How has your opinion changed on Sullivan, Corbett, Fitz, Jeffries, Langfod, Grebb etc

[janitor]

When you start to really look in detail at a great fighter of the past your opinions on that fighter will change considerably. Especially with those pre 1920. If they don’t then you probably haven’t researched the fighter seriously enough.

This post is about how my opinions have changed on a number of great historic fighters. Particularly the ones where I got the biggest surprises. I would also like to hear about which fighters YOUR opinions have changed most on and how.

Here are a few that stand out for me:

Jawn L Sullivan
Like most people I approached Sullivan with the view that he might have been a primitive champion/hardman and that Corbett represented an evolutionary leap to the first true heavyweight champion.

Since then I have come to think that Sullivan represented a bigger evolutionary leap than Corbett in many ways. Sullivan at his peak was far beyond anything that anybody could remember from living memory. There had been small technical fighters like Sayers and big crude fighters like Heenan. Then along came this 200 lb slugger with the hand speed of a middleweight and a methodical approach to offence. The prototype for Jack Dempsey.

Bob Fitzsimmons
I always thought that Fitzsimmons was one of the greatest middleweights of all time but felt that historians who bracketed him with guys like Dempsey, Louis or even Corbett were overrating him. I generally agreed with the following statement by Monte Cox:

“It is my contention that Fitzsimmons should be rated among the all time greats as a middleweight and he, in fact, was a middleweight for most of his career. The idea that Fitzsimmons was anything more than a middleweight is a myth”.

Since I have started to study his career in more detail I have come to believe the hype. I now believe that Fitzsimmons was one of the best heavyweight finishers of all time and should rank among the top 15 or 20 all time heavyweights.

Terry McGovern
II always knew that McGovern was a wrecking machine for his size. What I had never thought was that he might be a pioneer of boxing technique!!!!!!!!

The more I have studied press clippings of Terry McGovern the more it comes across that he was seen as heralding a new era of offensive boxing technique. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote that McGovern had:

“Redefined boxing technique for a generation and forced everybody else to fight at his pace”
McGovern gave rise to a new generation of offensive finishers including Jack Dillon, Jack Dempsey and ultimately Mike Tyson".

Sam Langford
Like with Bob Fitzsimmons I saw Langford at the outset as being great for his size but too small to hang with the big boys.

In this case also I have come to believe the hype. I now think that the Tar Baby was one of the greatest heavyweight finishers of all time right up there with Dempsey Louis and Tyson. I would expect him to beat anybody once in a series of three.

Many people will include that I have regressed in my interpretations of Fitzsimmons and Langford but if the get deep into these two fighters they risk being drawn closer to my position.

Harry Wills
I used to think of Wills as being just another talented black fighter who didn’t get his chance. Not on the level of Peter Jackson and Sam Langford but more on the level of Sam McVea.

Wills actually beat more world class fighters than any other heavyweight in history including Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. I have come to appreciate his body of work and see him as a towering figure similar to Larry Holmes in stature.

Fritzie Zivic
Here is a modern one for those who are less interested in early fighters. Based on Zivics record and reputation you would conclude that he was an inconsistent fighter who relied heavily on dirty tactics to win.

Looking at the details of his fights I have come to think of Zivic as being one of the most cerebral fighters of all time. In every fight that I have studied he fought a brilliantly planned fight and frustrated his opponent preventing them from doing what they wanted.

Over to you guys…………

[Bokaj]

I can't say I've studied any of them in detail, but my opinion of Wills have certainly gone up since I joined this forum. I saw him much in the same light you did before, but now I find it hard to see why he shouldn't be not only in the top 10 of HWs, but perhaps also in the top 5.

[janitor]

I can't say I've studied any of them in detail, but my opinion of Wills have certainly gone up since I joined this forum. I saw him much in the same light you did before, but now I find it hard to see why he shouldn't be not only in the top 10 of HWs, but perhaps also in the top 5.

You dont just have to talk about the fighters I have listed.

I would like to hear about any fighter where you have changed your opinion against your expectations.

[Bokaj]

You dont just have to talk about the fighters I have listed.

