James Jeffries training clips and more

The best that you can do with a man like Jeffries, is rebuild him one brick at a time.

If you can constrain him on one aspect, such as strength or hand speed, then you have narrowed the argument a bit.

 

Training clips of Jeffries are of him sparring with his brother Jack for the second Ruhlin fight
There is not one single frame of film of Jeffries boxing in an actual fight that even remotely resembles his training clips .

 

I presume that the training clips, could only reflect what happened in the real physical universe.

I am not asking anybody to accept that Jeffries was the GOAT, based on these clips, or based on my newspaper articles, but they do narrow him down somewhat!

 

Training clips reveal nothing imo , anyone can look good when they know they are in no danger of being punished for leaving an opening. They have as much relevance to real fighting as shoe shining on the pads.
For example this is Jack Johnson training.
ttps://[url]www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8TnX-tlfVc[/url].

And its at the right speed!

Now find one clip of Johnson fighting where he resembles that footage?

 

Nice copies of the footage. Wonder what he weighed there. He looks much closer to 205 than the bulkier version that fought Johnson. Footage of him is so limited anything is fun to see.

 

I've seen this clip a thousand times before. Am I supposed to be impressed?

 

If we had a full boxed set of Jeffries fights, in high definition, then I would probably advise you not to pay it too much attention.

Given that we have more limited evidence to work with, we might need to draw inferences from things that we wouldn't in a more recent fighter.

 

He has done this forever, he says stuff like “I have film or Sam Langford training” as if it’s not on YouTube and he has a collection and you’d know this since the dawn of the forum my elder poster. He’s a fraud.

 

Jeffries defence consisted of tucking his chin into his left shoulder,his left hand was held at waist height there is no head movement and his footwork in the only piece of film of him in an actual fight where he is going forward,[against Ruhlin,] is at the best measured .

Jeffries had his nose broken 3 times,he left boxing with ridges of scar tissue above and below both eyes and a cauliflower ear.That does not indicate a good defence especially when we consider how few fights he engaged in!
Fitzsimmons and Johnson were comparatively unmarked when their careers ended and they respectively fought into their late 40's and early 50s, each having loads more contests.
In the second Fitz fight against a man nearly 40,a man who had been retired for 2 years,Jeffries was hit at will by the older ,much smaller man.He finished the 8 rounds,cut over and under both eyes with his nose broken.
Jeffries was considered a mightily durable iron man.A man who could," take a licking,and keep on ticking".
You do not earn such a reputation from having a good defence,just as Chuvalo did not gain his iron chin rep from slipping punches!

imo . Jeffries vies with Marciano for the hyperbole and mythology that has attached itself to him.

The strongest man in the world?
Pulled his punches from fear of killing some one.
Broke the ribs of 3 opponents [actually one ,Sharkey.]

Jeffries rep rests almost entirely on outlasting older, or smaller opponents and ,in the case of his most famous foes Fitz and Corbett both.
Only one class man beaten by him was near his size , Ruhlin and his abilities were put into perspective when Fitzsimmons half killed him,before his 2nd fight with Jeffries.

For me Jeffries was a very tough man with decent ability for his day a good athlete a heavy puncher with a top chin.However his major wins ,[ apart from the 2nd Ruhlin bout,] were scored over smaller men.
Who should win ?
Jeffries 206 v Fitzsimmons 167, 36 years old inactive for 2 years ,12 years the older man.
Jeffries 215 v Sharkey 187 Sharkey 5 feet 8.5 tall
Jeffries 218 v Corbett 188 , 33 years old, inactive for 1.5years
Jeffries 210 v Sharkey 183
Jeffries219 v Fitzsimmons 172 ,39 years old, inactive for 2 years
Jeffries 220 v Corbett 190. 36 years old, inactive for 3 years .
Jeffries beat every White challenger who had any pretensions of being world class .
Its a shame the times and prevailing racial attitudes prevented the world from seeing him against the best Black fighters of his era. NB The 2nd Griffin fight during which Jeffries was champion was an EXHIBITION in which Jeffries undertook to stop Griffin inside4rds or forfeit $100.

[url]1901-09-17[/url] 220 180 [url]Hank Griffin[/url] 20 2 7
Hazard's Pavilion, Los Angeles
NC-ND
4/4
[url]event[/url] [url]bout [/url][url]score [/url][url]wiki[/url]
ref: [url]John Brink[/url]
Griffin went down from a push in the first round and was knocked down twice by clean punches in the second. From then on he was in survival mode to claim the $100 forfeit. One report, prior to the start of the bout, described Griffin looking like a "famine sufferer". Attendance: 5, 000.
Bottom line.James Jackson Jeffries never defended his title against a black man and he many times stated he had no intention of doing so,that he would," retire before taking a chance on losing his title to a man of color." And that is a direct quote.

Whatever the moral issues here, and he was no different to the 3 heavyweight champions that preceded him, Jeffries at least was entirely ,up front and frank about drawing the color line when he was champion. Now I feel this is well trodden ground, that will now benefit by being left fallow,so I'm out of further projections about Jeffries being a world class sprinter who fan 100yds faster than contemporary Olympians, tales of him running for miles with full grown deer on his shoulders,his hunting pals unable to keep up with him,Jeff tossing 500lb bales about as though they were candy floss and all the other ,what I frankly consider BS hero worship from white admirers of his era. Fairy tales that I don't think are worth being embroiled in and, frankly not worth getting banned for treating with a pinch of salt.

 

The boys are back in town !