Was Mcgovern-gans Really A Fake?

[Sharkey]

Hi Yogi,

Even if the punch in question (right hand) does land, how could one tell that that punch landing was legit enough to fell Gans? I agree with those who claim the video does not prove Gans faked it...and neither does it prove he didn't.

It does make it harder to decisively conclude Gans threw the match..and I have been among those who claim the burden of proof resides with those claiming he DID throw the fight. Not on people to prove there were punches which landed or didn't that could KO Gans or couldn't.

As for Gans potentially throwing it..sure he could have. Every fighter had a guy who treated him like crap..fighters were chattle. So I am not sure we can assert that Gans probably had a guy who may have wanted him to tank it in this particular bout and so he probably did when we don't know that. Primo Carnera was treated like dirt, maybe that is why Larry Gaines abused him?

I guess I remain here: Joe Gans may have indeed threw the fight. He may have been buzzed by some bombs and decided to get out of there with minimal effort. He may have been forced to lay down. Tyson-Berbick looks more ridiculous than this bout. When you know the combatants, you can see how it was legit. So, I would need a lot more corroboration from disinterested parties..or perhaps if Gans had fought McGovern again and lambasted him it may show either the first was a fraud or at least the first bout doesn't define Gans against McGovern in a historical sense.

[iskigoe]

The good news neither fighter needs that fight to define their greatness.

ISKIGOE

[Sharkey]

exactly.

The old-timers are actually easier to define and defend in terms of greatness.

[Yogi]

Hi Yogi,

Even if the punch in question (right hand) does land, how could one tell that that punch landing was legit enough to fell Gans? I agree with those who claim the video does not prove Gans faked it...and neither does it prove he didn't.

It does make it harder to decisively conclude Gans threw the match..and I have been among those who claim the burden of proof resides with those claiming he DID throw the fight. Not on people to prove there were punches which landed or didn't that could KO Gans or couldn't.

As for Gans potentially throwing it..sure he could have. Every fighter had a guy who treated him like crap..fighters were chattle. So I am not sure we can assert that Gans probably had a guy who may have wanted him to tank it in this particular bout and so he probably did when we don't know that. Primo Carnera was treated like dirt, maybe that is why Larry Gaines abused him?

I guess I remain here: Joe Gans may have indeed threw the fight. He may have been buzzed by some bombs and decided to get out of there with minimal effort. He may have been forced to lay down. Tyson-Berbick looks more ridiculous than this bout. When you know the combatants, you can see how it was legit. So, I would need a lot more corroboration from disinterested parties..or perhaps if Gans had fought McGovern again and lambasted him it may show either the first was a fraud or at least the first bout doesn't define Gans against McGovern in a historical sense.

Hi Sharkey,

To answer your question, from that video I thinks it's virtually impossible to tell the amount of force on what appeared (to me, anyways...but even that isn't conclusive, hence my quoting of the word "think") to be a short inside right hand thrown by McGovern after that left hand.

I justed wanted to bring up a possible follow-up right hand landed by McGovern because there was some discussion by a few on whether that left hand by McGovern landed or not.

Like I said, it's tough to see clearly from the video, but to me it does appear McGovern is turning his body as if to throw a short right, and after another viewing, it almost looks like Gans may have reacted to a right hand that landed...Gans is ducking down to his left after McGovern throws the left hook, then right after McGovern appears to have turned as if to throw a right, Gans' upperbody & head appears to have shifted to his right ever-so slightly.

[hawk5ins]

Due to recent discussions of this bout.

Hawk

[raylawpc]

Good idea.

[BDeskins]

Though I posted this in another thread it is relevant to the debate here.

In the Gans-McGovern debate, it should also be noted that the weight, 133, was really not a big deal though I have heard people state that Gans was weakened because he had to get down to 133. As a matter of fact Gans fought at the following weights even after the McGovern fight. Some of his weights for later bouts in which Gans was absolutely remarkable in, all of these bouts took place after the McGovern bout:

vs. Frank Erne he weighed in at 133 1/4 pounds and won by KO 2.
vs. Willie Fitzgerald the weight for this Lightweight title was billed at 133 lbs and Gans won by KO 10.
vs. Willie Fitzgerald the weight for this Lightweight title was billed at 133 lbs and Gans won on points in 10.
vs. Jimmy Britt the weight for this Lightweight title was billed at 133 lbs at ringside and Gans won by DQ 5.
vs. Battling Nelson he weighed in at 132 1/4 pounds and won by DQ 42.
vs. Kid Herman he weighed in at 132 pounds and won by KO 8.
vs. Jimmy Britt the weight for this Lightweight title was billed at 133 lbs and Gans won by KO 6.