I would like to hear about any fighter where you have changed your opinion against your expectations.

Sam Langord I hadn't even heard of before joining this forum, and he certainly seem impressive. I haven't really changed my opinion much of any fighter pre-WWII, though... I already knew Greb, Johnson etc were great. And as for Jeffries and Dempsey, I've always felt it hard to really rate guys who hid behind the colour line. I've always liked Dempsey on film, though.

Of the somewhat later ones, Charley Burley was someone I hadn't heard of before. Would really like to see some film of him, but I suppose there's not much out there. Pep is also someone I would like to watch film of.

Of the more modern ones, I don't appreciate watching RJJ as much anymore, while I love watching Whitaker and Leonard. They're just so complete in just about any aspect. Slicksters with complete knowledge of the art and, in Leonard's case, impressive power to go with it.

I've also got an even greater respect for the unsurpassed offensive capabilities of SRR and Louis. Their combinations are really a joy to behold.

[mcvey]

When you start to really look in detail at a great fighter of the past your opinions on that fighter will change considerably. Especially with those pre 1920. If they don’t then you probably haven’t researched the fighter seriously enough.

This post is about how my opinions have changed on a number of great historic fighters. Particularly the ones where I got the biggest surprises. I would also like to hear about which fighters YOUR opinions have changed most on and how.

Here are a few that stand out for me:

Jawn L Sullivan
Like most people I approached Sullivan with the view that he might have been a primitive champion/hardman and that Corbett represented an evolutionary leap to the first true heavyweight champion.

Since then I have come to think that Sullivan represented a bigger evolutionary leap than Corbett in many ways. Sullivan at his peak was far beyond anything that anybody could remember from living memory. There had been small technical fighters like Sayers and big crude fighters like Heenan. Then along came this 200 lb slugger with the hand speed of a middleweight and a methodical approach to offence. The prototype for Jack Dempsey.

Bob Fitzsimmons
I always thought that Fitzsimmons was one of the greatest middleweights of all time but felt that historians who bracketed him with guys like Dempsey, Louis or even Corbett were overrating him. I generally agreed with the following statement by Monte Cox:

“It is my contention that Fitzsimmons should be rated among the all time greats as a middleweight and he, in fact, was a middleweight for most of his career. The idea that Fitzsimmons was anything more than a middleweight is a myth”.

Since I have started to study his career in more detail I have come to believe the hype. I now believe that Fitzsimmons was one of the best heavyweight finishers of all time and should rank among the top 15 or 20 all time heavyweights.

Terry McGovern
II always knew that McGovern was a wrecking machine for his size. What I had never thought was that he might be a pioneer of boxing technique!!!!!!!!

The more I have studied press clippings of Terry McGovern the more it comes across that he was seen as heralding a new era of offensive boxing technique. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote that McGovern had:

“Redefined boxing technique for a generation and forced everybody else to fight at his pace”
McGovern gave rise to a new generation of offensive finishers including Jack Dillon, Jack Dempsey and ultimately Mike Tyson".

Sam Langford
Like with Bob Fitzsimmons I saw Langford at the outset as being great for his size but too small to hang with the big boys.

In this case also I have come to believe the hype. I now think that the Tar Baby was one of the greatest heavyweight finishers of all time right up there with Dempsey Louis and Tyson. I would expect him to beat anybody once in a series of three.

Many people will include that I have regressed in my interpretations of Fitzsimmons and Langford but if the get deep into these two fighters they risk being drawn closer to my position.

Harry Wills
I used to think of Wills as being just another talented black fighter who didn’t get his chance. Not on the level of Peter Jackson and Sam Langford but more on the level of Sam McVea.

Wills actually beat more world class fighters than any other heavyweight in history including Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. I have come to appreciate his body of work and see him as a towering figure similar to Larry Holmes in stature.

Fritzie Zivic
Here is a modern one for those who are less interested in early fighters. Based on Zivics record and reputation you would conclude that he was an inconsistent fighter who relied heavily on dirty tactics to win.

