

2) I'm no expert on film but I feel it may be the quality of the film at fault here rather than the quality of the fighters. I you watch old film from the 1890's of people walking around they seem to walk in a shakey clumsy fashion, but does anyone seriously believe people walked differently in those days. Also many of the fights on film fron that period are reconstructions staged a few days later where the fighters are obviously trying not to hurt each other.

As far as not throwing many cominations is concerned, this may be true as fighter often still fought to the finish or 25 or 20 round fights where a frantic pace could not be sustained. there are often a lot of draws on early fighters records many of which may be similar to the Corbett-Jackson fight where by all accounts the ref stopped it because both fighters were too tired to fight on.

I agree that the film had a lot to do with the slow, awkward look of many early boxers: Ray Arcel, Nat Fleischman (sp?) among others often referred to the speed, etc of these same fighters and they saw Robinson, Ali etc as well. There are three other points I'd like to raise: First, these men had to be much better defensively thasn typically given credit for being. They did not have 10oz gloves to "make ear-muffs" with and such a tatic wouldn't have made sense. You would still get buffeted about the head and, ultimately, straight blocking of punches is just prioritizing where you'd rather accept the damage. In a finish fight it would not be wise to accept a pummeling up and down the arms. Given the taxation of moving on sand/gravel/sod (look at the effect of a soft ring on one's legs) I'm guessing they parried and deflected many punches. Second, in a bare (or nearly so) knuckle bout it wouldn't pay to throw hands recklessly. One would look to counter a particular punch by the rival and land cleanly to max the damage done. While risking the hand as little as possible- to me, more effective than a half-way slip and counter "combo", none of which do damage. And, in the old days, clinching was an integral part of wearing down a rival- very strategic and purposeful. For what its worth.

If one really studies the film, one can see that what is known was 'modern' boxing developed very rapidly after gloves were introduced. As early as 1902, one can see Joe Gans doing everything a modern fighter does and more. Wolfgast-Rivers from 1911 is a fast paced, combination filled fight. Corbett from his fight with Fitz and Johnson against Ketchel show beautiful lateral movement, double jabs, combinations, and countering. The only real development I can see from the 19teens to now was the big influence of Ali post 1960s which saw many fighters attempt to dance too much, and this was NOT a good thing, as dancing, for extended periods of time, can get you off balance, forces you to throw punches without sitting on them, and generally will wear you out over a long distance fight.

How much to bet the same people who slag off the old timers would dismiss a still B&W photograph of Kostya Tsyzu in his usual stance? And fighting like that didn't do him too badly in the modern era.

The old timers fought a totally different type of boxing.
The rules were such that much of the prize-fighting rules could be made for a very boring fight, we seem to think today they stood toe-to-toe and slugged it out, as the rules expected.

But the norm was quite the opposite, John L. did not like the prize-fighting rules because a lesser fighter would turn it into a footrace, constantly running and when the opponent got too close they would go down from the slightest punch to reset the action, aka Charley Mitchel.
Or in the case of Yankee Sullivan, he pummelled the much bigger pedestrian John Morrissey untill he ran out of steam 37rnds later.

These tough men fought as the style then predicted.
The shots that todays boxers fire so frequently to the head knowing full well their hands are fully protected would have broken yester-years fighters hands with-in a few rounds once they hit the forehead of an opponent, John L. favoured the punch to the side of the neck wher as today most fighters favour the left hook to the head vicinity.

There was no effective cross-arm defence with the unpadded leather mits they wore, and the parry was done with the forearms hence the exagerated extended arms so obvious of the then fighters.

The old timers were every bit as tough and skilled as today, just in their style of fighting.

In response to old fight film misleading us, you only have to download the movie clips of Harry Greb sparring and shadow boxing, a poster on here recently claimed he`d bowl over the Great Greb because he looked so slow and bad...can you believe that. :P

One of my favorites was Ketchel- my mother was born in Butte, Mt, where he fought 41 times- and I love reading how easy it would be to counter his wild swings. Invariably the same picture of him missing a right v. Johnson is shown. The problem, I think, would be in the countering because he's low to the ground his head protected by his right shoulder, and in position to get a lot on a left hook or uppercut. It comes back to what Armstrong said; boxing is hitting and not getting hit. If you are landing and he isn't you're boxing perfectly.