George Foreman ‘73 vs. James J. Jeffries ‘03

I’ve got the books to check but while I’m not sure, there might’ve been pre-existing issues between Brady and Ryan going into the fight - and certainly the conviction was there to ultimately boot him - but as I said, Corbett was already in fact ripe for the picking.

No disrespect to you but it often seems to be overly apologetic on Jeffries behalf to explain away this, that and the other for him.

It still also remains that Corbett was old, extremely inactive and conceding some 37 lbs to Jeff - with no contextual proof of his quality as at the time otherwise EXCEPT for his performance relative to that of Jeffries.

 

I never put words in your mouth, I asked a question.

If Frazier was past his prime at 29, then Fitzsimmons and Corbett at 36 and 39 shouldn't even be rated for Jeff and they are terrible opponents by your logic. That leaves Sharkey as the only decent opponent he faced and we've already established he was a tiny slugger with mediocre skill.

You cannot refute any of my points, you just keep saying "nope". All you do is hype up Jeff and his accomplishments while downplaying Foreman, it's the most generic debating style in history. You claimed prior to the Frazier fight, all Foreman did was swing wildly and that was a LIE and I proved it was a lie with multiple fights I posted. You obviously didn't watch them and you didn't respond to the skillful things he did in those matches.

Jeff factually had less power, less durability, worse skill, and worse competition. This fight would be a massacre, kind of like how our debate went.

 

It's eerily similar to how Rocky fans rate Walcott as this amazing h2h fighter when they fought despite his age and very long grueling career.

Or how Joshua fans used to rate old Wladmir highly to make Joshua look good.

The most baffling thing about this thread is that Frazier is being criticized as an opponent for Foreman despite being 29, undefeated, etc, but the 39 year old, inactive, 30+ lbs lighter Corbett is a solid win for Jeff. I just don't get the crazy double standards with some boxing fans.

 

You did. You claimed that I said Frazier was old which I didn't.
I qualified my statement on Frazier by explaining the fact that he had health issues after FOTC (which everyone knows) and if you take the trouble to look at the fights he had immediately afterwards you would see that Frazier wasn't the same, anybody who was capable of analyzing a fight could see it clear as day - Foreman himself said that he didn't fight Frazier at his best. This is like the 3rd time I'm saying this. Frazier was still a good fighter and his being past his best doesn't diminish Foreman's achievement but the fact is the fact.
They may not have been at their peak but they were still good. Fitzsimmons went on to win the LHW title at 42.
There are many fighters who fought well into older ages: Walcott, Moore, Jack Britton, Dick Tiger and many others. Frazier just happened to not be one of them. Are you saying its impossible for fighters to be quality at 35+?
Mentioning Foreman's tendency to swing wildly does not eclipse the things he did well. You seem to think that pointing out a flaw in the way someone fights is the same as attacking them and putting them down.
Foreman by anybody's standards was a limited fighter but you seem to think that he's some kind of technical genius.
You haven't even backed up anything you claimed about Jeff. The only source you provided was an article written in 2023 which summarizes the brawl with Sharkey, you still haven't answered my question: What contemporary account refers to Jeffries as purely a caveman?
Almost everything you said about Jeffries was baseless. You just piggybacked off the points of Pugguy and the old man.
You seem to have the memory of a goldfish. I acknowledged the video you put up said that Foreman did certain things well.
Like I said, you can disagree with what I say without lying or purposefully misrepresenting my points.

Jeff factually had less power, less durability, worse skill, and worse competition. This fight would be a massacre, kind of like how our debate went.
Fair enough. You're entitled to that opinion

 

Didn't criticize Frazier. Stop lying.

 

Wtf, this is one of the biggest lies I've read in this entire forum. I hadn't even been reading most of their posts and was primarily writing my own criteria on how I thought this fight would go.

As for Frazier, for the 5th time since you apparently have reading comprehension issues: if you want to criticize Foreman's resume for fighting a "past his prime Frazier", Jeff's ENTIRE career needs to be thrown in the trash. His two best opponents (Fitzsimmons and Corbett) were nearly a decade older than Frazier, had been in many wars, were inactive, and most crucially: they were about 30 lbs lighter than Jeff. You really should stop trying to criticize Foreman's resume because you look really stupid right now if Jeff's resume is the one you're comparing it to.

