Analysing Joe Gans

[McGoorty]

Joe Gans is obviously one of the greatest fighters of all time but what was it that made him so, we can read a lot about him but here is a bloke who does some great videos analysing some of the best fighters ever, some of you may have found some LeeWiley1 videos on youtube but I only just found them there so they must be relatively new on the tube. I already put one of his videos in the new thread on Benny Leonard vs Jimmy McLarnin that he did on leonard which is brilliant in my opinion. Here is his video on Joe Gans... far better than reading a book.

[McGoorty]

I intend to do an analysis of his resume soon, The Poll is just for lightweight only but would like your thoughts on him in the all time p4p stakes, surely he must rank highly there too. He is controversial, it seems he threw some fights, maybe he did so because someone threatened to shoot him dead, I don't know but will do some research on the subject.

[billeau2]

I intend to do an analysis of his resume soon, The Poll is just for lightweight only but would like your thoughts on him in the all time p4p stakes, surely he must rank highly there too. He is controversial, it seems he threw some fights, maybe he did so because someone threatened to shoot him dead, I don't know but will do some research on the subject.

Very nice vid...I have no taste for lists, so when i put him top 5 I think he could be anywhere in that range.

The point about the jab is very important. Right around the time of gans the lead hand was developing into the jab. Also Gans was so good he was one of the few guys who could cross feet to stalk an opponent. this entailed a remarkable sense of distance.

The roll blocks are also BIG. You just don't see guys able to use them anymore...they take a real understanding of body mechanics because you have to know, when upon impact to collapse the arm and hitch the shoulder...and the hitch has to be practically imperceptable. We use this manuveur in AkiJutsu, in a little different way, but very similar. What we do is let the punch in, then settle the weight so we are watching the punching shoulder...as the punch comes in we just tap the punching elbow and turn the guy into a four directional throw (shihon Nagi). Originally with a sword the distance was greater, the blade was met and slightly diverted with the same movement then the opponent cut down.

Whats so nice to see is how this roll block is done against combinations, where the elbow can control the punch also, just prior to the counter,

Gans was incredibly deliberate in his way of angling to do this and what makes him so good is that all his defensive actions are part of an offensive ploy... you just don't see this done anymore. Slipping punches, changing the weight front to back so one can react and greet the punch, sliding it into a counter....wonderful stuff.

[BattlingNelson]

You might enjoy reading this McGoorty:

http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=648656

It contains an article written by Lee Wiley who made the vid in the op.

As for your poll, well I have him at no. 1, but how you rank Gans with Leonard and Duran is essentially a matter of taste or preference.

[JimEarl]

Well being in a critical forum I rated him as top 10 but probably should have made it top five. Great thread.

I've taken an interest in him ever since reading things that Nat Fleischer had written about him while he was still alive. Whatever Nat might have accused him of, at the time, for quitting the first Frank Erne fight on a really bad cut (ref wouldn't stop a fight for a cut then) he seemed to make up for by way of praise late in his life.

A couple of books on him now but the most readable is William Gildea's. I will take issue with Gildea's PC treatment of Nelson in it as others have however. Racism was another way to hype a fight back then.

Would be very interesting to see how the contemporary greats would have measured up under the conditions of an unlimited round fight in September Nevada desert heat. Also being forced to weigh in at 133 or less just before fight time and having to forgo hand wraps just to make the weight as Gans had to do in the first Nelson fight.

[rightsideup]

I rated him in the top 3

[JimEarl]

He is controversial, it seems he threw some fights, maybe he did so because someone threatened to shoot him dead, I don't know but will do some research on the subject.

A black fighter (the first black American champion) with an unscrupulous manager would have to go along with the program perhaps even just to get the big fights. You can certainly forget the Terry McGovern fight. There were rumors even before the fight and all the ringside pundits and the ref called it for what it was at the time. Chicago outlawed boxing for two decades off the stink of that affair.

[The Old LefHook]

Joe Gans is obviously one of the greatest fighters of all time but what was it that made him so, we can read a lot about him but here is a bloke who does some great videos analysing some of the best fighters ever, some of you may have found some LeeWiley1 videos on youtube but I only just found them there so they must be relatively new on the tube. I already put one of his videos in the new thread on Benny Leonard vs Jimmy McLarnin that he did on leonard which is brilliant in my opinion. Here is his video on Joe Gans... far better than reading a book.

