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Old 12-29-2008, 02:40 AM   #19
Jersey-Jim
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Bob Fitzsimmons - Middleweight Ranking

Bob Fitzsimmons (Middleweight)

Ruby Robert is the first fighter to hold world championships in 3 weight divisions. His career lasted an amazing 34 years! Many of his fights were unrecorded and Bob himself claims to have fought over 300 bouts during his career.

His current HP at Middleweight is 11.

I changed his HP to: 13

Why mess with a nice high rating like 11?

Consider these little known facts about the man who held the Heavyweight Championship of the world while basically being a Middleweight.

In 1893 he fought and knocked out 7 fighters in one night! And each of them weighed over 200 lbs! One tipped the scales at 240 and stood 6' 7".

That's Klitschko or Lewis' size in the modern era.

Even if they were "bums" - Fitzsimmons accomplished this fighting in the 160 lb weight range.

If that's not enough, he also defeated Heavyweights such as Peter Maher, Tom Sharkey and Gus Ruhlin. He didn't decision them, either. He knocked them out!

Nat Fleischer who saw all the greats from Jack Johnson to Muhammad Ali in his lifetime called Bob Fitzsimmons - P4P the greatest knockout puncher of all time! He picked Fitz over fighters such as Dempsey, Louis, Marciano and Liston. Pound for pound.

Now, imagine that a fighter, who had a physique similar to that of Thomas Hearns, but with an even bigger punch, hitting a 160 lb fighter instead of a 200 + pound man?

His power would have more than likely eclipsed Stanley Ketchel and any other Middleweight you care to think of, before the age of steriods and performing enhancing "vitamins!"

Joe Gans, lightweight champion 1902-1908, stated, Feb. 2, 1908 NY Times, “I consider Bob Fitzsimmons as one of the greatest exponents of straight hitting that the prize ring has ever known. Fitz was a wonderful fighter and all of his straight punches were very effective. Until age set in and his hands went back on him, there were few fighters able to withstand that famous shift of his. When Fitz delivered a blow he carried the whole weight of his body with it.”

Nat Fleischer also said, “Fitzsimmons, who took the crown from Corbett, was not a slugger of the Sullivan type, nor did he approach Corbett in boxing skill. Yet he was the greatest strategist in the ring's history, a man of wonderful vitality, and the most accurate and deadliest hitter of the class. To reach Jim Corbett in the pit of the stomach with knockout force was a feat for a magician, and Fitz was a magician. Where others signally failed, Fitz succeeded through strategic feinting to induce Corbett to raise his guard and open the way for a left shift and a crashing blow to the solar plexus.”

Fitz was as close as they come to being unbeatable as a Middleweight. He starched the Champion - Jack Dempsey the Nonpareil while weighing only 150 pounds.

Fitz stood 5' 11 1/2 inches tall - the same height as Carlos Monzon and enjoyed the physical advantages Monzon did in the Middleweight division and appears to have had an even longer reach. When you combine Fitzsimmon's unbelievable power at 160 along with his defensive ability and boxing skill, he very well may have been the Greatest Middleweight of them all.

Early ring historian Sandy Griswold said in the Dec 24, 1904 National Police Gazette, “He knows all the vulnerable spots of the human anatomy as well as the most erudite surgeon in the business and has a greater variety of effective blows than any fighter who ever lived.”

Fitz won the Light Heavyweight title in 1903 at the age of 40. Those who witnessed Fitzsimmons fight in person came away with opinions that sounded similar to those who saw Ray Robinson fight in his prime.
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