Old School a false phenomenon
Published April 29, 2009 by Martin Bean
By Chris Akers (email).
Throughout history, there have been many details that have been talked about with such regularity that they have been seen as fact, unless disproven. People believed that the Earth was flat, ‘Play it again Sam’ was spoken in the film Casablanca and that Noah transported two of each animal on his ark until analysis of the facts revealed otherwise.
In many ways, this is society’s grandiose version of Chinese whispers. A story or fact gets told, facets of the whisper get added or subtracted and what you are left with is something more apocryphal and very different to the original. The end product of that whisper then gets echoed and retold throughout society to the point where the more people who hear it, the more they believe in it.
This is something that happens more in the world at present as most people just read the headlines and not the story. What is meant by that phrase is that the majority of people appear to only look at the outer layer of a story or article that is published and do not really look at the specific detail behind it. It is why certain citations are taken out of context and the veracity of particular stories and facts are never questioned.
The boxing cognoscenti are perhaps more guilty of this than anyone, especially with the schizophrenic make up of the way some go about their business. One minute they can be fastidious in their approach and the next minute, they can be praising someone to the hilt. Part of this is due to what has been discussed above and part is due to the indolence of specific parts of the boxing press.
A certain phrase which has been gaining panoramic eminence amongst the current boxing paraphernalia so often that whoever owns the patent to it is probably a millionaire by now, elucidates this point. The term ‘old school’, is used to describe a time up until the late 1980’s, according to the majority in the boxing media, when boxing was involved in a much simpler time. An era when the best fought the best and there was no avoidance of the top contenders. When there was one champion per weight class and only eight divisions to boot. When champions would put everything mentally and physically on the line in order to secure their legacy. Yet the reality was far from this idyllic. To misquote a saying from Oscar Wilde, the pure and simple truth was rarely pure and never simple.
For instance, most fans of the sport bemoan the fact that in the good old days before sanctioning bodies, there was only one champion at any one weight. Now this was true, but only up to a point. Certain boxing authorities would only recognise certain champions. The fight between welterweight champion Kid Gavilian and Billy Graham in 1951 is a case in point. Until Gavilian beat Graham in that fight, Eastern boxing officials did not recognise Gavilian as the true welterweight king. The general consensus is that the fight between Henry Armstrong and Ceferino Garcia in 1940, two years after their first meeting, was for the middleweight title. What is not discussed is that only California proclaimed Garcia the middleweight king. And yet, when there was only the W.B.C and the W.B.A to deal with, people are convinced that unification bouts involved those two titles occurred on a frequent basis. Alas, this was not always the case. When Marvin Hagler beat Alan Minter in September 1980 to become the undisputed middleweight king, he also became the only unified champion at that time. Bouts to amalgamate the division happened in subsequent years. But these fights were few and far between and not with the uniformity that is often depicted.
And we have not even described the dodging of opponents that took place. Yes it did happen. However, the version of this that has developed in most people’s minds is of fighters in the good old days fighting everybody and giving deserved contenders their shot. The factuality of this is very different.
There were quite a few boxers who, although became champions, were only given title opportunities when they were considered past their peak. People like Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles (at his peak when at Light Heavyweight) & Joey Giardello fit into this sport. There were also boxers who were top contenders who were past their peak when given their chance and had lost a lot of the skill to take advantage of it. Zora Folley and Cleveland Williams fit into this category. There were also top contenders who were never given a chance at all. Nino Valves and Charlie Burley are perhaps the main archetypes of this. Even heavyweight great Joe Fraizer and Floyd Patterson defended their world titles against fighters who were unheard of then and now like Terry Daniels, Ron Stander, Manuel Ramos and Pete Racdemacher.
It should also be taken into account that a lot of past champions while having a lot of fights, did not defend their title as frequently as they do today. Sugar Ray Robinson only defended his welterweight title six times in the five years that he held it for. Archie Moore himself only defended his title an average of once a year, a move which could have slow down the progress of up and coming contenders in the division. Even Jack Dempsey himself had a three year break in between his seven year reign as champion. This left the world title gathering dust while he decided when to defend the title. Yet based on ‘old school’ principles, this never happened.
Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that the environment that the sport surrounds itself in at present is any better than it was decades ago. You could even make a case that some the issues articulated are more prevalent today then they have been. However, people connected with the sport need to realise the sport was not perfect back then either and that some things are better now than they were then. Napoleon once said that history is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. Hopefully in the future boxing fans and media alike can made up their own minds about how the past was instead of taking as fact what the majority of boxing’s coterie think is the truth.
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