Boxing had quite a lot of evolving to do once gloves were introduced. Gans was one of the leaders of that renaissance. Where you could hit a man and how often you dared it, were big changes. Only suicidal bareknuckleers targeted an opponents mouths, for fear of teeth. Those punches high on the head that we so often see disorient participants in modern boxing matches must have been a no-no, and happened only by accident. There was a lot to be done with the new sport, and Gans knew what a lot of that stuff was. Due to when he lived, we can assume that he actually invented many of the needed techniques. Gans helped the young Langford after losing to him and was sometimes in his corner for some of his fights.

All punches had to be carefully placed to avoid damage to the hands. This even went for body punching. A careless blow to a hip bone or a skull could end a fight for the attacker. This is a major reason that combination punching was scarce in the bareknuckle era and the early gloved days. You simply had to be more careful than that. A shower of uncalculated blows was a kamakaze move in the bareknuckle era, so something the gloved generation had to pick up for themselves how to do safely. A new era of punch placement was beginning.

But it was not E=M^2, and a lot of boxers and trainers were discovering these things for themselves. It did not take long. The seeds of everything to come were already in Corbett, who grew up in the old school and fought in the new one.

Gans was one of the best fighters of his day and a leader in the new revolution. He is the black Corbett. Dempsey credits him with being a pioneer of the fall step jab. He brought with him the tradtions of body punching and in-fighting, just as early film talkie actors and announcers brought a way of speaking inherited from radio to their new jobs.

Gans has a noticeable reach. It is really difficult for me to see how Gans might adapt to Ike Williams or Joe Brown or--egads! Duran. Very hard to imagine in detail with so little footage. But I feel confident he would be fighting at top level in any era, and quite a lot of the adapting would have to be done by his opponents, if prime Joe suddenly returned "as was" to our contemporary era.

[The Old LefHook]

I voted that Joe was in the top 25. I would like to place him higher, but his all time division is so full of studs that I cannot at this point. The list of lighteweight champions is truly frightening, and reads like a who's who of ATG's.

[McGoorty]

Very nice vid...I have no taste for lists, so when i put him top 5 I think he could be anywhere in that range.

The point about the jab is very important. Right around the time of gans the lead hand was developing into the jab. Also Gans was so good he was one of the few guys who could cross feet to stalk an opponent. this entailed a remarkable sense of distance.

The roll blocks are also BIG. You just don't see guys able to use them anymore...they take a real understanding of body mechanics because you have to know, when upon impact to collapse the arm and hitch the shoulder...and the hitch has to be practically imperceptable. We use this manuveur in AkiJutsu, in a little different way, but very similar. What we do is let the punch in, then settle the weight so we are watching the punching shoulder...as the punch comes in we just tap the punching elbow and turn the guy into a four directional throw (shihon Nagi). Originally with a sword the distance was greater, the blade was met and slightly diverted with the same movement then the opponent cut down.

Whats so nice to see is how this roll block is done against combinations, where the elbow can control the punch also, just prior to the counter,

Gans was incredibly deliberate in his way of angling to do this and what makes him so good is that all his defensive actions are part of an offensive ploy... you just don't see this done anymore. Slipping punches, changing the weight front to back so one can react and greet the punch, sliding it into a counter....wonderful stuff.

That's a very nice description mate, the thing about all time list is their subjectivity but the great fighters on 1900-20 era is the inventiveness these guys had, they must be rated very high because everyone that comes after them owe these guys nearly everything. What i love about boxing in this time period is the amazing variety of styles as every fighter is trying to invent and reinvent gloved boxing, it is such a colourful time for boxing. Ted Kid Lewis didn't fight like anyone else, Les Darcy the same, with his cat like footwork leaping in and out, Frank Klaus - here was a fighter who made infighting a science and an artform, his manual that he published is outstanding and should be compulsory reading for aspiring boxers. Bob Fitzsimmons was taught by Larry Foley who is in fact the true pioneer of the gloved art, a bareknuckle fighter, Foley was advocating the use of gloves very early with encouragement from Jem Mace the great champion. I think Jimmy Clabby was a great innovator as well, advocating a boxing approach as opposed to just slugging it out.... of course this era had plenty who weren't thinking scientifically, they just wanted to slug. Who else ??? well too many to name in one post, the saddest thing is that some of the innovators are not on film, Mike Gibbons surely deserves a place in boxing history, he did publish some stuff like photo sequences of his style but maybe his biggest impact was his effect on Gene Tunney who adapted the Gibbons style and we all know how fabulous a fighter Tunney was.