We live in a fortunate era of boxing at the highest level where pound for pound stars regularly appear in professional boxing but no one is truly a ‘pound for pound’ star like Bob Fitzsimmons.
After the Olympic Games in France ended, it is important to remember that professional boxing represents the pinnacle, the highest class, the highest level of the sport, where the best boxers in the world compete.
The term ‘pound for pound’ only exists in professional boxing and is used a lot these days, rightly so in many ways, just look at the plethora of new pound for pound stars coming from all over the world
in recent years and present.
What does “pound for pound” mean? In the eyes of a rational individual surveying the pantheon of sports that professional boxing, the noble art and sweet science that it is, is supposed to mean, in short — the best.
The best boxer in the world regardless of weight class or anything else. The best boxer in boxing today.
Many people think of Terence Crawford as the man of the hour but if you go back in time to the early days of the Marquis of Queensberry, originally drawn up in 1865 (the rules that formed and led to the basis for modern unified boxing rules in the present day) and before that the London Prize Ring rules (1838) at an earlier time, you will begin to get an idea of what real boxers and pound for pound traders really were.
Strong, quiet people, living their lives with little fuss and something very far removed from the entertainment scene of today. A gentleman’s sport but still at its core, it was hurtful business, even more so than it is today, always, always hurtful business.
One name certainly stood out in the early days of pound for pound auctions and that was Bob Fitzsimmons.
He and Roy Jones Jr. are the only two men in history to go from middleweight champion to heavyweight champion of the world.
Jones did it on points against John Ruiz in 2003, but Fitzsimmons did one better, becoming heavyweight champion by knockout on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1897 (12 years before Boxing News Magazine was founded in 1909) with a 14th-round knockout victory over James “Gentleman” Jim Corbett.
Furthermore, incredibly, Fitzsimmons weighed only about 167 pounds that night.
That’s basically a pound lighter than what Saul “Canelo” Alvarez would weigh right now in 2024 during his super middleweight fights.
Think about it. Let it sink in.
What a weight champion.
