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Were They Tougher in the Old Days? Work Rate by Mark Hatmaker

 


January 15, 1925

Lightweight Champion, Benny Leonard announced his retirement from boxing.

At that date, Leonard had already been boxing for 14 years, had been champion for almost 8 years and had engaged in 181 professional fights.

181 fights in 14 years averages to one professional fight per month.

The actual calendar shows that to be around the correct mark—with some tics on the little more than a month side of the ledger, and some tics in the more than 2 fights inside a month side of the ledger.

Now, stop for a moment and think about what you just read.

We’re not talking 1 sparring session a month.

We’re talking about 1 bona fide professional fight per month in an era packed with hot and heavy talent.

There were no multiple boxing organizations to spread the titles around and water down the talent pool with “So and so is ranked 3rd in this organization, but only 11th in this one and…”

Nope, none of that statistical tweaking noise.

Each weight class had a single apex, a single belt, a single title to shoot for.

Every fighter had their eyes on THE Top. A definable top at that.

All knew where they stood.

They stood in a jungle of hungry fighters competing for the same pie.

Lest one think Benny Leonard was exceptional [and he was, as a fighter] we are using Mr. Leonard’s retirement as a jumping off point.

Again, he retired on January 15, 1925.

Within days the New York State Athletic Commission announces a tournament to fill this Lightweight Champion vacancy.

Invitations were sent to the 20 top contenders.

20? That’s a helluva field, right?

Hold on, the Commission didn’t stop there.

The title was a world title, so they also invited to participate champions from England, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Chile.

So, our field rapidly expands from that starting Top 20 cream of the US Crop.

In total, more than 50 competitors took part in this tournament to determine the new champion.

That date again: January 15, 1925

By February promoters had already lined up the first fights of what was to be a round robin style elimination series.

A Pause for Consideration

·        Consider Mr. Leonard’s career work rate.

·        Compare it to any champion today, be it boxing or MMA.

·        Conjure the last time a present-day champion retired.

·        Now conjure how long it took to get the choosing of the next champ off the ground.

·        Let alone imagine using something so democratic as an actual levelling of the playing field with the Top 20 best in the field let alone the invitation additions from around the world.

·        Politics and marketing so delay and pervert the current state of affairs today that championships can go vacant for far longer and the tourney to choose the next champ is often limited to a few behind-the-door shufflings of this or that not-quite-top-tier-and-let’s-avoid-a-few-fighters-if-we-can wranglings.

Back to Mr. Leonard, was his work rate an aberration?

First…

Were most fighters working then at rates similar to today?

Let us compare today’s current heavyweight champions.

The current champion in the WBA, WBO, and WBC organizations is Oleksandr Usyk.

He has had a total of 23 professional fights.

The current IBF heavyweight champion is Daniel Dubois.

Mr. Dubois has had 24 professional fights.

Again, back to Mr. Leonard, was his work rate an aberration?

In the lightweight tourney of 1925, among the competitors were…

·        George “KO” Chaney with 191 professional bouts.

·        Sammy Mandell 77.

·        Jimmy Goodrich 122.

·        Eddie “Kid” Wagner 63.

·        Tommy O’Brien 75.

·        Joe Benjamin 101.

·        Benny Valgar 126.

·        Jack Berstein 80.

·        Ace Hudkins 40.

·        Solly Seeman 44.

I repeat our current World Champion[s] stand at 23 and 24 total fights respectively.

Back to the tournament.

It was not without problems.

Any field that large in a game as competitive as actual fighting, there are bound to be.

You’ve got a few unpopular decisions [2], a few winners who had to pull-out due to injury, and two top contenders who declined to enter: Sid Terris and Johnny Dundee, but to be fair they chose not to go for the pie, so…

Problems aside, can you imagine a more level way to determine who gets the crown?

Anyway, to stay on our theme of work rate, on July 13, 1925, at Madison Square Garden in Buffalo, Jimmy Goodrich stopped Stanislaus Loayza of Chile in the second to be crowned the new lightweight champ.

Look at the date of that tourney conclusion: July 13. 1925.

Benny Leonard retired on January 15, 1925.

50 + fighters are invited to brawl.

6 months later we have a new champ.

That is evidence of work rate.

And…recall this was a round robin.

Each fighter who won an advance had to fight again in hopes of keeping that advance alive.

By the time we get to the July 13th final fight our top two competitors had fought a combined 11 times versus other top-tier hungry foes for this opportunity.

Mr. Leonard’s work rate was not an anomaly.

There was a time when fighters fought, and they fought a lot, and they fought a capital T tough cadre at that.

Many pros fought more than many people train today.

Work rate is but one way to determine toughness, but I think its safe to say as far as this metric goes—these Men of Yore Win The Tough Crown Here.

To train like this Hosses of Yore, see our Boxing Like the Champs Programs and Street Dentist material in The Black Box Project.

Hell, consider joining the Crew of like-minded cadre who see the merit in walking the exact steps of these Hosses of Yore.

Details here.

For more on Old-School Tough see this historical essay [for free, kids.]

A Master Trainer on Training for Toughness 

 

Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life

The Black Box Store

https://www.extremeselfprotection.com/

The Indigenous Ability Blog

https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/

The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast

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