Johnson, McVea, Wills, Jeannette...were they really all that great?

[GhostofDempsey]

Here we have the Johnson/Ketchel fight. Middleweight Ketchel scored a knockdown of Johnson in round 12 only to be KO'd himself immediately after. Ketchel is another fighter who has been considered one of the all time great MWs, but I don't really see anything about Ketchel that would have made him competitive in any other era.

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[Dempsey-Louis]

Watching this footage of Wills I have to say that Wills would have stood little to no chance against Dempsey. There is even footage of the contract signing between Wills and Dempsey.

IMO If Uzcudun can land that clean of a right hand and Wills can't take it, Wills doesn't survive three rounds with Dempsey.

But . . .that was the 1927 version of Wills and I think by then he was a finished fighter; the previous year ('26) Sharkey had pretty much smacked him around the ring; Wills' last 'great fight' may have been Firpo in '24.

The year the Dempsey-Wills fight should have happened was '22 - both fighters were different men by '26 but, I suspect Wills had lost much more.

Louis-Conn II was scheduled to go off on October 4th 1942 (but Uncle Mike Jacobs screwed that up) and when the fight finally did happen in '46 it was (by Conn's own words) "a stinker."

Dempsey would have been better served if he was matched with Wills in '26 instead of Tunney, he would have remained champion. The '22 fight would have been the fight to see.

P.S. Wonderful footage, thanks for the post.

[BattlingNelson]

I love these old films. I need to say that the ‘crushing blow’ Uzcudun lands on Wills looks like a crushing elbow to me.

Anyway thanks for sharing.

[GhostofDempsey]

I'm wondering what everyone's thought are with regard to when fighters started training in what we now consider a more modern style of boxing. I think somewhere between 1915-1920 is likely where it started, and from there it evolved into what would become a more modern style of boxing we know today. Benny Leonard began his career in 1911 which ran to 1932, crossing over into the era of Barney Ross, Henry Armstrong, Joe Louis, et al., where it was really perfected.

Too bad we don't have actual fight footage of Tiger Flowers and Harry Greb who are rumored to be two of the greatest fighters of their era. Sam Langford holds a win over Flowers, would love to see footage of that fight.

[OctoberRed]

I love these old films. I need to say that the ‘crushing blow’ Uzcudun lands on Wills looks like a crushing elbow to me.

Anyway thanks for sharing.

I second this with Battling...........

[Dempsey-Louis]

I love these old films. I need to say that the ‘crushing blow’ Uzcudun lands on Wills looks like a crushing elbow to me.

On second look it sure does look like a crushing elbow, but then again Dempsey could do that too.

[GhostofDempsey]

Looks like a punch on Wills chin. Maybe Paulino used some magical bicycle tape to wrap his hands that night?

Here is footage of Sam Langford vs. Bill Lang. Sam is considerably smaller than Lang as he was against most of his opponents. Here we can see him walking down Lang and cutting off the ring. Good stuff.

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[evets]

I always thought that Langford was thought of that way due to how his peers at the time spoke of him and not how the media portrayed him.

[Mr.MojoRisin']

Langford was the best out of all of them.

Against Jeanette he was 8-2-4.
Against Johnson he was 0-1. Johnson refused to fight him once he filled out at heavyweight.
Against Mcvea he was 7-2-6. Knocked Mcvea out a few times.
Against Wills he lost the overwhelming majority of those fights. 2-13-2. Should be noted that the first time they fought was 1914 and the last time was 1922 when Langford was well past prime.

I honestly think Langford would have beat Johnson for the title as a heavyweight. Not the middleweight version of Langford but the version that weighed in the 170s/180s.

[Bundana]

I'm wondering what everyone's thought are with regard to when fighters started training in what we now consider a more modern style of boxing. I think somewhere between 1915-1920 is likely where it started, and from there it evolved into what would become a more modern style of boxing we know today. Benny Leonard began his career in 1911 which ran to 1932, crossing over into the era of Barney Ross, Henry Armstrong, Joe Louis, et al., where it was really perfected.

Too bad we don't have actual fight footage of Tiger Flowers and Harry Greb who are rumored to be two of the greatest fighters of their era. Sam Langford holds a win over Flowers, would love to see footage of that fight.

I pretty much agree with your timeline!

Looking at the old films, it's pretty obvious, that boxing pre-WW1 was nothing like what it would develop into by WW2.

With Louis coming along in the late 30s, and guys like Pep and Robinson emerging in the early 40s, boxing seemed to have reached a stage, where we could describe it as "the finished product" - or "modern", if you like. I don't really see any major technical "evolution" since then.

As for contemporary writers describing some of the old-timers in such gloving terms, that we today (after having studied the old films) shake our heads in disbelief... is this really the result of writers on the take, talking up certain fighters? We can only speculate how widespread this was back then - though I would certainly guess, it did happen with some fighters.

But I think it (in most cases) is more likely, that the boxers the reporters raved about, were simply the best they had ever seen - until then! So naturally they thought they were great. But if they had been given a look into the future, and seen what was to come, they would probably not have felt that way.