Looking at the details of his fights I have come to think of Zivic as being one of the most cerebral fighters of all time. In every fight that I have studied he fought a brilliantly planned fight and frustrated his opponent preventing them from doing what they wanted.

Over to you guys…………
My opinion on Sullivan has risen ,like you I think he ushered in a new phase of the game with his straight punching and all out attack.Over theyears my opinion on Jeffries has gone down a bit ,his victories were acheived with so many physical advantages in his favour,its a shame there was not a bigger version of Sharkey around,then we might be talking of Jeffries in terms of the top 10,if he had only stayed around a couple of years longer and taken on Johnson,both their legacies might have drastically changed.

[janitor]

[quote=mcvey]My opinion on Sullivan has risen ,like you I think he ushered in a new phase of the game with his straight punching and all out attack.

A many people have gone that way since Mr Pollack wrote his biography.

Over theyears my opinion on Jeffries has gone down a bit ,his victories were acheived with so many physical advantages in his favour,its a shame there was not a bigger version of Sharkey around,then we might be talking of Jeffries in terms of the top 10,

I dont even want to think about a bigger version of Sharkey.


if he had only stayed around a couple of years longer and taken on Johnson,both their legacies might have drastically changed.


That would have turned things upside down.

[mattdonnellon]

I just can't buy into the Wills hype, don't really have a logical reason except that Sammy flattened him in the early days and the little film i have seen doesn't do him justice. Joe Louis I like, the more I get into him.

[Brian123]

Jeffries (whom I have often mentioned here) really surprised me when I started researching him. I never thought he was much more than a top 25 HW until I was at the Boxing Hall of Fame and starting talking to a researcher there about him. Since I have found that so many boxing historians (I have been told repeatedly more than half) say Jeffries is the best ever.

I look at as I did not find Jeffries he found me-he is a very interesting fighter and you MUST look at his exhibition record and see the big names he beat (both black and white) to really get a feel of his greatness.

[guilalah]

SULLIVAN: Pollack's book was an eye-opener. In terms of native ability, I think Sullivan was way up there.
FITZSIMMONS: Again, reading Pollack, I realize that, after Dempsey (Non-P), the last Hall fight, Maher I, Creedon -- that is, a very short time into his middleweight reign -- no body was even interested anymore in challenging Fitzsimmons for the middle crown.
LANGFORD: A few years ago I dropped a little on Langford, due to losses. Then I realized that, when you fight that damn much, there's no way you go into every bout like it's a World War. And I look at wins over guys like McVey or Wills and ask how many guys gave up that much weight and still beat fellows who were esteemed as quality fighters. (Although, to be fair, my 'World War' comment has to be turned around and applied to them fighting Langford as well. Still, I think Langford deserves considerable respect as a heavy and, ofcourse, is an elite P4P).

[janitor]

I just can't buy into the Wills hype, don't really have a logical reason except that Sammy flattened him in the early days and the little film i have seen doesn't do him justice. Joe Louis I like, the more I get into him.

Wills paper resume is exceptional. He probably faced more top oponents than any other heavyweight in history. Beyond this he is a bit of an unknown quantity.

I dont hold the Langford losses against him. Langford knocked everybody out one way or another.

What I am most interested in here is fighters where you have changed your views as you have got to know more about them.

[McGrain]

I was of the opinion that Fitz was a power-punching slugger, which, to be fair, he probably was as a HW, but he also retained some of the skills that he maintained that made him great in the first place - a trap-setting counter-puncher with great feet.

Zivic - I had a similair revelation to yourself when I got heavily involved with Burley. Zivic is an heir apparent to Langford's philosophy in my view in terms of his setting specific problems for a specific opponents as much as that was possible. Of course, like Langford, he pulled from a set bag of tricks, but I basically saw him in the light he presented himself - "the second dirtiest fighter of all time".

Tiger Flowers- I had no idea he was such a dirty bastard. Also, give the man an iron chin and he is probably keeping the likes of Charles and Armstrong company in the p4p argument - he's gone up in my estimation.

[janitor]

Tiger Flowers- I had no idea he was such a dirty bastard. Also, give the man an iron chin and he is probably keeping the likes of Charles and Armstrong company in the p4p argument - he's gone up in my estimation.

