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The word, or demi-word, "Fitz," in auld Irish lore stands
for, literally, "the left hand of God." And nobody in
fistic lore stood taller when it came to the left hand
than "Ruby" Robert Fitzsimmons.
In any shape-up of fighters, "Fitz" would have been rejected.
His prematurely bald terra-cotta coiffure and silver
dollar-sized freckles flecking his body made him a curious
piece of goods. Add to that his muscular shoulders, which
resembled those of a village smithy--which he had been in
his previous life--atop a tapering 28-inch waist set on
spindly, pipestem legs, and it was obvious why some called
him a "sandhill crane," while others, like John L.
Sullivan, labeled him "a fighting machine on stilts."
But it wasn't his looks that made Bob Fitzsimmons a great
fighter; it was his left. For it was that left, complete
with a curious shifting of the feet, that won him the
heavyweight championship from James J. Corbett. And his
place in fistic history.
For almost immediately after the fight, boxing writers, never
having seen anyone use his left as Fitz had to knock the
air out of Corbett and the crown off his head, called it
the "solar-plexus punch," describing the area to which the
blow had landed rather than the blow itself--which was, in
essence, the first pure left hook in boxing history.
Throughout his storied 25-plus-year career, "Fitz" threw his
patented left hook into the gullets of the large, the
tall, and the small, often fighting elephantine opponents
twice his size, which rarely exceeded 170 pounds. But
Fitzsimmons fought them all, merely proclaiming, "the
bigger they are, the harder they fall." And fall they did,
67 of them.
His style was one that almost defied normal nomenclature. He
threw lefts and rights to both body and jaw with equal
devastation. And then, after seducing his opponent into a
momentary torpor, turning southpaw, he would shift his
feet to loosen a tide of bafflement in his opponent's mind
and implant his left almost up to the wrist in his
opponent's midriff--or, as his contemporary Bob Armstrong
said, "He tore de gizzards out of his opponents."
Fitzsimmons was to ride his left hook to three separate
titles--the middleweight, heavyweight, and light
heavyweight titles--the first man to win three boxing
titles, winning the last at the advanced age of 40, a
tribute to the man who believed "a good heart is better
than good legs."
And a good left hook is better than most heads, especially
when it was thrown by a man named Fitz, who lived up to
his name. |
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Bert Randolph Sugar
The 100 Greatest Boxers Of All Time
Robert Fitzsimmons ranked #29
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