Do you consider James J Jeffries an ATG?

Maher had 8 losses on his sheet when he faced Ruhlin.

 

Maher had 8 losses on his sheet when he faced Ruhlin.

Johnson signed to defend against Jeannette twice and both Langford and McVey, that the fights did not happen was not his fault.That Jeffries did not defend against Denver Ed Martin a ranked contender for 4 years,Frank Childs ranked for 3 years and Johnson ranked for 3 years is entirely his fault. Do you see the names John Finnegan or Jack Munroe in those rankings?

 

All that I will commit myself to saying, is that the talent pool was probably deeper in 1913, than it was for most or all of the postwar period.

Given that this seems to be the case, it would be rash to assume that Jeffries presided over a shallow talent pool.

 

I'm not saying anything one way or the other ,but if the pool was a deep one,why do we see 4 of Jeffries title defences against men he had already met and in 3 cases beaten? Where were the replacements for ;
Ruhlin
Sharkey
Corbett coming out of retirement
Fitzsimmons coming out of retirement .

Given that Jeffries was never going to defend against a black challenger ,where were the young challengers?

I don't see a deep pool ,I see Jeffries feasting on a washed up 37 years old Jackson who should not have been in a ring, a 40 years old Goddard, and when champion a palooka in Finnegan and a hyped creation in Munroe. Look at Jeffries early fights and tell me there was depth in the division.Henry Baker? Dan Long? Hank Lorraine?
Not only Jeffries , I see the same thing with Corbett .

 

Jeffries was not the issue in terms of the color line. Neither was Dempsey. America was the issue and American culture dictated that no black man would be given the chance to win the worlds hwt championship. It was no quirk that Burns, a Canadian, gave Johnson a title shot. Canada and the US have very different history in terms of their treatment of the black race.

 

Actually several prominent news papers were calling for Jeffries to defend against Johnson as early as 1903. Burns gave Johnson a title shot because he received the unheard of sum of $30,000 for doing so. He turned down an earlier offer from the NSC in London because he felt it wasn't enough.

 

I was talking about Maher when he fought O'Dennell. That was his record then.

His record on 3-21-1902 when he fought Ruhlin was 122-8-4.

I don't think this record points to an inconsistent fighter.

 

No one is pumping Jeff on the basis of the Finnegan or Munroe fights. It has been pointed out that he blew a chance to really cement a top all time rating by not fighting Johnson in 1904. Jeff has paid a price for that.

But why bring up Martin and Childs when McCoy and Hart were higher rated contenders?

 

The era has a bit of a weak era look to it, in terms of the composition of the heavyweight contenders, but that does not indicate a shallow talent pool.

It is more consistent with an era that has a bit less top level talent than the adjacent eras.

 

Because on another thread you questioned whether any black fighters were ranked long enough to be considered threats to Jeffries and Matt D's rankings prove they were. Hart fought Johnson and no other black boxers we don't know how he would have done against Martin,Childs,McVey, or Johnson with a referee who didn't need a seeing eye dog.

 

If Hart could beat Johnson, then we would have to make him a strong favorite over any other black contender.

 

I think the Hart v Johnson bout is one not to enlist when trying to score points.
Here is another example of Hart getting the rub of the green when it came to decisions.

"According to the New York Evening World, Sandy Ferguson was clearly robbed of a victory by the decision of referee Patsy Earl. "Ferguson outclassed his man as a boxer. He hit him when and where he pleased, and several times during the contest had Hart on "***** Street"." Ferguson decked Hart in the seventh, and in the 13th only the ropes saved Hart from going down again. The crowd disagreed vocifeously with the unjust decision. Referee Earl later stated he gave Hart the nod because he had done most of the leading."
Johnson toyed with Ferguson numerous times.
Burns beat Hart, Johnson played with Burns.

Do you pick Hart to beat the Sam McVey that challenged Jeffries?

 

We have gone back and forth about the Johnson Hart fight, and the bottom line is that it was a controversial decision.

Not a robbery, a controversial decision.

That means that we have to take the result seriously.

Would I pick Hart over the Sam McVea that Johnson fought?

I probably would based on his win over Johnson, but it would be a very reluctant choice.

McVea would have had a significantly better style for dealing with Hart than Johnson did.

 

The economics behind the bout is not the point. The great mistreatment of blacks was an American cultural issue. Canada/Canadians have a very different history in this regard. Burns as a Canadian did not have American "baggage" concerning the color line as, wait for it, he was not American! So again it was not a coincidence that it took Burns, a non American, to give Johnson a title shot. The fact that Burns was good enough businessman to get top dollar for the fight is irrelevant.

Jeffries and Dempsey were bound by the American tradition of barring blacks from having a chance at winning the title that would indicate the physical mastery of all men. Huge phycological implications as one could imagine.

Dempsey certainly wanted to give Wills a title shot but the deck was stacked against this ever occurring. promoters to boxing commissioners did what the could to prevent the fight from occurring.

Certainly a few newspapers were progressive enough to call for a Johnson Jeffries bout. However progressivism in terms of racism at that time was a significant minority of the American populace.

 

"Not a robbery, a controversial decision."

This seems to be fair. The SF Call has been quoted on the Jeff-Corbett and Jeff-Fitz fights. Here is The Call on Johnson-Hart-

"At the end of twenty rounds, Referee Alex Greggains gave an entirely just decision in favor of Hart."

W. W. Naughton of the SF Examiner-

"Johnson simply fought when he felt like it," giving rounds away to the pressing Hart. Naughton quotes Johnson's corner-

"Please hit him," cried Tim McGrath more than once. "You can't win unless you hit him."

"For goodness sakes, go after him," yelled Zick Abrams, manager of Johnson.

SF Bulletin

"Johnson was not willing to mix and Hart lacked cleverness and punch." however, later in the report, "Looking at it from a scientific angle, Johnson should have been declared the victor."

SF Chronicle

"On the the score of aggressiveness, Hart was entitled to the verdict. On any other score, Johnson would have been favored."

So it appears the newspapers split. While it is certainly in the cards that Johnson would get the short end of the decision, we just can't draw a robbery conclusion from what appears to have been a dull, competitive fight, with Johnson unable to hurt or put away Hart.

*these quotes are from the notes I kept in a notebook from the SF papers when I lived in SF years ago while I was still working.