"Jack better than I ever was"- Jeffries

I would agree with you .

 

I was not saying Johnson should be judged on the Willard fight but that Jeffries should not be judged on the Johnson fight either. Johnson had a style that suited longevity like most boxers or defensive wizards, they seem to last the longest. Thing is with jeffries he was almost in a Foreman like comeback but without tune-ups to fight the best losing 100lbs I would imagine he would do well vs a prime Johnson but possibly not enough to win. Some of Jeffries foes like Tom Sharkey were small but strong fighters. Its a shame but I have mixed emotions about the era. Nat Fliecher swore that Johnson and Jeffries were better than modern fighters but I think certain things got better with time and boxing was one of them but I think it peaked in the 40's and slagged in the late 70's and 80's and started to come on again with Tyson,Lewis,Holyfield,Bowe,Mercer and now the Klitschko's but that is just my opinion. Got to say I enjoyed a lot of fights in all the era's

 

Honestly, I think both Johnson and Jeffries are lacking.

 

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June 15, 1959
Black Hamlet Of The Heavyweights

BEGINNING the extraordinary story of Jack Johnson, the Negro fighter whose brilliant skill won for his race the first championship of the world, and for himself a life of spectacular excess and ultimate tragedy

Finis Farr



"

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himself may have come to accept the poisoned-tea theory in his old age, but what he said shortly after the fight had the ring of authenticity. 'I could never have whipped

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at my best,' he told a reporter on the train going back to

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. 'I couldn't have hit him. No, I couldn't have reached him in a thousand years.' "


http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1070624/3/index.htm


Geoffrey Ward's 'Unforgivable Blackness' cites this 1959 SI article as the source for the quote.
Finis Farr, the author of the article, doesn't cite the quote, or who the reporter was.
Jim Carney, in his recent book, 'Ultimate Tough Guy: The Life and Times of James J Jeffries', says he has not been able to find any source for the quote prior to 1957, but doesn't say what that '57 source was.

It would be a great coup if anyone could find an earlier reference.

Does anyone have this SI issue? I just wonder, was the text show in Ken Burns film an period newspaper, or was it a quote boxed aside for highlighting from a more recent periodical? He doesn't show anything other than the quote, so one necessarily wonders.

 

Jeffries himself may have come to accept the poisoned-tea theory in his old age, but what he said shortly after the fight had the ring of authenticity. "I could never have whipped Jack Johnson at my best," he told a reporter on the train going back to California. "I couldn't have hit him. No, I couldn't have reached him in a thousand years."

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1070624/index.htm

 

I agree with this. All one has to do is watch the 1901 and 1910 training clips and you see a world of difference in the training clips.

 

Jeffries accepted it earlier than his old age he went along with it in Hugh Fullerton's book" Two Fisted Jeff".