jack blackburn joe gans dave holly

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 17 Dec 2005, 01:53

3 all time great lightweights fighting at the same time. that lightweight era was one of the best of all time.

whats your thoughts on these 3 fighters??

gans did the best out of the 3 and won the title so he took most of the attention away from blackburn and holly who are two incredibly unkown and underated lightweights. I rate gans 2nd all time lightweight and blackburn 5th all time lightweight and holly 10th all time lightweight.

Dave Holly

http://members.aol.com/ksmith9116/daveho_1.jpg

jack blackburn

http://www.phillyboxinghistory.com/phot ... ity_01.jpg

Joe Gans
http://coxscorner.tripod.com/Images/gans.jpg

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 17 Dec 2005, 08:19

Surprised nothing has been written on Blackburn, if only for the Louis connection

barry · Post by **barry** » 17 Dec 2005, 08:22

Yeah, I'm surprised no one has done a bio of Blackburn too, or for that matter Joe Gans either. Both had a very full and interesting life that would make one hell of an entertaining book.

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 17 Dec 2005, 09:58

This era seems to be a favourite of alot of us on this site.

I think it is a much more interesting story wrapped around the fighters back then as opposed to say the 60`s to present day.

Many of us read bio`s and will agree that the modern boxers story is pretty flat compared to the real old fighters.

Joe Gans has had some written on him in various books, nothing as far as I know solely on Gans but snippets here and there, again something of a mystery why not

barry · Post by **barry** » 17 Dec 2005, 10:08

Gans almost always has a thumbnail sketch of his career in all the "Boxing's Greatest Fighters" types of books, but there has never been a biography written about him.

It amazes me at the overall total of great, great fighters that have never had a book written about them and there are some very interesting characters throughout the history of the sport. The lives of guys like Joe Grim, "Barbados" Joe Walcott, Joe Gans, Ad Wolgast, Joe Jeannette and many more were enthraling and would certainly make a very entertaining read learning about them.

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 17 Dec 2005, 11:18

We can tick one off that list once Clay gets a publisher for his book.

I really can`t wait for it

Whats happened to the Harry Greb book that somebody here is said to be writing? it seems a very long time getting put into print....or was it merely a hoax

barry · Post by **barry** » 17 Dec 2005, 11:32

Steve Comptom, or Klompton as he is known here has been working on the Greb book for a good while now, which is good in my opinion as I have heard that he is tracking down all that he can about Greb's career. As much crap as he has talked about other books this one better be something good. He is certainly trying to be as thourough as humanly possible, which is something I would like to see all writers do.

I can't wait until Clay's book on Langford is published. I can't recall the number of pages, but I was thinking he said that it was something like 50 chapters.

Kevin Smith will have another book in his "Caramel Kings: History of African American Boxers" coming out pretty soon, which he told me was right now a 1000 page tome. It should pick up where his "Black Genesis: The History of the Black Prizefighter 1760-1870" left off and it will cover all of the old colored fighters like Holly, Blackburn, Tommy Coleman, Sam Bolan, George Cole, Jim Jaynie, "Scaldy" Bill Quinn and many, many more of those now forgotten fighters.

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 17 Dec 2005, 12:16

I just looked up kevin Smiths "Black Genesis: The History of the Black Prizefighter 1760-1870" book, it says its a print on demand sale only.

Is the book any good do you know?

If so I may get a copy, how many pages?

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 17 Dec 2005, 12:34

Has Steve Compton published anything before so we may guess what the book may possibly be like?
I searched a book data-base and didn`t find anything, maybe under a different name??

barry · Post by **barry** » 17 Dec 2005, 12:58

He hasn't published anything that I know of.

Below is the table of contents for "Black Genesis." I haven't read it yet, though Kevin was suppose to send me a copy a long time ago. Based on what I know about Kevin and some of the research that he has done, I would certainly recommend the book to anyone:

Table Of Contents

Prologue: The Vanishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1
Chapter 1 Stepping into the Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter 2 The Black Terror. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Chapter 3 The Tremendous Man of Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 4 In the Shadow of Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 5 The First of Its Kind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 6 The Not So Roaring 20’s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Chapter 7 The Black Prince of Pugilists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter 8 Uneasy is the Head that Wears the Crown . . . . 115
Chapter 9 They’re Coming to America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Chapter 10 Nat Langham’s Black. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145
Chapter 11 The Undefeated. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Appendix A Fight Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Appendix C Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Appendix D Glossary of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

tonyevs · Post by **tonyevs** » 17 Dec 2005, 13:34

Much thanks

RowanSmith · Post by **RowanSmith** » 17 Dec 2005, 16:24

Hey Barry, Please send me an email at [email protected] Thanks, kevin