Tommy Gibbons - another forgotten great

He went nearly 10 years undefeated before dropping his first official loss to the peerless Harry Greb, having apparently bested him before that on a couple of occasions. Despite starting out at middleweight he challenged the great Jack Dempsey for his HW title and was the only man to go the full 15 round distance with the Manassa Mauler, reportedly bankrupting a whole town yet receiving no purse in the process. In 1921 he had 24 fights scoring 20 KOS 10 of which came in the 1st round. He was only KO'd once in over 100 bouts losing only 4 times to greats such as Greb, Dempsey, Miske (DQ) and Tunney. So how come Tommy Gibbons never gets a mention?

Younger brother of fellow hall of famer Mike Gibbons, Tommy was a classy boxer with a great defence and footwork. Operating between middle and heavyweight he fought many of the best fighters of his day usually coming out on top. "Greb took the licking of his life." and "Greb showed himself a tough two-handed fighter, dangerous at all times, but the scientific Tommy cut rings around him and won by a comfortable margin" were some of the reports following 2 of his ND bouts against Harry Greb. As well as being a masterful boxer he seemed like a good guy outside the ring knowing he'd receive no purse before yet still fighting Dempsey and also accepting half his agreed purse on a trip to fight in England. He also served as his County's Sheriff for over 20 years earning numerous awards.

Having read a bit about his life in and out of the ring I thought Tommy deserved a mention on here and don't think you'll find anyone with a greater 'L' column than him.

He almost certainly deserves a little more praise and respect, but perhaps suffers through being mainly remembered for the Demspey fight and being overshadowed by his more gifted sibling, as you say some tremendous names on the loss column but not without his share of decent wins such as Carpentier and Kid Norfolk, also going the distance with a very decent Dempsey is worthy of huge respect because few managed similar.

Interesting you think Mike the more celebrated Gibbons brother Rowley. I had always considered Tommy to have been served better by History.

Both very fine fighters and both hugely underappreciated.

Sorry gent, should have phrased it better meant to read that Mike is the more talented of the two in my opinion, not sure who is served better by history, guess Tommy will always have a certain name through the Dempsey fight and the story of Shelby that goes with it.

Gentleman01 wrote:Interesting you think Mike the more celebrated Gibbons brother Rowley. I had always considered Tommy to have been served better by History.

My thoughts exactly, Gent.

Gibbons certainly an excellent operator; I'd say his (relative) lack of recognition owes more to how incredibly strong the Middleweight / Light-Heavyweight scene was during his time, rather than anything his brother did. You could transplant a few other names such as Jack Dillon, Jack Delaney or, to a much lesser extent, Battling Levinsky in to this article and it would still be just as valid, if you get my drift. That's not to take anything away from your article though, Paperbag, which is excellent and which I really enjoyed, mate.

Almost certainly would have picked up a world title or two in most other eras, but would have needed a big slice of luck to get one in the era he fell in; Dempsey actually beat him at his own game and outboxed him, rather than outgunned him, which shows just how much Gibbons was up against it at the time.

There is an old story about the Gibbons brothers which always amused me, they were taking part in a charity exhibition and had agreed to spar a few rounds and as it was only for fun they were choreorgraphing the fight and Mike said to Tommy to make things exciting you hit me early in the third and I'll go down, Tommy responding by saing "and when will you knock me down" to which Mike's response was "whenever I want"