Does Jeffries belong in the top 30 of all time?

"You can lead a poster to water,but you cant make him think!"

 

So you admit that Louis, Johnson, and Dempsey were KO'd by smaller men, yet you blast Jeffries for also beating smaller men, many of whom are in the hall of fame?

Nice double standard Rich! If you did the research, you would see that Jeffries did fight a few 200 or over, and those matches tended to end sooner. You would also note that even in victory, Louis, Dempsey, and Johnson had trouble vs. smaller men of lesser class.

Which really big and skilled heavyweight in his prime that wasn't chinny did Johnson of Dempsey ever beat? That would be zero. I guess you could say Louis beat Buddy Bear ( Who floored him ) and Abe Simon but these two were not very skilled.

Back to Jeffries, why do you only to blame for not fighting name black fighters? The truth beat some good ones on the way up, and returned past is prime to fight the best with his lineal title on the line, old and inactive.

Which Black opponent did Dempsey ever fight for his title? How about zero.

Johnson only fought one to defended his lineal title, and he was lucky to draw with Jim Battling Johnson, who had a journeyman like record.

And Joe Louis had 26 title defenses. Only two were black men, one had a vision problem, the other likely beat him the first time ( Flooring him twice ), and floored him in the re-match.

Rich, you need to learn and think a bit. So far I have not seen it. What I do see are bias and double standards. I hope you change.

 

Which fighters ,[ apart from Johnson and we know how that turned out,] did Jeffries face who were over200lbs?


NB Johnson fought Battling Jim Johnson with a broken arm and it was a draw. A few months later Battling Jim also drew with Sam Langford.Langford had two good arms in that fight! Two months afterhis draw with Langford Battling Johnsn drew with Jeannette who,like Langford was not under the handicap of a broken arm as Jack Johnson had been.
"A sportswriter from the Indianapolis Star at the fight reported that the crowd became unruly when it was apparent that neither boxer was putting up a fight.

Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion, and Battling Jim Johnson, another colored pugilist, of Galveston, Texas, met in a 10-round contest here tonight, which ended in a draw. The spectators loudly protested throughout that the men were not fighting, and demanded their money back. Many of them left the hall. The organizers of the fight explained the fiasco by asserting that Jack Johnson's left arm was broken in the third round. There is no confirmation of a report that Jack Johnson had been stabbed and no evidence at the ringside of such an accident. During the first three rounds he was obviously playing with his opponent. After that it was observed that he was only using his right hand. When the fight was over he complained that his arm had been injured. Doctors who made an examination, certified to a slight fracture of the radius of the left arm. The general opinion is that his arm was injured in a wrestling match early in the week, and that a blow tonight caused the fracture of the bone."
"Because of the draw, Jack Johnson kept his championship. After the fight, he explained that his left arm was injured in the third round and he could not use it."

If Battling Jim was a journeyman as you say, what would that make Langford and Jeannette since they drew with him?lol
Jeffries fought one big and skilled man, Jack Johnson and he still had a 19lbs weight advantage over him.and Johnson tore him a new arsehole!



You're a fine one to talk about "bias and double standards," I must say!
The most bigoted, biased, and plain hate- filled poster this Forum has seen in the 12 years I have been here!

 

Jeffries did not fight one middleweight (as in under 160 pounds) not one. Show your sources.

 

You will doubtless be aware that many exhibitions of the period were little more than short fights.

I would therefore suggest that a fighter engaging in exhibitions, is not necessarily the same thing as a completely inactive fighter.

 

Mendoza I am not flabbergasted as I have noticed you consistently ignore information given....but I am curious of your state of mind at times because your responses are crazy and your memory seems to fail you from what was posted to what you challenge.....you have gotten the answers over and over to your defensive points on him

Louis had more title defenses against the best heavyweights available that Jeff had fights....All three fought considerably longer careers with no less than 3-4 x the fights.....your use of the names of the time as proof of how great Jeff was but refuse to acknowledge the sizes, state of their careers, ages, drunkedness, washed up, retired or any other relevant onfo

Do we really need to go over what happened when Jeff actually fought a good prime heavyweight in Johnson....Janitor stated that when a retired fighter is still doing exhibitions they aren't really retired....Jeffries had done this in fact most champions had done this Tyson still does exhibitions....Jack Johnson was fighting until the late 20's and doing exhibitions.

