Corbett vs. Fitzsimmons: The Fight of the Century

[El Gamo]

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=10248&more=1

Great article imo,for guys who love their old school boxing.

[Canvasback]

Good book on the subject "Dan Stuart's Fistic Carnival."

[El Gamo]

Good book on the subject "Dan Stuart's Fistic Carnival."

Where can I find that man and is it just about the fight? Have you seen it?

[ICB]

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=10248&more=1

Great article imo,for guys who love their old school boxing.

how good was this fight was it slugfest ??

[amat]

Not much is worth the read there, but that was pretty cool, CC for sharing.

On the subject of old great fights. How bout this one? Not the same century as the Corbet - Fitzsimons Sorry I can't link to it, it's from an archival database that requires description but it's a gem imo. (Actually the whole site is a gem so PM if you want the username and pw. I really have learned A LOT from the site. It is an archival of a ton of publications, newspapers, websites, radio transcripts ect...) If you want, I can post this in it's own seperate topic since it is off topic but it's a good read so your call



Boxer Who Endured 49 Rounds to Get His Due; Sports: Sam McVey of Oxnard, who lost the century's longest fight, a brutal bout 90 years ago, will be named this year to the Hall of Fame.; Ventura County; JOHN CRESSY
Los Angeles Times 04-19-1999

Boxer Who Endured 49 Rounds to Get His Due

Sports: Sam McVey of Oxnard, who lost the century's longest fight,
a brutal bout 90 years ago, will be named this year to the Hall of Fame.
By JOHN CRESSY, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Los Angeles Times Monday April 19, 1999
Ventura County Edition
Metro, Page 1


When heavyweight fighters Sam McVey and Joe Jeannette stepped into
a Paris boxing ring on April 17, 1909, they had no idea that they were
about to make history.

Billed as a fight to the finish, the rules of engagement were simple:
There would be no decision, no technical knockout, no draw and no time
limit.

McVey vs. Jeannette lasted 49 brutal rounds and remains the longest
boxing match of the century. This past weekend marked the 90th
anniversary of the storied fight, which featured 38 knockdowns and ended
only after McVey was unable to answer the bell for the 50th round.

"That had to be one of the greatest knockdown, drag-out fights in the
history of boxing," said Bert Randolph Sugar, a noted boxing historian.
"I don't think anybody wanted their money back after that fight. This was
a cliffhanger, every round."

On June 13, McVey, a black boxer who began his boxing career in
Oxnard, will join the likes of Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky
Marciano and other ring legends when he is inducted into the
International Boxing Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Canastota, N.Y.

Inductees are selected by a panel of 150-plus boxing historians,
experts and writers from the U.S. and a dozen foreign countries. McVey is
one of 17 inductees this year.

"In the history of boxing, his name is one of those great names," said
Jeff Brophy, director of the Hall of Fame.

The boxing world may have never come to know of Sam McVey had it not
been for an Oxnard businessman and entrepreneur by the name of William
Aloysious "Billy" Roche.

*

Roche operated a livery stable, and it was there that he apparently
discovered McVey.

"Mac had secured a job as a buggy washer, and once in a while in the
evenings the men about the stable would box," according to one newspaper
account at the time. "Roche matched him in a couple of events and then
signed him up in a five-year contract."

Little is known of McVey before he arrived in Oxnard.

He told Roche he was born in Texas on May 17, 1883, but had spent most
of his life in California.

McVey's first recorded bout was against a white boxer named George
Sullivan at Oxnard Auditorium on April 12, 1902. McVey knocked him out in
the sixth round.

Standing 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 200 pounds, McVey went on
to knock out his next three opponents, including top heavyweight
contender Fred Russell.

Oxnard had a star on its hands.

A Shot at the Title, Defeat and a New Plan

After two more knockout victories, Roche decided McVey was ready to
step in the ring with the great Jack Johnson.

The first McVey-Johnson bout, held on Feb. 26, 1903, at Hazard's
Pavilion in Los Angeles, was for "The Negro Heavyweight Title."

But McVey was no match for his opponent. Johnson hit McVey with
frightening ease and sent the 19-year-old McVey back to Oxnard bruised
and defeated.

"The Oxnard Wonder," as he was called, recovered to score knockouts
over highly regarded black boxers Kid Carter (11 rounds) and Denver Ed
Martin (one round). A rematch with Johnson was arranged for Oct. 27,
1903, again at Hazard's Pavilion.

This time, Roche and friends were certain, McVey would win. Roche's
hopes were also buoyed by a story in the San Francisco Bulletin that
world heavyweight champion James Jefferies was shopping for an opponent.

*

This was big news indeed since world heavyweight champions tended to
stay away from black opponents.

But in order for McVey to have a shot at fighting Jefferies, he first
needed to beat Johnson. Roche spent $250 out of his own pocket to have a
jeweled championship belt made, so confident was he that McVey would be
the one wearing it after the fight, according to The Times' coverage of
the fight.

McVey vs. Johnson II, however, was much like the first, only worse.
Johnson knocked McVey down three times in a decisive 20-round victory.

"Johnson had the better of the fight from the very first minute to the
end of the last round," according to The Times' story. "He punished McVey
severely and escaped without marks to show he had engaged in one of the
hardest fights of his career."

