Joe Goose

Joe Goose
Data
Birth Name	Joseph Gaines
Weight class	lightweight
nationality	US-american
birthday	November 25, 1874
place of birth	Baltimore
Date of death	August 10, 1910
Place of death	Baltimore
style	Left delivery
size	1.68 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	161
Victories	130
Knockout victories	89
Defeats	9
draw	15th
No value	7th

Joe Gans (actually: Joseph Gaines ; born November 25, 1874 in Baltimore , Maryland , † August 10, 1910 ibid) was an American boxer and world champion in the lightweight. He has been a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame since 1990 . He was the second Afro-American world champion in modern boxing history after the Canadian Dixon .

What fascinated the boxing community at the time was the almost scientific, meticulous accuracy with which he studied his opponents. He memorized even the smallest details in the fighting style, and then in combat his blows mercilessly sought the opponent's weak points. His fight record of 120 wins (85 by knockout ), eight defeats, nine draws and 18 "no decision" speaks for his system. The experts argue about his time as world champion. A party sees him in the years 1902 to 1904 and then again from 1906 to 1908 in the lightweight throne, the other from 1902 to 1908. This is due to the apparently difficult question to be answered whether he meantime resigned his title to fight against Joe Walcott to order Fight welterweight title or whether he kept the title, as in this fight, which ended in a draw after 20 rounds, the title was not used at all. Newspaper reports of the time make contradicting statements about this.

Boxer career

He came to boxing through the "battle royals", a brutal form of fighting of the time, in which several opponents hit each other in the ring at the same time and the last one who was still standing was declared the winner. His superiority in one of these brawls, which he won at 17, drew the attention of manager Al Herford, who made him a professional in 1891. Compared to today's young professionals, it is astonishing that Joe Gans won his second fight by knocking out in the 22nd round at this young age! The rapid succession of the fighting was also astonishing: in 1903, for example, he boxed 13 times. He made his last two fights that year on December 7th in Philadelphia and one day later, after a nearly 500 km train ride, in Boston against the heavier class boxer Sam Langford, against whom he lost on points after 15 rounds.

The World Cup

In total, Joe Gans played 19 world championship fights. Before he reached for the lightweight title for the first time in 1900, he had an impressive record of 58 wins, three defeats and six draws. In the first fight against world champion Frank Erne from Switzerland, he suffered an eyelid injury that led to the demolition. In the 1902 revenge, Erne, whose fighting style had been carefully studied, was knocked out in the first round. Towards the end of his career, he fought three times with Battling Nelson for the world championship. He won the first fight in Goldfield (Nevada) in 1906 by disqualification in the 42nd round, in 1908 he lost the remaining two, after he had defended the title four times in the meantime, by knockout in the 17th and 23rd respectively Round. At that time he was already feeling the effects of tuberculosis, from which he died two years later.

Web links

• Joe Gans - The old Master , fansite
• Joe Gans in the cyberboxingzone.com database