So the claim about Gans being drained physically by having to come down to 133 in weight is just not accurate as Gans later fought in a spectacular manner several times even at a lower weight than 133 following the fight with McGovern.

[Mike DeLisa]

Johnny Bos, based on his research and view of the films thinks it was legit.

Plus, if you are gonna fake a fight, you just get up at 11 after the first knockdown.

[BDeskins]

Yeah...Johnny and I discussed the fight a while back.

[KSmith9116]

Based on my own research and viewing of the fight--IMO, it was a bald fake.

Gans just didn't get hit or hurt like that. McGovern was somewhat of a free swinging guy and Joe just didn't get hit cleanly like that. He had never been knocked out before(he quit the McFadden fight) and although Terry was a terrific puncher, I just find it hard to believe that Gans would be hurt like that.

Betting odds, the crowds reaction, the referee's opinion, information gathered after the fight, Gans record before and after, the punchers he faced who never hurt him like that, all point to fix.

[PeteLeo]

Couldn't you say pretty much the same about the first Barrera-Junior Jones fight? Nobody had done that to MAB before, and only Pacquiao has come close to replicating it since (years later). It's kind of like saying that the Towers were actually brought down by controlled implosion because they weren't SUPPOSED to collapse due to aircraft collisions or the Titanic had to have been bombed because it was designed to be unsinkable in "ordinary" circumstances.
A lot of things aren't SUPPOSED to happen until they do. PeteLeo.

[raylawpc]

I don't see how anyone can make a 100% definitive conclusion about the fight based on that grainy piece of film.

[Sharkey]

Anomolies occurr but the occurrance of strange things doesn't, in my mind mean they are not strange but false on their face.

Emile Griffith must have jobbed to Hurricane Carter...because those things just 'didn't happen' to him.

No one ever outboxed Tommy Hearns, thus the 2nd Barkley fight was a fix.

---

I repeat my question of earlier: Anyone think Terry jobbed to Corbett? Or more pointedly, if the ledger read: Gans KO McGovern, would the cries of fix still ring today to a certainty? Speculation is one thing, but the reasoning seems to me, me mind you, to be a bit weak or too pat.

I am not dismissing that it may have been a fix.. yet I don't see much corroborating evidence presented here. If films mean anything, than how could we have had ANY opinions that stated Carnera legitimately beat Jack Sharkey? Trevor Berbick sure looked less convincing than Gans, imo.

Some causes seem more worthwhile than others.

[raylawpc]

Or more pointedly, if the ledger read: Gans KO McGovern, would the cries of fix still ring today to a certainty?

If the betting odds shifted in a peculiar way before the fight to Gans by Irish-Americans in Chicago; if McGovern left the ring to cries of "fix;" if the referee, instead of calling the fight legit, made excuses for McGovern's poor performance; if at least 1/2 the experts at the fight thought it was a fix; and if, after all that, McGovern later said that he threw the fight, then, yes, a lot of people might question a Gans KO over McGovern.

I am not saying Gans threw the fight; I don't know. I wasn't there. But there are a lot of circumstances surrounding the fight that make the result suspicous.

[Roberto Aqui]

There are more shaky circumstances involving Ali fights or any Don King promoted fight than there is this one.

Fact is that Gans took a beating while staying game and attempting to rise every sec he was on the canvas. Unfortunately he was down more seconds than he was up in the 2nd round because he had no legs left to fight on.

[Sharkey]

If the betting odds shifted in a peculiar way before the fight to Gans by Irish-Americans in Chicago; if McGovern left the ring to cries of "fix;" if the referee, instead of calling the fight legit, made excuses for McGovern's poor performance; if at least 1/2 the experts at the fight thought it was a fix; and if, after all that, McGovern later said that he threw the fight, then, yes, a lot of people might question a Gans KO over McGovern.

I am not saying Gans threw the fight; I don't know. I wasn't there. But there are a lot of circumstances surrounding the fight that make the result suspicous.