The problem with you guys is you refuse to recognize the difficulties for black fighters in that era...as a result elevate Jeff to unbeatable status.....recognition for greatness was not easily given, they lived under substandard circumstances, denied basic dignities, were called **** and ni%$er in most newspapers portrayed as chimps in pictorials, death threats for every success and you guys seem to think that boxing was different and black fighters were given their full due despite having a colored championship because they were denied fights for the white championship, lynched etc.....for every "discretion" in which a black fighter chose to display the same freedoms a white fighters had......and you two don't see the difference between Johnson, McVey etc....they were forced to fight each other so much that the fighter who figured out the others style first won a majority of the matchups....were rarely allowed to fight against the top white fighters to prove if they could but hey even playing field.....and poor old Jeffries had it rough...Jeffries was having a nervous breakdown representing whites against a fighter he could never have beaten imagine had he been black he would have never done anything but sharecrop because the stress of worrying about your family being lynched or being assassinated by whites for being too good and have little free choice....

 

Oh come on really?? At Fitz very peak where he was unbeatable he was under 160 after he moved up to a hefty 167? he started losing so it seems Jeff did fight a true middleweight and certainly not one at their best....he did allegedly begin fighting as a matured adult at 150.5 lbs....are you shittin me a natural middleweights is a natural middleweight and at his heaviest he did not hit the LtHeavyweight limit it is not uncommon for older fighters with money to no longer want to diet down to their best weight when they are successful at the next higher weight.....I suspect Fitz would never have jumped to heavy had their been a Ltheavy in his prime

 

Tyson still does exhibitions I doubt he warrants a title shot today

 

I think that Corbett would argue that he was entitled to a rematch based on his first showing against Jeffries, and that it was not his fault that the rematch kept getting pushed back.

First it was pushed back due to Jeffries taking a year out with his arm injury, then Ruhlin and Fitzsimmons effectively leapfrogged over him in the que.

Corbett put up a forfeit, and even threatened to claim the title, if Jeffries didn't rematch him!

Corbett had waited long enough, and I think that the public saw it that way as well.

I am getting a bit tired of repeating myself here.

Who Johnson had beaten going into the Jeffries Corbett rematch is irrelevant.

Jeffries could not have considered Johnson as a potential challenger, any time between when he signed the contract to fight Corbett in March of 1903, and when the fight took place in August of the same year.

Before the contract was signed, Johnson was not even the Colored Heavyweight Champion.

Realistically Jeffries options in early 1903 were either A. rematch Corbett, B. rematch Sharkey, or C fight Denver Ed Martin.

Had he taken options B or C, he would still have had Corbett's challenge hanging over his head.

I cannot see any scenario where he could have fought Johnson before 1904, even if he had wanted to!

 

He was an ex-boxer , who had been retired for 3 years, making a comeback. stop with the wriggling ,its embarrassing.

 

The politics were different back then.

When Corbett first arrived on the scene, boxing was illegal in many states, and boxing matches had to be billed as exhibitions for legal reasons.

By this stage of Corbett's career things had moved on, but exhibitions were still used to stay busy, and were sometimes more lucrative than actual fights.

Ultimately the reason Corbett got his rematch however, was because he gave Jeffries a very close fight first time round, and had not lost since then.

 

What you continue to deny reality and no one can help you with that !

 

Had not lost since ?He had only had one fight in the previous 3 years and many called that a fake! God Almighty you're becoming a joke!

 

The first generation of gloved fighters, often built their entire careers based on bouts billed as exhibitions for legal reasons.

Corbett came up through that culture, so why is it so far fetched to imaging that he did it later on?

 

There is nothing unusual, about a challenger getting a rematch based on a losing effort, where he took the champion to the brink of disaster.

It happens today, it happened then, it happened in every era between!