Jeffries vs Schmeling who is greater

Do you think Fitzsimmons was bigger than Corbett when they met ?

 

Ah, well, so in the end it comes down on how you rate the era. It seems you don´t rate it, and thus Schmeling and his opponents, not very high. I do. Higher than Jeff´s, Marciano´s or the late 70s one. IMO it´s only outshined by the late 60s/early 70s and 90s - and mostly because most fo the best fighters were inconsistent (Baer, Sharkey, to a lesser degree Schmeling).

Which champions did Jeff beat. The littlish Fitz who, while definitly an atg for me a top5 all-time, was a lot smaller and already quite old? An inactive old Corbett? Well, Schmeling also beat two champs. And I´d argue that shose two, Louis and Sharkey (2nd fight), were better when Schmeling fought them than the versions of Fitz and Corbett Jeff fought. What is an argument for Jeff is that he beat oth of them twice.

Fact is, Walker was a Top3 hw when Schmeling beat them. Came of a draw with Sharkey and beat numerous hws. Schmeling was the only one able to give him a real beating. I´d say it´s Louis, Sharkey (II), Walker, Stribling, Neusel.
Loughran definitly has an underrated hw resume but quite a few of the wins you are naming didn´t even happen at hw, namely Braddock, Walker and Greb - on the other hand you left out Carnera. And Loughran also had quite a few more losses than Schmeling.
Schmeling spent ten years in the Top5 at hw, and most of the time he was ranked in the top3. Was Loughran ever ranked as high?
If you take everything into account Schmeling´s hw resume is better than Loughran´s.

If Liston wouldn´t have beaten Patterson his best wins wouldn´t match Norton´s. Who cares. Fact is they did.
And yeah, I´d still take Schmeling´s over Layne´s, Ray´s and especially Quarry´s.
But the main difference is that Schmeling managed to become a champ. They didn´t.

That´s why I wrote that Jeff´s been more dominant. Also not as much, if you look into Schmeling´s defeats, there is one that wasn´t a defeat (Sharkey II) and one that was avenged (Hamas). What´s left is Baer who was at his best and it was a quite even fight until the stoppage - and I´d argue that the Baer Schmeling fought was better than anybody Jeff fought during his reign - and Louis in destruction mode - who was much better than anyone Jeff ever fought. So, yeah, Schmeling lost more. But against better fighters than Jeff even fought. Should count for something.

I never said they weren´t skilled. They were. But they were in everything a bit less refined and cruder, which has a lot to do with the rules they fought under. IMO that was like a different sport and boxing as we know it started in the mid/late 20s. Before you can either they it was a cruder version or a different sport. Depends on which side of the fence you sit - "evolution" of boxing or "just" adaption to different rules.

Fair enough, agree to disagree then. IMO Max makes and dictates the fight, lands more and cleaner power punches while avoiding most of Sharkey´s. It was not a runaway win for Schmeling for sure but I never said that anyway.

Like I wrote above it comes down how you rate that era. IMO all era´s are of similar quality and you only can see the difference at the Top. The 30s were very strong there and that´s why I rate it very high. You obviously don´t. But well, just opinions anyway.

 

No. Everyone agreed that Corbett was bigger. How much bigger no one knows because neither man publicly stepped on the scales to prove their claims. Various reporting of Fitz's weight included 156.5, 157.5, 158, 165, 168, 172. Most believed the higher numbers were closer to the truth. Corbett was listed as 180, 183, 185, 187, 188. Again, as with Fitz, most believed Corbett was bigger than what he claimed. Corbett could have had a weight advantage as much as 30 pounds or as little as 10. General estimates were around 15 pounds.

Folks today get fixated on one accurate number, but the truth is we don't actually know because they did not have official weigh ins for heavyweight fights, because for heavyweight bouts you could weigh whatever you wanted - no weight to make, hence no official reason to prove your weight, other than for statistical and historical purposes, which apparently they did not care about quite as much then as we do today. All we know is each man prepared and entered the ring ready and willing to fight the best they could.

 

Yes, we don't know their true weights.
I'm not sure ringside reporters' naked eye estimates are much to go on either.
And besides, I've read reports where the writers estimated that Jeffries had a good forty of fifty pounds on Fitzsimmons.

 

The difference between Jeffries and Schmeling lies in the fact that Schmeling has more or less retained his standing over the years, while Jeffries standing has dramaticaly declined.

During Schmelings career, you would have been hard put to find anybody who would have given him a chance against Jeffries, and most would have rated him lower on their list than Corbett or Fitzsimmons.

Jeffries is clearly getting verry much under rated these days.

 

He was 31 when he fought Dan Creedon, for the middleweight championship, 158 pounds limit.

 

True, but he seems to have had a lot of trouble making the middleweight limit.

I suspect that when he was freed from the obligation of making this weight limit, his weight likley jumped up a bit.

 

Or, the people who grew up with Jeff or got told about him by their fathers and thus idiolised him died out and he is now judged more objectivly while nobody relevant ever idiolozed Schmeling and thus he always was jusdged more objectivly.

 

Yes, and I'd imagine he was most often somewhere around 166 - 175, like he described.
I really doubt he was well in the 180s or close to 190 when he fought Jeffries. I doubt he was over 175, and I think his self-announced weights sound reasonable.
Whatever he weighed he was a lot smaller than Jeffries.

 

A fighter rarely gets a more fair and accurate apraisal for the people who saw them live dying out. They only go downhill from there.

Jeffries was probably more highly rated during his own prime than any other heavyweight champion from any era, by admirers and detractors alike and you have to ask why.

Only so much of it can be explained by era bias.

 

But isn´t that a hint that people of an era are always biased towards fighters of their era? You can see that nowadays with people who grew up with the fab4, Tyson or Jones and how they rate those. If you are a huge fan or detractor of a fighter those emotions will influence your ranking and what you say about them. That´s only human, no?
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That´s very true and I don´t say Jeff doesn´t deserve to be ranked highly. But you need to remember that gloved boxing as a mass-sport was still quite young, a lot happened since then, a lot more fighters and greats were active. Can Jeff still be ranked as highly now as he was then considering this?

Sure but I´m not trying to take anything away from Jeff, I´m not one of those people who thinks that era was primitive and not on par with latter eras or anything like that either. Jeffries was a very impressive specimen and a great fighter, no doubt. Like said in my first post I always rated him above Schmeling. Honestly, before this thread I wouldn´t even have dared comparing them cause I thought Schmeling wasn´t up there with someone like Jeff. But once I thought about it, well, I thought maybe the comparison isn´t that far off and there are arguments for Max.

I´m hugley biased though since Schmeling is an idol of mine.