Let's just say, I doubt it to the degree of making similar evidence come alive...because there would be an overriding element of a defense of McGovern, given the time, place, social realities and etc. that TODAY's 'scholars' would be less likely to make leaps of faith about.

I have to tell you, ray, I appreciate you addressing the question I made.

[raylawpc]

Thanks Sharkey.

[raylawpc]

For a number of years, I have owned a little volume by George Siler entitled Inside Facts on Pugilism, published in 1907. it never occurred to me until this morning to see what, if anything, he had to say about McGovern-Gans in that book. In chapter V "Honesty of the Prize Ring," he says quite a bit.

1. He twice calls the McGovern fight a "fake." (p. 43, 44).

2. Regarding Gans confession, he writes, "Joe Gans shocked the followers of the game, although his disclosures regarding the fake fight with Jimmy Britt in California and Terry McGovern in Chicago, did not surprise the close students of boxing, as there was much discussion over them.

"Gans made his confession out of anger because he thought he was being made the scapegoat by men whom, he thought, were shouldering all the blame upon him." (p. 43.)

3. "Gans is not the only fighter that has gone wrong to secure the almighty dollar, or to bolster up a record for a scheming fighter's manager." (p. 43).

More grist for the mill.

[Sharkey]

And grist it remains.. if Gans had as few total bouts as say, Mike Spinks, Ray Leonard, Jack Sharkey, and others this would I am quite certain be an issue of virtually NO grey area. Rather, some would accept and others would flatly deny and a legacy would be far more totally in the balance.

[raylawpc]

And today we would have state of the art video tape by which to judge the fight, and, in all likelihood given the hue-and-cry over the outcome, a federal grand jury called in the Northern District of Illinois to investigate the allegations and take testimony under oath.

[Sharkey]

and still....


And while I am not certain more than a handful of people read my posts the fighters named were named because they came to mind for their number of bouts..and that alone.

[Roberto Aqui]

Gans won both his fights against Britt, winning one by DQ after being KDed 5x in a replay of the McGovern fight.

Gans only lost 8 fights, the last 2 in the last year of activity against Nelson.

Were those fixed too? It seems that if a fighter claims he fixed fights, then he also might fudge the record of fights he fixed, especially if he is as proud as Gans was reported to be.

All I know is that the McGovern fight was sure a brutal way to fix a fight. Most fighters would have taken the Liston dive after the 2nd KD, instead of being grabbed to prevent him from going after McGovern after the bell.

[hawk5ins]

And I was actually responding to you re that very point, and then as usual, got distracted....

What I was going to ask, and I think you addressed this when you actually switched MCGovern and Gans in an earlier scenario, but what if the circumstances of the Bout happened to Corbett or Jeffries (Wiht the Jims taking the Gans place)?

Just wondering your thoughs Sharks.

Hawk

[kikibalt]

and still....


And while I am not certain more than a handful of people read my posts

Shark

You got a fan here.

[Sharkey]

Someone (please credit them) mentioned one issue: is there a return match?

Does the 'wrong' get righted?

If not..

Jeff has an aberration I am sure the same sort of thing happens as with Gans. He had so few fights however, who can say. My feeling surrounding Jeffries' aficianados is he is a more worthy person to champion than the other guy:

Corbett gets waxed by a powerhitter...like maybe Fitz maybe... when nothing like that had happened before, by the way.. by a body shot of all things.. and then he claims he threw it.. I am sure loads of people leap to his defense and the like. That's sarcasm, by the way.

[Sharkey]

Shark

You got a fan here.

thanks Frank, but what I meant was there isn't much true give and take around here over most subjects.

I appreciate it nonetheless especially from someone of your stature.

[Dan1213]

Here is one article regarding the aftermath of the fight.

[iskigoe]

Thats where i strongly dissagree. If it was a fake, it would be the worst fake in history. I can't imagine if gans was to throw a fight he could not do a better job. He would have feared for his life to do such a poor job at losing

[raylawpc]

Here is what was reported in the Chicago Tribune on 12/15/1900:



Here is what George Siler wrote in the Tribune on 12/16/1900:



And, finally, here is what Siler wrote in the Tribune on 12/18/1900:

[iskigoe]

dan and raylawpc

Thanks for sharing, its great for us with no collection to see the real thing.
stuff like makes you glad to be a member of cbz

Iskigoe