Les Darcy - would have gone down as G.O.A.T

[TheGreatA]

Strong middleweight but he is often made out to have been a giant killer despite being around 5'6 tall with his heaviest opponent weighing 176 pounds. Little chance of him ever becoming a heavyweight champion, he was not exactly the second coming of Sam Langford. Difficult man to deal with in the clinches and I'm sure he would have been a factor in the middleweight division for years to come. A very tough division in those days though and he would have hardly ran through all of them undefeated, probably all those tough fights would have added up and forced him to retire before his 30's.

[McGoorty]

Yeah and Salvador Sanchez would have went on to win the Middleweight title from Hagler.

SANCHEZ was only Fenech's size and he will alway's be linked with Darcy, Villa and Sands as someone who would have have been far greater, but nobody can win over death. Of course Sanchez Couldn't beat HAGLER, but was he the MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION OF MEXICO ? DARCY WAS the Heavyweight Champ of Australia and he made 6" 6' Fulton quit after 2 rounds ( Check out the book "Les Darcy, Champion of Champions by Raymond Swanwick ). Furthermore DARCY had indeed stiff competition and had gone through all of the best (easily) except for 3, Klaus, Gibbons and the Laughable AL McCOY and none it was Darcy's fault. Al McCoy had won a fight against a few big names but on closer inspection of his fight record you find that those he did beat had beaten McCoy 2, 3, 4 times, I rate McCOY around 10th best Middleweight of 1905-19 era. KLAUS ? he'd lost several fights against fighters who Darcy completely and same for Mike GIBBONS. No Darcy was the best of his time, fact.

[McGoorty]

Strong middleweight but he is often made out to have been a giant killer despite being around 5'6 tall with his heaviest opponent weighing 176 pounds. Little chance of him ever becoming a heavyweight champion, he was not exactly the second coming of Sam Langford. Difficult man to deal with in the clinches and I'm sure he would have been a factor in the middleweight division for years to come. A very tough division in those days though and he would have hardly ran through all of them undefeated, probably all those tough fights would have added up and forced him to retire before his 30's.

I Do agree that Darcy probably been past it by say age 32, at the rate that Les had fights he could have had 200 or more fights by then. But I don't agree to some of your statements, I think Les would have at least won the LHW title,.......................................
McGOORTY said DARCY Was the Best, and McGoorty had beaten at least 8 out of 10 G.A.T.T. (greats of their time) of the middleweights. CLABBY Said basically the same thing, ditto CHIP, ditto J.SMITH and many more. Modern opinions don't count near as much as the opinions of his contemporary Boxers, BAT MASTERSON was made to eat his words when he publicly announced that George Chip would annihilate Darcy. It may be time that someone submits a detailed analysis of the fight records of DARCY, M.GIBBONS, F.KLAUS, CLABBY, CHIP, McGOORTY, Al McCOY, JEFF SMITH, K.O.BROWN so we can see the truth about the Teens Middleweights. I have checked all of them before and the one name that comes out on top is DARCY. In a short couple of years the Great Harry Greb would have been Darcy's No. 1 rival, I think we were robbed of what could have been the greatest series of fights between 2 DEADSET GREATS. I think GREB was ******Awesome too, my God what fights they'd have been, just think, If GREB and Darcy did fight, we would also have film of a Harry Greb Fight, for sure,... like I said "WE WUZ ROBBED".

[McGoorty]

Potential, fair enough but as good as Darcy undoubtedly was I do think that there is a bit of the James Dean myth about him. I.e. James Dean was fairly popular but only about a quarter as popular as say Brando. You younger gents will see this as you get older when in 30 years time they try and convince you that Heath Ledger say was the biggest star ib Hollywood.

Man, nobody will ever compare Heath Ledger with James Dean, I don't mind you comparing DEAN to DARCY, contrary to your previous comment they WERE VERY FAMOUS In Their Lifetimes and that is the real definition of Greatness, problem is young people think that their generation Knows everything, more than their Stoopid Grandfathers ever did so young people want to Re-write history because old people are ****** and therefore THEY MUST BE WRONG, strange.

[McGoorty]

Strong middleweight but he is often made out to have been a giant killer despite being around 5'6 tall with his heaviest opponent weighing 176 pounds. Little chance of him ever becoming a heavyweight champion, he was not exactly the second coming of Sam Langford. Difficult man to deal with in the clinches and I'm sure he would have been a factor in the middleweight division for years to come. A very tough division in those days though and he would have hardly ran through all of them undefeated, probably all those tough fights would have added up and forced him to retire before his 30's.

Love the pictures of Pete Sanstol an Al Brown, very cool.

[GJC]

Man, nobody will ever compare Heath Ledger with James Dean, I don't mind you comparing DEAN to DARCY, contrary to your previous comment they WERE VERY FAMOUS In Their Lifetimes and that is the real definition of Greatness, problem is young people think that their generation Knows everything, more than their Stoopid Grandfathers ever did so young people want to Re-write history because old people are ****** and therefore THEY MUST BE WRONG, strange.

Can't speak for how popular Darcy was as I wasn't around then but I was around for Dean and was quite a film fan. As you can see from the link above re box office etc he was popular but......
Don't get me wrong though he only made 3 films (only one of which was released before his death I believe) he had talent, but his iconic status was enhanced by his death. Trust me he wasn't the name on everyone's lips, I was there .
Whereas Brando had a huge impact, unfortunately Brando grew into a fat old man!

[McGoorty]

Can't speak for how popular Darcy was as I wasn't around then but I was around for Dean and was quite a film fan. As you can see from the link above re box office etc he was popular but......
Don't get me wrong though he only made 3 films (only one of which was released before his death I believe) he had talent, but his iconic status was enhanced by his death. Trust me he wasn't the name on everyone's lips, I was there .
Whereas Brando had a huge impact, unfortunately Brando grew into a fat old man!

I will give you that one, I'm in my mid 40's but I was influenced by my mum, she lovrd James Dean. I was sort of trying to defend Darcy, Personally I much prefer Spencer Tracy,I shouldn't need to defend Darcy 'cos he truly was a prodigy and his record is much better than his rivals in the MW's. You are a bit older than me, did you hear old blokes talking about him much ?, it'd be interesting to hear more.,,, thanks mate, cheers.