Do you consider James J Jeffries an ATG?

Dempsey "was a novice"

But you have been using a novice fight against Choynski to score against Jeffries. Dempsey wasn't really a novice when he got taken out in one round by Jim Flynn.

 

I think Dago will learn and stop using double standards. Keep up the good work, Ed.

Yeah, Dempsey was KO'd in 1 by a past his prime Flynn and had a very tough fight with John Lester Johnson, the only quality black opponent Dempsey fought.

" Two major papers gave it to Johnson, one to Dempsey and one had it a draw. The weights mentioned varied from one newspaper to another, but the ones listed look most probable. "

Meanwhile, Jeffries beat a better class of African Amercian opponents. A legend in Peter Jackson quickly ( though Jackson was older, in good form according to the press who saw him work out, and his own handlers ) a tough Journeyman on Bob Armstrong and a very good Hank Griffin. Griffin was good enough to beat Jack Johnson.

 

"At that point, Dempsey still wasn't eating for days."

The newspaper articles covering the Dempsey-Flynn fight indicate it was a big event in Salt Lake City. Special trains brought in folks from out of town. The gate was an impressive $5000 for that time and place. But we're supposed to believe the chief attraction wasn't even eating! The promoter would have fed him if no one else would, but such an extreme situation makes no sense at all. Dempsey getting stretched in the first round might have been a fluke but flukes happen and are part of history and matter in evaluations.

 

Jeffries was absolutely an ATG.

You can't write heavyweight history without him, and he was, for many, the gold standard until Johnson and Dempsey.

He's also one of the few heavyweights of that era that had the natural tools a modern day trainer could work with and have contemporary success at heavyweight.

 

Correct, and his own brother threw in the towel. So it wasn't a stoppage by the ref!

 

They were like Marciano's older opponents, in that the beat the best of the new generation of contenders.

In the month of August in 1900 Bob Fitzsimmons defeated Gus Ruhlin and Tom Sharkey, and James Corbett defeated Kid McCoy.

Think about that for a second.

That is the three top contenders of the new generation all taken out by the two previous champions in the space of a month!

That is why Corbett and Fitzsimmons were so respected, and that is why people expected Jeffries to fight them.

 

Yeah, but perhaps anyone who rallies to win those kind of brutally tough "old school" fights for the heavyweight championship deserves to be remembered as an All-Time Great.

 

We agree on this.

The devil is often in the detail with these things.

The first Corbett fight was a lot more competitive than a lot of people think, and Fitzsimmons fought a much more defensive fight in his second encounter with Jeffries than many people realise.

It is perhaps something to criticise, but not necessarily critical to his historical standing.

A big heavyweight should get the same kudos for beating a key contender, as a small one who beats the same contender.

A small heavyweight who legitimately establishes himself as a key contender, has accomplished the same as a big heavyweight that does the same, and is by logical extension an equally valuable scalp.

Jeffries beat the best available contenders in a way that Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey didn’t.