Ketchel over rated by old timers

[Dr Z]

'Funny how the old time 'fighters' don’t think that Stanley Ketchel could fight, while most persons who 'saw' Ketchel fight - and who are not and never have been fighters - think the "Assassin" was a marvel.

The foregoing remarks are occasioned by an interview in an Eastern paper with "Syracuse” Tom Ryan, ex-Middleweight Champion, and in his day, one of the ring's greatest boxers.
"Yes,” Ryan is alleged to have said. "Ketchel WAS great - a great slugger; but sluggers in the old days didn’t figure. We simply feinted them out and then knocked them down."
Three rears ago or thereabouts Joe Choynski was visiting in San Francisco, and in the course of a conversation, with Sam Berger we think it was, somebody remarked that there would never be another fighter like Ketchel. "There it goes again!" exclaimed Choynski, a bit nettled: "that s all vou people know in San Francisco Ketchel, Ketchel, Ketchel! I wish Ketchel had been the hardest chap I had to meet in my day!? I would rather have fought TWO Ketchels than one Peter Maher!”
Bob Fitzsimmons expressed himself in a somewhat similar way when he last visited San Francisco. "My eyes!” said Fitz; "if Ketchel had come at me with his chest open like he did at other chaps, why, blime me, I’d have stepped in and stood him on his head!”' - Marion T. Salazar, 'San Francisco Call', 1917

Do you agree, or disagree with any of these old timers’ assertions on Ketchel?

>>> In his surving films Ketchel looks like a wide open limited figther with next to no footwork and no defense. He film is very disappointing. And his is Ketchel in his prime. His resume of wins major wins is rather thin.

[Willow The Wisp]

Ryan (b. 1870), Choynski (b. 1868) and Fitz (b. 1863) where old timers expressing their opinion on a fighter, Ketchel (b. 1886), of a "new" generation, in the typical way that old, retired fights do.

[Willie Pep 229]

>>> In his surving films Ketchel looks like a wide open limited figther with next to no footwork and no defense. He film is very disappointing. And his is Ketchel in his prime. His resume of wins major wins is rather thin.

So what?

Is Ketchel taking your money; making you less powerful, hurting the prize fight game; being used in some form of hate rhetoric; is going to affect us in anyway, tomorrow?

No! He's not.

So why do you need to deflate his value in other men's eyes?

There is no higher level of 'unnecessary' one can attain than to pointlessly deflate the value of a man 100 years gone. This has to be about you somehow.

What's your motive? What need does it fill?

[JAB5239]

So what?

Is Ketchel taking your money; making you less powerful, hurting the prize fight game; being used in some form of hate rhetoric; is going to affect us in anyway, tomorrow?

No! He's not.

So why do you need to deflate his value in other men's eyes?

There is no higher level of 'unnecessary' one can attain than to pointlessly deflate the value of a man 100 years gone. This has to be about you somehow.

What's your motive? What need does it fill?

I'd bet cash it somehow comes back around to Jack Johnson.

[Dr Z]

I'd bet cash it somehow comes back around to Jack Johnson.

Ketchel is over rated on his own. This has been my opinion for oh about 25 years. We can post his known films on you tube and break him down as a fighter. Are we on?

This therad is not about Johnson Let's keep it that way.

[solidman]

They say Ketchel was a ferocious fighter. It is hard knowing how to rank him in history because he was murdered at just 24. But from what iv heard he seemed to be a great fighter.

[QueensburyRules]

They say Ketchel was a ferocious fighter. It is hard knowing how to rank him in history because he was murdered at just 24. But from what iv heard he seemed to be a great fighter.

- - Absolutely and unrepentantly vicious much like the modern phenom of El Inca, Edwin Valero of Venezuela, with three perfect cubes of three, 27 fights, 27 wins, and 27 KOs.

And like Valero, he was mentally falling apart on drugs. When he was shot for fooling around with a ranch hand's wife in an otherwise idyllic setting to train and recover from drug use.

Born Stanislaus Kiecal to Polish immigrants in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ketchel was a rough, tough brawler even as a youth. He avoided school, instead falling in with a gang of street kids and often getting into fist fights. At twelve years old, he ran away from home, becoming a child hobo. As a teenager he lived in Butte, Montana, where he found employment first as a hotel bellhop and then as a bouncer. This profession obviously led to many scraps that established his reputation as the best fist fighter in town. Soon enough sixteen-year-old Stanley was performing in backroom boxing matches with older locals for twenty dollars a week. He began traveling throughout Montana, offering to take on any man brave enough to face him. Between 1903 and 1906, he lost just twice in thirty-nine contests and, in 1907, moved to California, where he knew most of boxing's big names and big fights waited for him.

We have limited film of Ketchell, yet none of Greb...

[Mr Mitts]

Personally, I always felt Ketchel was perhaps over lionized from what I have seen. To me, it is probably the Jimi Hendrix effect pre Hendrix--cut down in their primes. So this subject does not seem so out of whack with my own observations as to deserve rapid dismissal or even prognostications of a looming rug thumping of Johnson.

The question on its own is worth answering. I did not see a lot of finesse but a brawling tiger, the kind that excites fans and gets them emotional.

Am I in trouble now too for demoting an antique fighter or at least questioning his reputation? I thought we questioned all things like this. What are we doing here if not that?

Could it be that Ketchel is overrated by more than old timers? He had a big hail Mary but not much mother of grace to my eyes. Not claiming to be an expert here but giving my own limited observations for the sake of answering a question I have always had myself. So, yeah, I suspect there is a good chance Ketchel is overrated because he is now part of legend, died early and was a very exciting fighter.

Okay, I took too long.

[solidman]

They say he was a warrior

[DeeMoney]

Its interesting, we have hardly any film on him to judge by. We have the Johnson fight, which was pitting him against the top HW in the world in a fight that wouldn't even be sanctioned any time in the past century. Then we have him wrestling around with a thonged Billy Papke (no cheap shots at Papke who I feel wasa good fighter, just a shot at his outfit). Not much to judge by. Its easy to be wary of all the praise he received by the media, as we know there was a tendency to build fighters up and 'purple prose' and all. And of course there are a lot of fights from that time that just seem to be very rudimentary, though that was just how the style was at the time.
Since his career ended so early, his resume is mostly early career fights vs no-hopers and young fighters. But he has a good number of solid wins: 3 of 4 vs Papke, a couple against Jack O'Brien, the twin Sullivans.

I think this ends up being somewhat of a Rorschach Test on how one views the era in a lot of ways. For me, I think he comes off as a worthy HOF level fighter, with a top level ability to knock someone out, though probably real open to being picked apart by some fighters.