Just look at Flowers record.

Virtualy all his losses were by knockout. He just didnt seem to loose by decision.

Harry Greb thought that he was potentialy capable of beating Jack Dempsey.

[mattdonnellon]

I'm currently into Sharkey, he looks good on film and seems to have been capable of having a shot at beating anyone in his era from Dempsey, Wills, Tunney, Schmeling, Godfrey, Loughran, Stribling, Carnera, Baer etc. He could lose to the lot of 'em also but a great fighter when everything was in tune.

[Ramon Rojo]

I haven't seen any of these guys fight and cannot judge if they're good or bad.

[BritInvasion]

I kinda thought Greb was a bit of a myth. Before joining here I thought old timers simply listed him out of a kind of perverse old folks' vanity. I did not realise how astonishing his record was, and how much he and his opponent's achieved.

[janitor]

I haven't seen any of these guys fight and cannot judge if they're good or bad.

This makes you a verry fortunate man.

You have the pleasure of learning about these great historic fighters and peicing what they were like together still to look forward to.

[Arka]

This makes you a verry fortunate man.

You have the pleasure of learning about these great historic fighters and peicing what they were like together still to look forward to.

Admit it.It is rather difficult.The only comparison I can give is with art in Ancient Greece over two thousand years ago.The Greeks had wonderful painters.Apparently one of them could paint fruit so realistically that the birds,thinking that they were real fruit ,would swoop down and try to peck at the canvas.For obvious reasons,none of the works of these painters have come down to us.So we cannot even begin to judge their true merit in a serious way.However, we mau judge the works of their sculptors,since there work has come down to us -either in a few rare originals or more often in Roman reproductions.Yes,we can see they are operating on a different technical and artistic plane.

I-and I suppose along with a few other forum members-have the same difficulty in comparing fighter,of whom no extant film exists to those whose fights have been preserved for posterity.I can only visualise how a fighter,I have not seen,by using the concrete visual image of boxers on film or seen close-up as a template.

[enquirer]

Greb,on resume alone,had many atg scalps so must have been a phenomenal boxer for the time...

[janitor]

Admit it.It is rather difficult.The only comparison I can give is with art in Ancient Greece over two thousand years ago.The Greeks had wonderful painters.Apparently one of them could paint fruit so realistically that the birds,thinking that they were real fruit ,would swoop down and try to peck at the canvas.For obvious reasons,none of the works of these painters have come down to us.So we cannot even begin to judge their true merit in a serious way.However, we mau judge the works of their sculptors,since there work has come down to us -either in a few rare originals or more often in Roman reproductions.Yes,we can see they are operating on a different technical and artistic plane.

I-and I suppose along with a few other forum members-have the same difficulty in comparing fighter,of whom no extant film exists to those whose fights have been preserved for posterity.I can only visualise how a fighter,I have not seen,by using the concrete visual image of boxers on film or seen close-up as a template.

You are quite correct about the dificulties in interpreting a fighter like Sullivan.

For me it is those verry dificulties that makes study of those periods of boxing history so rewarding. We are all drawn to the mysterious.

[janitor]

I kinda thought Greb was a bit of a myth. Before joining here I thought old timers simply listed him out of a kind of perverse old folks' vanity. I did not realise how astonishing his record was, and how much he and his opponent's achieved.

Grebs paper resume is just ridiculous.

He beat something like 14 lineal champions from welterweight to heavyweight in an era when there was eight weight classes and one champion per division.

[MRBILL]

Jim Jeffries & Harry Greb were the BEST of the lot.... Sam Langford was also great, as well..... Guys like Johnny Sullivan, Jimmy Corbett and Robby Fitzsimmons were great in their own right but, I don't see them being able to fit into the "Modern" day boxing scene all that well... John L. Sullivan was by far the laziest man of the bunch.. And "Corbett & Fitz" would be light-heavies at best; today's heavies would slaughter them two guys with ease...:deal

MR.BILL

[klompton]

I dont believe Greb would have ever thought that Flowers had a snowballs chance in hell of beating Dempsey. Greb had a lot of respect for Flowers as a man but not as a fighter. He took Flowers lightly everytime they fought based on his numerous KO defeats. Knowing how analytical Greb was when it came to styles I think he would have have picked Dempsey to stop Flowers ten out of ten times. He had almost zero respect for his ability to take a punch.

