Analysing Joe Gans

[McGoorty]

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.

Sure that is your choice and I won't have a go at you for that but I think you are thinking of head to head matchups, Gans surely gets points for being someone who was part of inventing the very sport itself, read my above reply to Billeau.

[McGoorty]

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.

This is a superb post my freind, well done, this is exactly why I made this thread, so experts can talk about the science of fighting itself and to avoid troll like behaviour... this is the history section and I intend to help make it what it was meant to be. thank you.

[McGoorty]

Here is a section of the article you put a link to mate and I think this sums a lot of things up nicely and precisely what modtards can't understand when they scoff at the old timers.............. QUOTE : " Also, because those gloves were a lot smaller, it was far more difficult for a fighter to simply apply the ear muffs and shell up when defending. Far more thought had to be placed on hand evasions such as glove blocking, hence, boxing had a different look and feel to it back then."" : .................................... .................................................. .................................................. ................... ................... I hope every member here reads that little bit at least,.... it explains much... this Wyllie really is a smart chap.

[billeau2]

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.

Need I say excellent information. Like a scientist one is approaching a central problem all but forgotten today....How does one transfer energy through a new medium? It should be painfully obvious to most that the reason boxing has become a glorified rock em sock em robots game is primarily because of the gloves. Punches must change as more material is added to the mufflers used on the hands. During the times you mention pioneers were discovering how to transfer punches effectively given the use of the glove. Just from the perspective of the central problem involved with transferring power here are a few things that got worked out

1) A straight right, with the hand held palm up, with relaxed rocking movement in the legs and with very little movement with the punching hand is to this day the most anatomically correct punch. If landed right on the tip of the mandible process this punch directly pushes the skull back and causes the brain to slam into the front of the skull.....unfortunately the effect of this blow diminishes as padding is added to the hand because the direct connection is lost.

What people do not often get is that its not only the impact of the punch we are talking about here, it is the connection the direct transfer from the hand, into the bony protrusion and directly into the brain support network. So faced with this dilemna the jab was a natural development. By extending the arm movement, turning the hand over supination to pronation, one could accept more force, and less precise targeting in exchange for more force.

When you look at the older bare knuckle guys....why do you (the plural you, not Mcgoorty!) think the guys looked so upright? so relaxed? and the hand was always held out as if it was a secret masonic symbol with some strange significance. The pose was showing you the viewer what was important! It was not the strength of the punch so much, but the relaxed delivery, hand held just so as it extended,....lock step with the foot hitting the ground (this transfers the most weight into a punch of this type) and the intended target was the tip of the chin.

The jab became the lead hand right as gloves got bigger and where as before the body was protected from blows by the grapple, with bigger gloves more tactics were needed to make body punching effective. Watch Fitz drop Corbett for a textbook understanding of how body punching developed when gloves were introduced... In order to catch Corbett Fitz had to throw the blow from the side and with impact but, with smaller gloves these targets could still be attacked. Prior to the introduction of gloves the plexis was protected by grappling the puncher (Johnson did this often) it became a real challenge to attack the body in a meaningful way with gloves. This is probably when the mechanics of a hook were refined (turning the arm in the right position i.e. so I can look at my palm) and where the uppercut developed. In bare knuckles fighting to throw an uppercut would get ones hand trapped, and one would be easily countered. with gloves the lead hand punch or back hand punch where the blow becomes a vertical strike was replaced by a deliberate punch from this position (the uppercut).

These are just a few refinements made

[The Old LefHook]

Sure that is your choice and I won't have a go at you for that but I think you are thinking of head to head matchups, Gans surely gets points for being someone who was part of inventing the very sport itself, read my above reply to Billeau.

One of my consistencies is that I always rate H2H unless otherwise instructed. If I were to consider all categories of rating at once, because of his priority in technical advances and central placement in the revolution, Gans would make at least top 5. By saying he is top 25 H2H, I am saying I am not sure where he belongs with regard to that.

[BattlingNelson]

One of my consistencies is that I always rate H2H unless otherwise instructed. If I were to consider all categories of rating at once, because of his priority in technical advances and central placement in the revolution, Gans would make at least top 5. By saying he is top 25 H2H, I am saying I am not sure where he belongs with regard to that.

There certainly are different ways to rate fighters in an alltime-sense. You choose h2h and rank Gans top 25. I reckon that you do so by putting Gans against the other great LW's under modern conditions ie 12 rounds, big gloves, stricter ref's etc.

I'd still think Gans in my own subjective opinion, would fare better even in a modern era, but how would your ranking change it it was the others who where thought back to fighting at the turn of the last century?

Anyway I put Gans at no. 1. That is based on me emphasizing resume more than anything else.

[McGoorty]

One of my consistencies is that I always rate H2H unless otherwise instructed. If I were to consider all categories of rating at once, because of his priority in technical advances and central placement in the revolution, Gans would make at least top 5. By saying he is top 25 H2H, I am saying I am not sure where he belongs with regard to that.

Well I can't rate too many higher than Gans but like you I don't give them an exact position, I do rate Benny Leonard a bit above Gans and unlike many observers I have no qualms about suggesting these two blokes would have been very great today, no problem at all, I simply can't see any lightweight handling such expertise that Leonard and Gans can bring to the ring, as Bat say how about making the top moderns fight with 6 oz gloves and make them fight over a 20 round distance.... I reckon there should be an organization that brings this back and crown their own champs and lets say there are just 10 divisions with the magic 8 plus a jr Welter and an increased Cruiserweight, upping the scales a bit from the standard heavyweight minimum because of the really big guys... It would be interesting to see how the two schools of boxing would veer apart, I am sure they would. Oh some would say "oh the authorities wouldn't allow that, too dangerous they would say", I would respond to that by saying, "oh but it's ok to stick two guys in a cage and they can knee, elbow, kick, choke, break arms etc ?" no reason why this couldn't happen, I bet Floyd wouldn't go anywhere near this type of boxing.

