Philadelphia Jack O’Brien: The Master Puzzler

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

Our perception of famous people can sometimes be cruel and misplaced, often fashioned by the hasty and not always reliable yardstick of gut instinct. [details]

[SABBATH]

“O’Brien is cited as one of the horrible examples of our old-time ring heroes by Jim Jacobs, who has been showing excerpts from old fight films to prove his contention that the top-rated fighters of the long ago were bums."

I've read that Jimmy Jacobs was generally not impressed with turn of the century fighters once he started collecting and compiling his massive fight collection.

Here is a sample of Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and Harry Greb sparring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE6I-TUBMi0


Hmmmmm.....

[sleazyfellow]

“O’Brien is cited as one of the horrible examples of our old-time ring heroes by Jim Jacobs, who has been showing excerpts from old fight films to prove his contention that the top-rated fighters of the long ago were bums."

I've read that Jimmy Jacobs was generally not impressed with turn of the century fighters once he started collecting and compiling his massive fight collection.

Here is a sample of Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and Harry Greb sparring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE6I-TUBMi0


Hmmmmm.....

i can see why nobody would be impressed, they are moving their arms around like crazy.

[Yogi]

The BoxRec description of Langford & O'Brien "fighting to a standstill" until the fight ended has always gotten on my nerves for some reason.

[SABBATH]

If a Boxingscene member posted a video like this of himself sparring and asked for our comments how badly would he be ripped?

[Yogi]

If a Boxingscene member posted a video like this of himself sparring and asked for our comments how badly would he be ripped?

I'd tell them, "Hey, if the ever-so awkward, Jurgin Blin can give Ali such a difficult time, then I don't see any plausible reason why you shouldn't be able too, as well."

Or something like that.

[brownpimp88]

I hate to break it to you guys but jimmy jacobs is on the money, the fighters from that era were basically ****ty and had horrible technique. It was around the late 20's-early 30's that boxing started to evolve and the fighters started to improve. If Bernard hopkins and roy jones were going to spar with each other, do u think they would throw punches like idiots. The way jack o'brien and greb were throwing punches was a disgrace.

[SABBATH]

I'd tell them, "Hey, if the ever-so awkward, Jurgin Blin can give Ali such a difficult time, then I don't see any plausible reason why you shouldn't be able too, as well."

You'd tell him to go back to flipping burgers or consider a career pumping gas. Honestly, what can you say positive about this clip and don't say footspeed because the film appears sped up.

[brownpimp88]

You'd tell him to go back to flipping burgers or consider a career pumping gas. Honestly, what can you say positive about this clip and don't say footspeed because the film appears sped up.

So you agree that greb is a fraud/bum. Everyone on this forum was praising the guy like a god even though they never even saw him in action.

[SABBATH]

In 1912 a law was passed by US Congress banning the public viewing of fight films. The law was enacted to safeguard against repeats of the race riots that broke out when films of the Jack Johnson versus Jim Jefferies fight were shown in movie theatres. The law was repealed in 1940, but by that time many valuable and rare films had been shipped to overseas countries.

Jimmy Jacobs began tracking down and collecting the long lost fight films during his travels overseas in the 40's, 50's and 60's and returning them to the US. Unless they had actually seen these fighters live, boxing writers and historians of this era would have been writing about and assessing fighters that they had never seen fight.

It is through the efforts of Jimmy Jacobs that so many old fight films are available for viewing today.

There is a story of Jacobs assembling a group of boxing writers and historians in the 1960's and asking them to describe the fighting styles of some of these early boxing greats. Afterwards Jacobs showed the films to these same historians many who were surprised that the fighters that they thought so highly of actually appeared rather unimpressive on film.

Jacobs was always in search of Greb footage, as none was known to exist. This footage of him sparring with Philadelphia Jack O'Brien wasn't uncovered until 1991, after Jacobs death where it had remained in an American University for the previous 65 years.