[rekcutnevets]

Originally posted by janitor
Sam Langford
Like with Bob Fitzsimmons I saw Langford at the outset as being great for his size but too small to hang with the big boys.

In this case also I have come to believe the hype. I now think that the Tar Baby was one of the greatest heavyweight finishers of all time right up there with Dempsey Louis and Tyson. I would expect him to beat anybody once in a series of three.

Many people will include that I have regressed in my interpretations of Fitzsimmons and Langford but if the get deep into these two fighters they risk being drawn closer to my position.
I have always seen Langford as one of the better pioneers, I just did not realize how different he was. After studying some footage, I saw just how far ahead of his time Langford really was.

I once read an article where Ray Arcel was talking about working with Ray Robinson and Roberto Duran. The article was focused more on Duran, but he said both fighters had one quality very much alike. He said that both fighters always seemed to know just what to do. He made it seem as though these guys had figured out how to fight the way most of us figure out how to walk. He said that he felt like he had very little to teach these fighters, and it was more about keeping them focused. After watching clips of Langford, I think he must have been like Duran and Robinson. It is hard for me to imagine anyone showing him how to fight like he did.

Originally posted by janitor
Harry Wills
I used to think of Wills as being just another talented black fighter who didn’t get his chance. Not on the level of Peter Jackson and Sam Langford but more on the level of Sam McVea.

Wills actually beat more world class fighters than any other heavyweight in history including Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. I have come to appreciate his body of work and see him as a towering figure similar to Larry Holmes in stature.
I have always given Wills a similar sentence as to what I give Dempsey. That is outside of my top 10. I don't do it as a punishment for not fighting each other. I just thought it was the only way to properly judge the overall competition of their time.

I don't know about you, but I rate Holmes very high. If your ranking of Holmes is similar to mine, then I need to start analyzing Mr. Wills' career in a lot more detail.

[Seamus]

Grebs paper resume is just ridiculous.

He beat something like 14 lineal champions from welterweight to heavyweight in an era when there was eight weight classes and one champion per division.

Yup. Truly one of the most ridiculous records on record. He is the one guy I feel safe ranking so very high due to record alone.

And in regards to Wills, he was thought to be strong, durable, not powerful and somewhat ordinary according to Ray Arcel.

[Russell]

My opinion on Choynski has changed from him being more or less a journeyman of his time to one of the hardest P4P ever, a man who everyone from Johnson to Jeffries claimed to be the hardest hitting fighter they ever faced. And that includes Fitzsimmon's.

Most of this comes from listening to Janitor and his explanations on how he was one of the most handcuffed fighters of all time next to Barbados Joe Walcott and Langford.

[Brian123]

Jim Jeffries & Harry Greb were the BEST of the lot.... Sam Langford was also great, as well..... Guys like Johnny Sullivan, Jimmy Corbett and Robby Fitzsimmons were great in their own right but, I don't see them being able to fit into the "Modern" day boxing scene all that well... John L. Sullivan was by far the laziest man of the bunch.. And "Corbett & Fitz" would be light-heavies at best; today's heavies would slaughter them two guys with ease...:deal

MR.BILL


Interesting, and I actually agree on Fitzsimmons in regards to todays heavies (at least some of them) I can't see Fitz doing well against a 6'6 Klitschko for example. However he would still be a three division champ and it would be easier with more divisions these days, light-heavy to light milddleweight most likely.

[janitor]

Interesting, and I actually agree on Fitzsimmons in regards to todays heavies (at least some of them) I can't see Fitz doing well against a 6'6 Klitschko for example. However he would still be a three division champ and it would be easier with more divisions these days, light-heavy to light milddleweight most likely.

Bringing down a Klitschko might be too taler order even for speckled Bob.

I do think that he might have had a chance against some of the heavyweight belt holders of the past few years.