This is exactly what I mean. Not only are you a liar, even after I explicitly show where you got something wrong you just keep repeating yourself. Me saying Jeff fought mostly light heavyweight sized fighters isn't "baseless", it's a ****ing historical fact you can look up in 10 seconds. Me saying Jeff got hit a lot isn't baseless, that is also verifiable by reading reports about his fights. Me saying Jeff's power and even his chin are questionable because he has hardly any KOs over men over 200 lbs and fought hardly any 200 pound fighters and this, again, is something you can verify with 10 seconds of research.

So you claiming "almost everything I said about Jeff was baseless" is a LIE unless you think the historical FACTS I cited are inaccurate!

You didn't even admit you were wrong claiming Foreman just "swung wildly" prior to his Frazier bout, it was a flat out LIE. But you have the gall to get mad if you feel I misquoted you. You're an absolute clown. If you cannot even concede on these points then I will simply ignore you.

 

Agreed. I def. see the usual integrated metrics for determination of performance quality (being age, inactivity and ranking -including virtual ranking) being divorced from the equation here in order to inflate Jeffries achievements.

A white boys club with 2 particularly smaller and ancient members somehow posting wondrous performances against El Radar Jeffries - meanwhile, during 02/03 (and 04) Jeffries could’ve been facing the more eligible likes of Johnson.

Instead, Big Jeff turned back in on his already established resume to fight guys that he had already beaten - and still copped an even worse hiding from old Fitz second time around - until old Bob gassed.

Frazier was a busy fighter - however he fought only once in 71 - BUT in that year he give up his whole being to deliver us the true FOTC - between the # 1 and # 2 top rated and undefeated fighters.

1972 wasn’t so challenging but Joe still made two defences at least before facing up to another undefeated and highly threatening challenger in Forman.

As at the time when he first faced Foreman, no, Joe was not at his best but Joe was still the goods (he certainly wasn’t late 30s and grossly inactive) - and when the smoke cleared on Joe’s career there was still NO ONE who even came close to doing what Foreman did to poor Joe.

Foreman was more technically adept or at least “applied” earlier in his career - but the KOs came so easily (much easier than Jeffries’ did), George fixated on his power and ending fights early - which worked for him over a number of fights for a long period.

The very few rounds Foreman had fought over the previous 2-3 years going into Zaire told the story on what a monster he was.

Still, even as late as the Norton fight, George still showed off some very nice skills and boxing savvy. He was no glutton for punishment and he didn’t wait inordinate periods of time to see his man off.

Basically, if George could hit you - George was gonna knock you out - bar none.

Now George would obviously find Jeffries easy to hit - as did so many others.

Therefore, the only way to reason Jeff out of an early to mid round KO loss is to unreasonably “up” the quality of Jeff’s defence.

After their rematch, Fitz gave up on Jeffries not because Jeff was some a “wil ‘o the wisp” - not at all. Fitz’ hit Jeff plenty often and hard enough - his primary lament was that he couldn’t sufficiently hurt Jeffries even when freely landing his very best punches.

Foreman would most definitely find and hurt Big Jeff - and Jeff would likely not be scrambling to rematch George any time soon.

I mean Jeff might’ve “sometimes” made a move that didn’t render him a sitting duck and perhaps a move that might even have been considered “evasive” - but the reaction to same might’ve been akin to the relative WOW factor of George Chuvalo actually employing a jab against Ali in their rematch - but George still got copped lots of punches to the head from an Ali who was much lesser version of himself as compared to their first fight.

 

Glass, I really only have one serious issue with your post that I’ve quoted here.

WHY haven’t you been reading my posts?

The pearls of wisdom that I’ve imparted are priceless.

The posts in question still stand...so it’s never too late. Kidding bro -

 

Ryan had the wrong strategy,after 16 rds Brady climbed up on the ring apron and told Ryan to take a hike.Brady said to Jeffries ,"stop trying to box this guy you are losing this fight ,you need to ko him to keep your title."When Jeffries gave exhibitions with Fitz Bob told him to," lose the crouch,you are giving away your height" .

