There was a paucity of record sources in the early 20th century. The Police Gazette Annual and the T.S Andrews Annual were the only compilations in the oughts. These were far from complete and frought with errors. Nothing exists for the history of boxing that corresponds to Total Baseball or the older Big Mac for baseball records. What is required, to fill in the picture, is the type of work you are currently doing. Microfilm of original sources. The situation improved somewhat in the 20's with the appearence of Ring Magagine in Feb. of 1922 and The Everlast Record Books (1922-1938). Rings provide a source of fight results and Everlast some additional records (with the same questionable accuracy). In 1941-42 Fleischer Began the RRBs which continued though 1986-87. Our British friends were more fortunate. The precusrser of Boxing News, (whose name escapes me at the moment) began in 1910 and also provided a weekly source of scheduled bouts, fight results, and also of defis (challenges that boxers of the period issued to potential opponents). Latter day record keeping befefited from the work of Ralph Citro and his Computer Boxing Update, a source that exiists today as FightFax.
Several members of this forum are boxrec editors and could detail the data entry process. I understand that it demands accuracy. This necessitates a demand for verifacation, cross-checking and cross-referencing to vet a record. In the case of the US, I can't imagine Prof. Luckett Davis not being involved in vetting any records, having seen him listed as an editor. But in the case of the early a lot of pearl gathering still needs to be done.
An overview of the much of the available literatrue can be found at
http://www.sports.nd.edu/Boxing/
The Joyce Collection at Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library. Some additional record sources are mentioned in Gilbert Odds
Encyclopedia of Boxing, a work I highly recommend.
Bear
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Originally Posted by beekman
Okay, with regards to the questions. I'm viewing the microfilm at the Ohio U library in Athens,Ohio. I believe the microfilming was originally done by the Library of Congress and copies shouldn't be that hard to find if you live near a university research library. I'm pretty sure the "Munsy" on BoxRec is the "Muncey" I rated, but, of course, one can't be positive. I have a list of HW names from this period that is two columns long on both sides of a legal sheet (and growing daily) and my initial BoxRec search for them disclosed that the majority are not listed on that site. I'm not really sure how BoxRec is compiled (or even who is responsible for it), but it is becoming clear to me that, at least regarding turn of the 20th century boxing, there are a lot of fighters (and fights) not registered with BoxRec. Don't get me wrong, I love BoxRec and find it to be an invaluable tool, but I'm a bit surprised by just how incomplete it really is. My point here is that, if you are only going to use my ratings for fighters that have BoxRec i.d. numbers, you aren't going to get much out of this thread, because most of these guys don't. However, the two in this post are on BoxRec, and they are among the better HWs of the period (which isn't saying much -- I wonder if it is something about a new century beginning that leads to a meagre HW division?).
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