Fighters wrong and right predicting Reno and why ...

There was/is a lot of mining in Nevada "The Silver State" which leads to all kinds of nastiness, especially back in the olden days. I've never heard that explanation, tho.

 

Might be worth looking more into if someone hasn't.

I wonder if anyone has looked at historical mercury pollution levels
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2004/jun/28/nevada-mines-release-most-mercury/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14738199

 

It's easy to say that with hindsight but obviously at the time Jim Jeffries carried an aura of invincibility that even 5 year out of the ring could hardly diminish.

 

apparently yes in fish......due to strip mining in 1800s and later......fairly common from what I understand.....but Jeffries had very similar symptons to mercury poisoning

 

Gans was an aging man at this point. I’d imagine he had a much better grasp on what fighting past your prime was like.

Not saying that it wasn’t an anti Johnson agenda being pushed by Langford and Jeanette, but I think the point I made might have played a strong part in there decision

 

I've seen similarly poor predictions from so-called experts (fighters and former fighters) in modern times.
I saw several commentators predict Mike Tyson would emphatically beat Lennox Lewis, for example.
I remember Sugar Ray Leonard (40 years old, 6 years off) was actually a slight favourite to beat Hector Camacho (34 year old, active) too.

Jeffries had never been beaten. It wasn't so outrageous to expect him to win, at the time.

Like I said, it's easy with hindsight for us to see Jeffries had no chance. But at the time, a lot of knowledgeable boxing people probably genuinely calculated him to win.

Of course, we can always doubt any boxing 'expert' is being honest in their prediction of just giving the press something or selling the fight for the promoter, or thinking of how popular a certain statement makes them. We can always do that.

I'm just saying that at the time plenty of people here with knowledge would probably find picking a winner a lot harder without the 110 years of hindsight.

 

I will give you one example that springs to mind.

When Vitally Klitschko fought Danny Williams, roughly half of the pundits picked Williams, because he had just beaten Mike Tyson!

Such was Tyson's aura at the time.

 

Langford admitted later in life that his resentment of Johnson had played a role in his pick.

 

The Bridgeport evening farmer., August 05, 1910, Page 7, Image 7
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...ining&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=2