Does Jeffries belong in the top 30 of all time?

This is the last time I will say it.

Jeffries would have had to choose Johnson as a challenger before he signed the contract for the second Corbett fight, not the day before the fight itself!

 

Jeffries would not defend his title against Black challengers so he had no choice but to fight recycled ,coming out of retirement past prime challenges whom he had already beaten. There was zero demand for a second O Brien fight which you would know if you ever did any research! Ive covered the Battling Johnson fight already.

Johnson signed to fight Langford and McVey inAustralia the defences to be promoted by H D McIntosh the purse was $45,000 plus 4 round trip tickets and a % of the movie rights. McIntosh withdrew his offer when Johnson jumped bail.
Johnson twice signed to fight Jeannette in NY for the McMahon brothers the purse to be $30,000 The NYSAC pulled the plug on both defences All this is a matter of public record, diligently and thoroughly documented and researched with verified newspaper accounts and letters in Adam Pollack's biography of Johnson. I don't need notes to make you look the buffoon you are ,in fact I don't even need to post, you do a damn good job of it on your own!

 

I am going to throw a wild thought out here guys.

Perhaps it is Denver Ed Martin, and not Johnson who really got shafted?

When he won the Colored title, it was a lightly regarded title, that he won from a lightly regarded incumbent, and he built it up into something relevant.

Nobody cared whether Jeffries fought his predecessors, but there were very loud calls for Jeffries to face him.

His period of relevance, also fell squarely inside Jeffries title reign.

 

Why did he have to fight Corbett again in the first place? Why couldn't he have fought Johnson and ignored the way past it Corbett's attempts to get his pension plan off the ground?

 

Both Martin and McVey had promoters offering Jeffries a guaranteed purse.

 

Charles "Kid" McCoy New York, NY KO 5 -It seems certain that McCoy faked the knockout loss to win bets.Taken fromCyberZone

 

Even if you don't think that he should have fought Corbett, you must understand that he was committed to that fight, once he had signed the contract.

They signed in March, for a fight in June, later pushed forward to August.

That is why the timeline doesn't add up, for Jeffries to fight Johnson in 03.

 

I understand this.

Martin was certainly a potential challenger, though it is hard to see where he would have fitted in.

McVea was probably kicked too far down the road, after he lost to Johnson.

 

I am 50/50 on whether this fight was on the level or not.

You could devote a thread to it.

Either way, Jeffries as the champion, probably had to assume that it was on the level.

 

The motive for it being fixed would have been two fold a betting coup and a platform for Corbett to make a challenge to Jeffries.
Corbett's own wife said it was fixed for Corbett to win, so did McCoy's wife,both marriages were in trouble so they may have had ulterior motives for saying so.However, both women went into considerable financial detail about how the money was distributed .The fight was to have been filmed but it was a failure and a re-enactment was made by that well known con man Ernst Lubin who, like he did with the Fitzsimmons v Choynski fight ,passed it off as the real fight .

 

I honest to god think he does this on purpose like trying to corner air

 

Well one difference is there was not a huge weight disparity and Tyson was a legitimate modern sized heavyweight where Corbett had been on a losing streak then retired Tyson had not but Corbett apparently was washed up and knew it was time to retire he was relevant anymore Tyson knew he wasn't relevant and took the payday.....he came back obviously for the money but ducking Johnson or any other black top fighter for Corbett because the first fight years earlier had been good is no excuse for an opponent with name recognition? to duck fighters that were legitimate contenders forced to fight each other to stay active over and over and over...no wonder Johnson punished Jeffries he knew Jeffries was scared of getting beat up by him in front of his own racist supporters....I think they selected Corbett and Fitz again to protect the limited Jeffries from the top black fighters...these fighters were not great gym fighters who sucked in front of the audience like Armstrong or poor old washed up drunk Hank Griffin whom even other fighters said should never have gotten into a ring in his condition....Jesus Mendoza bitches about Ali and Holmes because of Ali's known condition but think nothing of Griffins condition......

 

Whole chapter's of books have been devoted to the question of whether this fight is on the level.

We will never know at the end of the day.

The usual custom with a fight of this nature (lots of smoke but no fire), is that it is treated as if it were on the level, even if people suspect that it is not.

The fighter who is suspected of taking the dive, faces the full consequences of the loss.

The fighter who benefits from the alleged dive, at the very least retains their position, and possibly advances as if the win were legitimate.

Jeffries would have concluded that McCoy was out of the picture either way, but that Corbett was still breathing down his neck.

 

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Yes.