 

Frazier was far from finished after FOTC he gave his attention to "singing" with his band,but his rematch with Quarry proved he still had some," smoke".Foreman detractors like to say Joe was washed up so they can diminish Foreman but,Frazier put up a hell of a fight in Manila.
Jeffries said the hardest single punch he ever took was from 167lbsJoe Choynski, who was 52lbs lighter than Jeffries , you have to wonder what his reaction would have been when George started unloading on him?

 

Foreman did swing wildly. All the commentators of the time said that. Just because he swung wildly at times doesn't mean he didn't do other things well. All you have to do is watch Foreman's fights
The question still stands: what sportswriter from 1903 referred to Jeffries as a caveman? Why are you ducking the question?
Frazier was past his prime. He wasn't 'finished' but he had seen better days.
Saying that Jeff got hit a lot as a policy is wrong. Sure there may be 2 or 3 fights were he did but there are reports of him boxing well and defending himself appropriately.
I said 'almost' everything you posted was baseless (pay attention to the word almost). I didn't argue with you saying Fitz and Corbett were sub-200 lbs. That's a matter of record. When did I argue that they weren't lighter?
Try not to overexaggerate everything I say. And try not to draw baseless conclusions.

 

He'd probably do the same thing Tex Cobb did:

"Hey, you're a white guy, do something about this!" To the ref in the Holmes fight.

 

The thing is, these Jeff defenders are basically going to have to die on the hill that they think Jeff was more elusive and had better defense than Frazier if they think he's going to last long enough to make his advantage in stamina count down the stretch.

I apologize, I didn't want to make it seem like you never have anything interesting to say. That wasn't what I meant lol.

You provide very great and detailed analysis looking at the fighters record, their habits, the matchup, etc. I skimmed a few of yours and McVey's but hadn't looked over every single post because you were tied up with Melankomas and Homicide (who I was also engaging with). The reason is because I try not to double team or get involved when two people are having an intense lengthy discussion in a thread if I'm already engaged in one myself. It's a weird sense of good sportsmanship on my part. Once I'm done with my sideline debate, I then go back and look over the entire thread to see if I can throw in my 2 cents. I hope that makes sense.

 

Glass - I want to be 100% clear that was a joke and I also know that you were dealing with a ridiculous assertion levelled at you when posting your due and on point reply.

I wouldn’t expect anyone to read/and or like my stuff - if they do, nice, but if they don’t then that’s fine too.

Time doesn’t permit us to always read every post in a thread anyway. Sometimes I catch up fully later on and plug in my “likes” as and when I see fit - or even reply to something I missed.

It’s obvious that you didn’t copy or jump onto anything Mc and I had to say BUT an interesting phenomena, at least for me, is later reading a thread all the way through and sometimes spotting a post that preceded mine - and that post stated exactly, almost word for word, what I later said - so it might look I copied or addended to the earlier post.

Of course I hadn’t read or copied the prior post - but you know, sometimes people obviously share common ground on knowledge, apply similar common sense and make similar conclusions after analysing the info - without needing to have read each other or exchanged on the subject prior to.

Imagine posting 1+1=2 and then someone comes along and states “Huh, you’re only claiming that to be true because you’re simply copying/addending to a poster who already made the same claim before you on this thread” - you’d be like, WTF?

The obvious answer to such a wayward accusation is, quite simply, that great minds think alike.

A quick funny on that theme - we weren’t home at the time, but my teenage son was going out and my sister in law who was there and who had similarly aged son naturally said “Don’t forget your house keys” - teenagers being famous for forgetting such simple things.

My son replied “Did Mum and Dad tell you say that to me, because that’s what they always tell me too?”.

Common sense isn’t yet so common among the younger set - yes, we were all in the same boat at the same age.

Totally agree on avoiding pile ups - also, usually the two primary debaters are the only ones who have throughly read each other’s posts.

Basically, all the posters I respect and enjoy are more than well equipped to take care of business all own their own - it comes with their overall prowess.

But I’ll admit, sometimes it’s hard and perhaps not always possible NOT to jump in yourself when you read reputable and courteous members having to deal with chronically obnoxious posters.

 

Maybe Jim Jeffries’ real style were the friends we made along the way