In boxing there is the heavyweight championship of the world, still the greatest individual title in all of sport, and there is everything else.
Fair or not, the glamour, the recognition, and the lion's share of the money goes to the best of the biggest, a lure that those of slightly lesser bulk have always found impossible to resist.
When Roy Jones Jr., the undisputed light-heavyweight champion of the world steps into the ring tonight against World Boxing Association heavyweight champion John Ruiz, he will be following a familiar path, while doing his best to ignore the daunting lessons of history.
Thirteen times since 1906, reigning light-heavyweight champions have moved up to challenge for the heavyweight title. Only one has been successful: the most recent, Michael Spinks, who defeated Larry Holmes in 1985.
For the most part, heavyweights of earlier eras weren't true giants, and so the weight differential wasn't always that overwhelming. Still, the old boxing axiom has nearly always held true: a good big man will beat a good little man, all things being equal.
Not that there weren't some close calls along the way, including a fight that is recalled as one of the sport's greatest moments.
In 1941, Billy Conn was understandably a prohibitive underdog when he faced the best heavyweight of them all, Joe Louis. At the weigh-in, the numbers on scales were so disparate that the promoter, Mike Jacobs, persuaded the commission to make a small adjustment, adding five pounds to Conn, subtracting five from Louis, just to keep thing interesting for the fans. (Their real weights that night were 169 pounds and 204 pounds, respectively.)
But Conn shocked everyone, dominating the fight, hurting Louis several times. Then while well ahead on the scorecards, he unwisely moved in for the kill in the 13th round, one of the great miscalculations of all time. Louis recovered and knocked him out.
For the most part, the step-up fights weren't nearly that competitive. Even the very best of the light heavyweights, such as Archie Moore and Bob Foster, were no match for the heavyweight champion of the day.
And Jones, some would argue, is just barely a true light heavyweight. As a professional, he has carried as little as 153 pounds into the ring, and if pushed might still be able to make the middleweight limit, where he was once world champion.
That puts him in rare company indeed: one of three.
The story is that when middleweight champ Stanley Ketchel, the Michigan Assassin, challenged Jack Johnson for the heavyweight title in 1909, it was a set up between friends, and the film record seems to bear that out. Ketchel wanted the payday. Johnson agreed to carry him through the fight and win a decision. But then in the 12th round, Ketchel's savage instincts, or his rank opportunism, got the better of him: he saw an opening, hit Johnson on the jaw, and dropped him to the canvas.
Johnson got up, annoyed at the double-cross, dusted himself off, and knocked Ketchel cold with his very next punch.
Which leaves Jones looking to even more ancient history for a comforting precedent. In 1897, Gentleman Jim Corbett, the man whose scientific boxing skills had allowed him to defeat the first of the great American heavyweight champions, John L. Sullivan, put his title on the line against an Englishman who had spent much of his life in Australia, Ruby Bob Fitzsimmons.
Fitzsimmons was an unlikely looking fighter, bald, freckled and skinny, then the middleweight champion of the world. "He was one of the greatest of all the fighters who have worn the crown," Corbett wrote in his 1926 autobiography The Roar of the Crowd. "Not what you might call a really clever boxer, but a born fighter, with a terrific kick in his punch from any angle, and one who knew all of the tricks of the game and was as wise as a fox."
Those flattering words aside, there was bad blood between the two men. During one encounter at a hotel, Corbett went so far as to twist Fitzsimmons' nose, which led to a brawl between the two camps. (Sort of like what happened at the Jones-Ruiz weigh-in on Thursday). They finally signed to fight up the road in Carson City, and in the early going of that fight, Corbett says that he had things his way. In the sixth round, he knocked Fitzsimmons down, and only a long count (Corbett says) prevented the knockout.
"For the seven rounds following I punched him at will. He certainly took an awful licking and was dead game about it, too. By now, the fight seemed so easy that I began to look at the audience, in clinches, over Fitz's shoulder."
That overconfidence cost Corbett. During an exchange, Fitzsimmons connected with what became known as the "solar plexus punch," a hook to the belly that stopped Corbett in his tracks.
"Quicker than all this takes to tell, I sank to my knees. I was conscious of everything that went on, the silence of the crowd, the agony on the faces of my seconds, the waiting Fitzsimmons, but my body was like that of a man stricken with paralysis.
"I could hear the referee counting and grew desperate. He came to 'Eight' and I reached for the rope to try and pull myself to my feet. I missed it, and fell on my face. I was nearer the ropes, and reached for them again. 'Ten.' I was out!
"No longer the champion of the world."
Fitzsimmons lost the title to Jim Jeffries in his first defence (though he later went on to win the light-heavyweight title) while Corbett embarked on a sad comeback before finally retiring.
And in boxing, the sport in which, more than any other, the links between yesterday and today are traced in an unbroken line, their heirs meet tonight, each seeking a place in history of their own. sbrunt@globeandmail.ca Light heavyweights against heavyweights Reigning light-heavyweight champions (unless otherwise noted) who challenged for the heavyweight championship of the world March 17, 1897 Bob Fitzsimmons, 167, (middleweight champion) KO 14 over Jim Corbett, 183 Difference: 16 pounds Fitzsimmons would later hold the light-heavyweight title Nov. 28, 1906 Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, 163½, drew (20 rounds) with Tommy Burns, 172 Difference: 8½ lbs May 8, 1907 Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, 167, loses decision (20 rounds) to Tommy Burns, 180 Difference: 13 pounds Oct. 16, 1909 Stanley Ketchel, 170¼, (middleweight champion) KO 12 by Jack Johnson, 205½ Difference: 35¼ pounds July 2, 1921 George Carpentier, 172, KO 4 by Jack Dempsey, 188 Difference: 16 pounds March 1, 1934 Tommy Loughran, 184, loses decision (15 rounds) to Primo Carnera, 270 Difference: 86 pounds Jan. 25, 1939 John Henry Lewis, 180¾, KO 1 by Joe Louis, 200¼ Difference: 19½ pounds June 18, 1941 Billy Conn, 169, KO 13 by Joe Louis, 204 Difference: 35 pounds June 9, 1946 Billy Conn, 187, KO 8 by Joe Louis, 207 Difference: 20 pounds Aug 10, 1949 Gus Lesnevich, 182, TKO 7 by Ezzard Charles, 180 Difference: +2 pounds May 30, 1951 Joey Maxim, 181½, loses decision (15 rounds) to Ezzard Charles, 182 Difference: ½ pound Sept 21, 1955 Archie Moore, 188, KO 9 by Rocky Marciano, 188¼ Difference: ¼ pound Nov. 30, 1956 Archie Moore, 187¾, KO 5 by Floyd Patterson, 182¼ Difference: +5½ pounds Nov. 18, 1970 Bob Foster, 188, KO 2 by Joe Frazier, 209 Difference: 21 pounds Sept. 21, 1985 Michael Spinks, 205, wins decision (15 rounds) over Larry Holmes, 223 Difference: 18 pounds March 1, 2003 Roy Jones Jr., 193, against John Ruiz, 226 Difference: 33 pounds