*

The outcome devastated Roche, who told The Times, "We were beaten
fairly. McVey never had a chance from the first round. I consider it no
disgrace for him to have been whipped by such a man as Johnson, for
barring the champion, Jefferies, I consider Johnson the best man in the
world."

Their dreams dashed, Roche and McVey went their separate ways. Roche
moved to San Diego, where he became manager of the National Boxing Club.

McVey moved to San Francisco, and later to New York, where he began
his celebrated rivalry with Jeannette.

The two fought to a 10-round no-decision on April 5, 1907, in New York
before taking off to France, where black boxers were well received. While
McVey's chances at ever fighting for a world heavyweight title were
already slim, they were eliminated altogether on Dec. 26, 1908.

On that day, his nemesis Johnson wrested the crown from champion Tommy
Burns in Sydney, Australia. A search for "The Great White Hope" ensued.

Dubbed the "Black Menace," Johnson made a lot of money fighting weaker
white opponents. So while Johnson battered a succession of white
challengers such as Stanley Ketchel, "Fireman" Jimmy Flynn and former
champion Jefferies, McVey and the other great black
heavyweights--Jeannette, Sam Langford, "Battling" Jim Johnson and Harry
Wills--had no choice but to fight each other.

McVey went on to fight Jeannette four times, Jim Johnson seven times,
and Langford 15 times.

"The color issue prevented him from getting the big fights and the
great fights and being quote-unquote champion," historian Sugar said in a
telephone interview last week from his home in New York. "The color line
was not only drawn on him, it was manacled on him."

Opponent Saved by a Bucket of Water

Boxing was the craze in France in the years before World War I, with
members of Paris society considering it fashionable to be at ringside for
all the big fights. McVey and Jeannette became crowd favorites.

On Feb. 20, 1909, however, the two went 20 lackluster rounds, with
McVey declared the winner. In his book, "The 100 Greatest Boxers of All
Time," Sugar, based on accounts from the fight, wrote: "To say it was an
unpopular call would do the word a disservice in any language, as a storm
of protest broke out after the decision was announced."

*

Stung by criticism of their performance, McVey and Jeannette agreed to
a fight to the finish to prove their previous bout was "on the square."

Two thousand boxing fans got their money's worth.

"Shooting out of their corners, the two men joined together in the
middle of the ring like bull moose in unyielding combat for their turf,"
Sugar wrote.

McVey struck the first big blow minutes into the bout, a left that
knocked Jeannette down. McVey knocked Jeannette down again, and again.

But again and again, Jeannette rose. Finally, near the end of the 16th
round, a devastating right from McVey to the jaw sent Jeannette crashing
to the canvas, this time for an apparent knockout.

But, at the count of eight, Jeannette was saved by the bell. "Dragged
to his corner like a piece of raw meat, Jeannette somehow found his way
out for the seventeenth, there to meet the gloves of McVey, who, now fed
by his momentum, gave Jeannette an unmerciful beating, finally driving
him to the floor at the bell, the twenty-first trip he had made to the
well-worn canvas," Sugar wrote.

*

At that point, Jeannette was saved by the clever gamesmanship of his
trainer, Willie Lewis.

Lewis ran up the steps with a bucket and poured water on Jeannette.

McVey's domination continued, but the turning point came between the
19th and 20th rounds when Lewis turned to the private physician he posted
at ringside and had him administer Jeannette a bag of oxygen.

"Then, as the bell rang," Sugar wrote, "Lewis hollered in Jeannette's
ear, 'Now, Joe, now--go to the head.' "

Jeannette did just that. Now it was McVey visiting the canvas on a
regular basis.

"The ring," Sugar wrote, "was now merely a laboratory for proving
Darwin's survival of the fittest theory."

The 42nd round saw McVey go down seven times. But, as Jeannette had
done 27 times himself, McVey kept getting up.

The beating continued until, Sugar wrote, "finally, his knees melting,
his eyes of no mortal use, and his nose unworkable, McVey sat on his
stool in his corner after the forty-ninth round and moaned that he
couldn't go on."

Three hours and 15 minutes after it began, the fight was over.

A Brief Comeback and a Penniless Death

McVey's career, however, was far from finished. Incredibly, he
returned to the ring a scant two months later and won 22 of his next 24
bouts--17 by knockout. He captured the Australian heavyweight
championship on Sept. 30, 1911, defeating Jack Lester in Sydney, and
defended the title four times.

McVey also helped train Jack Johnson for his 1915 title fight against
Jess Willard, and in 1920 served as a sparring partner for Jack Dempsey
when the new heavyweight champ was in New York.

McVey's last fight was on March 15, 1921, a five-rounder against Jack
Thompson in Detroit that was ruled a no-decision.

Washed up and penniless, McVey died of pneumonia at Harlem Hospital on
Dec. 23, 1921, at the age of 37. Jack Johnson paid his funeral expenses.

McVey's induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame this
summer is well deserved and will help ensure McVey's place in history,
Sugar said.

"He's one of those forgotten men," Sugar said. "In his own generation,
he was a giant, and I think that's what he's been voted in on."

[El Gamo]

Yeah,I was surprised to see a decent article at Eastside but it pales in comparison to this AWESOME article you have posted! Wow! I HAVE TO see that fight!! CC in 24 ad it's cool,you can post it here!