Greater Heavyweight? -- JEFFRIES vs JOHNSON

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Jeffries , thinking this through, was a very cautious fighter .. his punch output was often low based on knowing he had potentially long distance fights .. I do wonder how much consistent hard pressure he could keep up .. to Harts credit he placed hard pressure for twenty rounds against Johnson ... while he may have been no where near the fighter Jeffries was, he was very tough, had a terrific chin and a solid punch .. I think if Jeffries did not put consistent pressure Johnson could outpoint him .. it remains a very interesting match up ..

 

I rate Johnson over Jeffries, but Johnson's resume is oddly unimpressive when put under close scrutiny. As pointed out by others, Johnson fought good competition longer than anyone and also went further without losing decisively than anyone other than Joe Louis.

Yet, his record seems a bit hollow at the core.

He beat all kinds of big names but few of them were actually top men when he beat them.

On the way up he beat McVea, Jeannette, and Langford. McVea might be the most impressive, but he was still a teenager. Jeannette was green. Langford still a middleweight. When they reached their peaks years later, Johnson did not fight them.

Jeffries and Fitz are huge names, but old and laid off. Hard to say what these victories mean.

There are also a lot of good fighters, but hardly outstanding ones, like Martin, Flynn, Moran, Childs, etc.

Ketchel was another middleweight.

So one might ask legitimately--who were the toughest men he fought when he fought them?

I think the answer, besides arguably McVea, would be Hart, Burns, and Willard. He lost two of three. And none were judged in their own times as being among the very best.

 

McVey was considered the second best black heavyweight after Denver Ed Martin and when McVey kod him he was lauded as a real threat to Jeffries. Its true Jeannette McVey and Langford,[Langford had over 50 fights when Johnson beat him , so hardly a novice,and more than Johnson,] were pre-prime when Johnson beat them , but then so was he ,and if they improved in the meanwhile so undoubtedly did he.

Johnson gave about 20lbs to McVey yet beat him convicingly three out of three ,dropping and stopping him.
Does McVey do better against a Johnson who added nearly 30lbs of muscle to his frame?
Does the 156lbs Langford do better when he puts on 20lbs against the then 185lbs Johnson who later weighed 208lbs for Jeffries?
Jeannette was dropped numerous times by Johnson even in abbreviated fights I see no prospect of him giving Johnson much concern if both were prime for prime.

Johnson dropped Langford twice for long nine counts, he dropped McVey and in their last fight kod him,as I said he dropped Jeannette numerous times .

Point to note he was never in any danger of being dropped by any of them.

Jeffries and Fitz were past their best and coming from lay offs.

So were Jeffries best scalps Fitz and Corbett. Take past prime coming out of retirement ex champs Fitz and Corbett out of Jeffries title resume and you have the inconsistant Ruhlin whom Fitz nearly killed and the 5'8" Sharkey whom Fitz stopped early twice. Moran,Martin,Childs, KLondike,Kaufmann were surely better than Munroe Finnegan and Kennedy?
it should perhaps also be remembered that Johnson was an aging champion hounded from the US taking on younger men ,whereas Jeffries was a young champion fighting old men and usually in his home state.

 

I was responding directly to the points made immediately before my post. Langford was 156lbs his best weight is believed to have been 175lbs so he was around 20lbs below prime weight. I think that is equalled out by Johnson coming in at185lbs when he himself said he was at his best for Jeffries at 208lbs factor in that Langford was also the more experienced fighter..

The last win over McVey is a noteworthy one for Johnson imo and his emphatic ko of Martin too. Johnson also dominated Childs. Beating Fitz had zero cachet for Johnson as he himself was the first to say.Its on a par with Jeffries stopping Jackson imo. Johnsosn best wins are pre championship imo.And you give them whatever you think they are worth. Both Jeffries and Johnson were great in their day, I just happen to think Johnson is greater, many disagreed including Joe Gans. I don't set too much store by Burns or Corbett's opinions for obvious reasons.

The rap on Johnson would be which great fighter did he beat in his prime?
The same can be said for Jeffries who has just Sharkey qualifying in that category as far as I'm concerned.
Johnson has Burns.

 

The rest of your post I won't argue with, but a jump from 156 pounds to 176(ish) pounds is much larger than the jump from 185 to 208.

In terms of percentage of body mass, Langford gained a lot more weight than Johnson. The marginal value of each additional pound declines as you get heavier.

176 vs. 208 is a lot fairer than 156 vs. 185.

 

Burns was better than Sharkey by a fair margin, IMO. Though I guess both did (kinda sorta) hold dubious versions of the heavyweight title at one point.

 

Two weeks ago I would agree with you but I've been soaking up Sharkey recently and the 1897-1902 Sharkey was quite a handful. He was actually quite nimble and very fast as well as his more usually applauded attributes of Courage, strenght, punch resistance(overrated) recuperative powers(underrated) manic aggressiveness, rough and foul tactics. Excellent boxers like Corbett, Choynski and McCoy couldn't handle him, I doubt if Burns could live with him either. You had to hit like a mule-or a Fitz or a Maher-or be as strong as a Jeffries to stop him in his tracks.

 

Johnson was fighting heavyweights like Klondike when he was a middleweight.

I don't accept your thesis ,the former is 20lbs ,the latter 23lbs. Until you get up into the super heavyweight bracket it doesnt apply

 

I dont mean to imply Burns is a definite to beat Sharkey ,though he would give him a good battle. Sharkey was a filthy fighter, he fouled in most of his big bouts.He was temper dirty, a belligerant object
.None of those three were strong enough to contain him.Jeffries was but he was receiving both significant height, and weight advantages.
Jeffries had an injured arm in their second fight, Sharkey had cracked ribs during it and a broken finger. Yet he was still their ,still full of fight at the end.
Fitz demolished him twice.


ps Anything wrong with Jeffries arm in their first fight?

 

Corbett was 33, in shape, and by the admission of Brady and his handlers had a great ring outing in his first loss to Jeffries. Some fighters do not need to be active to stay sharp. A modern day example is Vitail Klitschko who took 4 years off, had no warm up fights, and looked sharp as ever vs Sam Peter.

The Corbett that Jeffries beat the first time might rate as Johnson's best win as he was far better than the 20 year old 156 pound Langford, the novice Jeanette was, and a teenage Sam Mcvey.

While Fitz was older, he wasn't past his prime as he Ko'd guys before and after Jeffries.

 

I would agree with this. The lighter you are, the more the pounds matter. We can see this in the weight classes.

 

I wouldn't be that sure of that version of Corbett, Sharkey had just hammered the daylight out of him nearly two years earlier. He faded against Fitz in '97, against Sharkey in '98 yet lasted 23 rounds with Jeffries in 1900, without reading the reports recently, I believe he led most of the way. That's not at all impressive IMO.