[billeau2]

There certainly are different ways to rate fighters in an alltime-sense. You choose h2h and rank Gans top 25. I reckon that you do so by putting Gans against the other great LW's under modern conditions ie 12 rounds, big gloves, stricter ref's etc.

I'd still think Gans in my own subjective opinion, would fare better even in a modern era, but how would your ranking change it it was the others who where thought back to fighting at the turn of the last century?

Anyway I put Gans at no. 1. That is based on me emphasizing resume more than anything else.

Thats the reason I can't do lists...The styles used were a reflection of variables like glove size, length of contest, etc. There is no way to escape this other than to say that any great fighter would adapt to conditions.

[The Old LefHook]

There certainly are different ways to rate fighters in an alltime-sense. You choose h2h and rank Gans top 25. I reckon that you do so by putting Gans against the other great LW's under modern conditions ie 12 rounds, big gloves, stricter ref's etc.

I'd still think Gans in my own subjective opinion, would fare better even in a modern era, but how would your ranking change it it was the others who where thought back to fighting at the turn of the last century?

Anyway I put Gans at no. 1. That is based on me emphasizing resume more than anything else.

Wrong assumption about my standards. I always send the moderns back in time to fight the oldsters under their conditions, unless otherwise instructed. I can do it both ways, but that is my default.

But note that I have not sent Gans or a mythical opponent anywhere yet. I have not mentioned anyone that he would or would not beat, I only placed him roughly in the top 25.

Prospectively, as I learn more about some of Gans' opponents, I might gain a sense of his proper placement. I would first like some kind of breakdown on the styles of those he did defeat, which I am not even sure is available. I have no problem seeing that Gans can handle a head-first brawler. I am more concerned how he would deal with other styles and techniques that were not fully developed in his time.

My strong guess would be that Joe never even dealt with a consistent high guard. I am not at this point aware if he ever faced a mover a la Tunney or Mike Gibbons or near their quality. I know he never saw a peekaboo. Of course Gans is likely to show the moderns a few things they never saw, as well. However, combination punching was a different animal then. Fifteen blows coming at you in a series is different from rwo or three. I am extremely confident that Joe never dealt with modern combination punching.

Gans, will, however, enjoy a huge advantage in that the old horsehair gloves allowed less careless combination punching than today's pillows. Their padding could be (and often was) kneeded to the side, exposing raw knuckle covered only by leather. Gans is likely to win a few mythical matchups (which is what these are) simply on knuckle damage incurred by his modern opponents.

So ranking Gans only in the top 25 so far, without more detail, I think has more to do with my lack of knowledge of the range of styles he faced than whose time period will have home field advantage.

A scenario I find interesting is to let them fight with any eqipment they choose, modern or ancient. The modern boys would enjoy the extra blocking advantages of bigger gloves, while Gans' smaller gloves would retain their potential to slip through smaller cracks. Joe will get to pick a different pair of shoes, maybe with some tassles.

I never consider anything but a 15 rounder for this type of contest. One of my other consistencies is that I will not consider 12 round mythical matchups, which shows the scorn in which I hold contemporary standards.

[JimEarl]

Wrong assumption about my standards. I always send the moderns back in time to fight the oldsters under their conditions, unless otherwise instructed. I can do it both ways, but that is my default.

But note that I have not sent Gans or a mythical opponent anywhere yet. I have not mentioned anyone that he would or would not beat, I only placed him roughly in the top 25.

Prospectively, as I learn more about some of Gans' opponents, I might gain a sense of his proper placement. I would first like some kind of breakdown on the styles of those he did defeat, which I am not even sure is available. I have no problem seeing that Gans can handle a head-first brawler. I am more concerned how he would deal with other styles and techniques that were not fully developed in his time.

My strong guess would be that Joe never even dealt with a consistent high guard. I am not at this point aware if he ever faced a mover a la Tunney or Mike Gibbons or near their quality. I know he never saw a peekaboo. Of course Gans is likely to show the moderns a few things they never saw, as well. However, combination punching was a different animal then. Fifteen blows coming at you in a series is different from rwo or three. I am extremely confident that Joe never dealt with modern combination punching.

Gans, will, however, enjoy a huge advantage in that the old horsehair gloves allowed less careless combination punching than today's pillows. Their padding could be (and often was) kneeded to the side, exposing raw knuckle covered only by leather. Gans is likely to win a few mythical matchups (which is what these are) simply on knuckle damage incurred by his modern opponents.

So ranking Gans only in the top 25 so far, without more detail, I think has more to do with my lack of knowledge of the range of styles he faced than whose time period will have home field advantage.

A scenario I find interesting is to let them fight with any eqipment they choose, modern or ancient. The modern boys would enjoy the extra blocking advantages of bigger gloves, while Gans' smaller gloves would retain their potential to slip through smaller cracks. Joe will get to pick a different pair of shoes, maybe with some tassles.

I never consider anything but a 15 rounder for this type of contest. One of my other consistencies is that I will not consider 12 round mythical matchups, which shows the scorn in which I hold contemporary standards.

Well said. Makes me feel better about my top 10 pick as opposed to higher.
Except that I want to put contemporary fighters in unlimited round fights with the old conditions and rules. But that comes from listening to too many fans dismissive of the old timers.

Speaking of which most modern lightweights walk the street much heavier, in fight trim, than turn of the century era fighters who often weighed in the same day as the fight. In Gan's case he was sometimes contractually required to weigh in just previous to entering the ring, at 133 or less, hours before fight time such as was the case in the first Nelson fight (if not the other two).