James Jeffries vs Deontay Wilder

Congratulations. There's always a last person to the cross the finish line.

 

Not by the standards of the era they weren't.

Fighters used exhibitions to stay active back then.

 

I am genuinely baffled that people are so vehemently defending Wilder's resume!

 

I'm baffled there are people out there who believe Wilder isn't a hard puncher when it's pretty much the only thing he has going for him. It's not as if he's got this far thanks to his silky boxing skills.

 

I'm sure you are. You didn't seem to realize for a couple days that Ring Magazine didn't exist during Jeffries reign all while insisting we go by Ring ratings when comparing Wilder and Jeffries opponents ... and you just realized Wilder is better than Cleveland Williams.

People defend Wilder because they trust what they see with their own eyes, based on decades watching boxing.

People defend Jeffries because they believe everything they read, even when what they see with their own eyes doesn't remotely support the 'hyperbolic" articles and stories they've read.

 

By these lines you trust in your eyes and respect Wilder for his Stiverne wins.And these wins proves Wilder's
greatness.
Sorry but i can't worship you.

 

Let's apply that to basketball and see if your logic works.

Is it more impressive for team A to beat some old defending champions whose average player is 38 and 6'2 vs team B who defeats a bunch of teams who aren't the best of the best, but they did make the playoffs and the average players are 28 and 6'8? Team A wins the championship and team B makes it to the conference finals and falls just short.

From an athletic stand point, team B is more impressive. If all you care about is "results" and rankings you will say team A.

So back to boxing, Bob Fitzsimmons was technically the best available guy in the era for Jeff to beat since he was the champion. He was also 12 years older and 50 lbs lighter than Jeff and had been inactive 2 years.

Stiverne was 20 lbs heavier and a WBC champion. Wilder was the #1 contender and the WBC champion is the best opponent available, a guy who only had 1 loss I might add and wasnt out of the ring for 2 years like Fitzsimmons.

Again I ask why is wilder the bad guy in this conversation? He is outweighed by dozens of opponents and, apparently, has "poor skill" so he is being outmatched in that department too. But Jeff was CONSTANTLY the bigger, younger man with advantages in strength and endurance facing inactive older men.

The fact that some of those older shopworn men were the best available not only points to a weak era, but also puts an asterisk* on Jeff's record since he enjoyed so many advantages. Imagine if prime 6'8 250 pound Lebron was competing with a team full of inactive injury prone old players like Shaquille O Neil and Derek Fisher. Would anybody be calling LeBron and all time great? And would they be comparing his record to a smaller player like, say Isaiah Thomas who did in fact compete with much bigger guys??? No of course not.

So how on Earth can you logically conclude that Jeff is better in the h2h sense or by resume? If inactive old Andre Ward sized fighters went life and death with a prime Jeff, what makes you think he'd have success with Ortiz or Fury?

 

I have no idea what you just said. But it made me laugh.

 

A better way of looking at it, is would you give somebody more credit for beating Thomas Adamek, or Audley Harrison?

 

I understand perfectly well that Ring Magazine rankings started in 1924.

You might notice that I quote them regularly.

In this case I used them to demonstrate that Wilder's opposition were not elite challengers for the most part.

 

What exactly am I meant to be seeing?

He is clearly no slickster, and he is clearly not stopping the best or brightest of the division!

What I see is profoundly ambiguous!

 

I'm STILL waiting for those people to enlighten me on which boxers in history won a championship with no skills and who weren't hard punchers.

 

What? First, you're comparing people from the same era.

That's not what we're doing.

Guys like Jim Corbett and Tyson Fury aren't remotely in the same era or ballpark as fighters.

Corbett had 11 wins. Fury has 30 and his career isn't over. There's a 90 pound difference between the two.

Wilder and Jeffries were basically the same weights their whole careers. Wilder has been fighting guys far heavier than him. Jeffries NEVER fought anyone heavyweight than him. He feasted on fighters 20 and 30 or 40 pounds lighter than him.

If you want to compare historical names and Wilder opponents today, Canelo weighed in the 170s when he fought Kovalev. Breazeale weighed 250 when Wilder stretched him.

If Wilder knocked out Canelo in one round (who is considered among the best in the sport right now) would you consider that a better win than knocking out Breazeale in a round?

On the contrary, Wilder would be SHAMED for fighting Canelo in the first place. Knocking him out in a round would be considered a black eye on boxing for having even been staged.

And Canelo isn't nearing his 40s and coming off layoffs, like Jeffries' "name" guys were.

The fact that someone like Canelo would be a top heavyweight in Jeffries days shows how freaking SPARE the division was back then of anything remotely resembling competition.

On the other hand, NOBODY Jeffries beat would be a top heavyweight today. Forget heavyweights, most of them wouldn't even be cruiserweights (more like Light heavyweights with, in Corbett's case, 10 wins).

You can say Jeffries beat who was there, but the guys who were there were freaking the size of today's middles (who dry out for weigh ins and then add 15 pounds before the bell).

And Jeffries was huge compared to them. Wilder isn't huge compared to anyone he's been defending against. He has always given up weight them. Often a lot.