Rare footage of 55 year old Jeffries training and sparring with his prodigy Al Morro, 1930

This was filmed in 1930, making Jeffries roughly 55 years old here. You can see a lot of Jeff's defensive habits in the footage like his constantly active right hand with regard to parrying and blocking, at the same time trying to work with his left as well to counter. You can see a lot of the same tactics used to catch-and-counter in the Gus Ruhlin footage.

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I mainly shared what I found interesting from the footage, click here for the entire clip;

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You can see the mistakes in Jeffries’ defensive techniques, too much weight on the back leg, using the hands too much when defending rather than the feet which could allow an opponent to feint and throw according to your parrying, parrying is a good tool especially if an opponent is overcommitting, you can parry rather than using your feet so you’re still in range and time them, but to rely on patting your opponents punches away can land you in serious trouble for the reasons above.

 

He sure was a touchy old coot. Couldn't keep his mitts of the strapping, tanned son of Italy. Creepy.

 

I am sorry but that is frankly ridiculous.

It is dangerous to draw conclusions based on a sparring session.

This is not even a sparring session, it is an elderly former champion, delivering a lesson on technique.

The only thing worth focusing on, is the advice that Jeffries is giving.

 

I believe, even in playful scenarios like this, fighters will use the same technique they use, just obviously taking it less seriously, and I can see also that the other guy is indeed well schooled and is making less mistakes than Jeffries, most likely because he’s had more fighters to learn from since a few boxing generations had passed from Jeffries to that guy. He’s got better balance, much better technique and better combinations.

 

I wouldn’t call that a mistake in his defense, Jeffries is very quick to parry and bring his right hand back to guard position after doing so, hand-fighting is pretty integral to many martial arts and you see it quite often in MMA and at times even in later boxing eras. Louis does a lot of similar work with his rear hand when it comes to parrying, as does Langford in the Jeannette fight. He’s also very quick to counter, and when he misses the parry he has good instincts lightly slipping the punch.

You’re right about Jeff’s emphasis on weight into his rear foot immobilizing him though, which further shows that why Jeffries was so poor at chasing his opponent compared to when they brought the fight to him. A lot of fight descriptions describe Jeffries as going backward even against fighters he outweighed tremendously, seems like the guy just wasn’t very good at fighting forward.

 

Great footage and post !

 

Nice, I love watching old timers, how they tall and behave.

I have seen real Joe Walcott talking, Jack Johnson, Langford, Benny Leonard, Mickey Walker and now Jeffries which is nice to hear.

 

Seriously it gives off Diddy's interview next to 14 year old Justin Bieber type of vibes lol

 

How many times have you drawn conclusions from Jeffries training clips with his brother?

 

Lord he was playing Devon, it’s not an exhibition of anything but good will, nothing to see here he’s 55.

 

We have to take into account Jeffries training footage with his brother, if only because the footage of his actual fights is so limited.

It might show us something that is missing from the limited fight footage.

Even so, such conclusions woudl carry a heavy health warning, which you have never hesitated to deliver.

 

Thanks for posting this, I love these old films of fighters

 

55?

He looks 70