Prime: Jim Jefferies .vs. Jack Johnson

or on the other hand jeffries could have said
"he looks too big and too black for me" and fought another middleweight

 

If we put Reno aside here is the closest thing we have to go on .... Jeffries twice flattened Corbett who in many ways was a prototype for Johnson .. Jeffries took the bombs of Fitz who was a far harder hitter than Johnson ... Johnson on the other hand could not dominate Marvin Hart, who was not as strong, as tough, as Jeffries ... Jack did not like to fight out of his pace .. I am starting to see a prime , 1900 version of Jeffries as simply being too strong, durable and tough for Johnson ...

 

Jeffries had Stanley Ketchel thrown out of his training camp by Farmer Burns ,the wrestler , because as he put it " you've been fooling around with that n****r".

 

A Bob Arum promotion.

A 25-Round Draw,,,,,,,,,,to set-up the re-match.
By the newspaper review, Johnson won the last 15 of the rounds.

 

First fight with Jeffries,Corbett was 33 years old, and had been retired for 3 years,he went into the 23rd round, and was in front at the time of the stoppage. Second fight he was nearly 37 and had been retired for two years, he went into the 10th.
Corbett scaled 188lbs for the first fight and 183lbs for the second.
Johnson's prime weight was 208lbs, so he would be 20lbs heavier than Corbett ,in his prime, and he was appreciably stronger , and more durable than Corbett, plus he hit quite a bit harder.
Why would he not do appreciably better than Corbett did in his first fight with Jeffries?

 

Johnson won the title at age 30. He weighted 192. That was his prime weight.

Corbett was a fitness fanatic and lived a far cleaner life than the heavy cigar smoking and hard drinking Johnson. He was in terrific shape for the Jefferies bout. IN fact thought he was not far ahead at the time of the stoppage .. that is myth ... Jeffries had come on strong and it was very close ... AS far as Johnson being durable I doubt it ... his chin was in fact his weak point as he was flattened multiole times and had his bell rung others ...

If you want to state facts, why was Jack Johnson, in his physical prime and in the biggest fight of his career unable to dominate Marvin Hart ? Maybe he deserved the nod but he also lacked the power to take him out and the stamina to trade in a fast paced bout with a pressure fighter ... if he could not handle Hart, imagine what a prime Jeffries would have done to him ?

 

I said Corbett was in front at the time of the stoppage ,do you wish to dispute this?

Johnson stated he was at his best physically when he fought Jeffries,for which his weight was 208lbs.

Have a look at photos of Johnson in the Jeffries fight,according to you he is 16lbs over his best weight ,do you see one ounce of surplus on him?

Since as late as 1906, Johnson only scaled 185lbs [against Langford], and he stated he was at his optimum weight of 208lbs in 1910.And Johnson fought Hart in 1905,I fail to see how he was in his prime when he fought Hart.

No man who has been retired for three years can be in his best shape,especially one such as Corbett who relied so much on his legs and reflexes ,not to mention judgement of distance.

I said Johnson was more durable than Corbett, which I believe he was.

Do you dispute this too?

Corbett met one puncher before he became champ, a novice Choynski.

He met a puncher in winning the title, but Sullivan was so dissipated and out of shape he could not effectively connect on the backpedalling Corbett.

Corbett met two punchers after this, one kod him with one body shot [Fitz], and the other had him ready to go [Sharkey ,] when Corbett's second entered the ring to save him from the imminent ko.

"He was flattened multiple times?" Was he?

He was stopped in 1899,and 1901,and not again till 1915 when he was 37.

The first stoppage was a body shot loss to Klondike.

The second was a left hook to the temple from Choynski.

The next was an overhand right, from a giant ,after 26rds in a fight in which he was leading on points.

Johnson was not stopped again until 1926 ,when he was 48 years old,not bad for a heavy cigar smoker ,who drank like a fish, and was not in top shape ,after his defeat of Jeffries ,16 years earlier.

He lacked the stamina?

He did not lack stamina when after 20 fast rounds with Sam Mcvey he knocked him out. Do you think Hart would beat McVey?

Johnson won over 20 rds 7 times, once when he was 36 years old against Moran.

He went 15rds with Bob Roper winning on points, he was 41 years old.

He went 26 rds with giant Willard in tropical heat,when he as 37,and was in front at the time of the stoppage.

Hart lost over 20rds to Tommy Burns ,Hart had 20lbs on Burns ,was that because Hart lacked stamina?

Those are facts.

 

Jeffries would undoubtedly have been favoured had the fight taken place and not just for reasons of racial predudice. By the time he retired, Jeffries was regarded as being almost unbeatable.

I tend to lean towards Jeffries simply because as champion he would have dictated the terms of the fight to be favourable to himself. Expect a 25 round limit, small ring and liberal rules on punching in the clinches.

 

-----

Reproducing my response, from another thread, to this assertion:

From the thread http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8413741#post8413741

Guilalah Post #133

Regarding the alleged post-Reno Jeffries quote: "I don't think I could have ever beat Johnson."

 

I agree with this. :good

 

Congratulations .. now please explain why he could not soundly defeat Marvin Hart in the most important bout of his career ? Perhaps you can now detail how great Marvin was , how he was a stern test of Johnson's all time greatness ?

 

Johnson anytime too much skill for Jeffries

 

Well,I will try .

Neither of us has seen the fight,so we go on what we have read.

I beleive Johnson should have got the verdict because he did most of the landing of clean punches.As I understand it ,Hart came on strong late in the fight ,but not enough to take the verdict.

Several prominent boxing men ,referees ,and writers said they thought Johnson deserved the verdict.

Johnson should have closed the show, but he seldom did ,being content to do just enough.In this case he paid dearly for it.

If he had knocked Hart out it he would still have been left out in the cold ,Jeffries would not have fought him, but his standing would have gone up imo.

It is interesting that there was no call for a Jeffries /Hart fight ,even after Hart's win over Johnson,writers still saw Johnson as the chief threat to Jeffries.

To summarise Johnson fought below his best ability and Hart fought the fight of his life.

Burns later defeat of Hart ,and his own, humiliating onesided thrashing by Johnson is a pertinent formline as to their respective abilities, imo.

Your somewhat sarcastic response is neutralised by the fact that you have offered no rebuttal of the facts I posted.
I therefore assume you tacitly accept them,which leads me to think I have won this particular verdict.:bbb

 

i know this is old comment..but i never knew you where just a troll....interesting...

 

Hey Bouch. I've often wondered how much of a "threat" he was considered to be at the time. The more I research it the more I see that Johnson really wasn't considered too much of a threat to Jeffries, who was considered almost invincible in some quarters. Maybe in comparison to the other potential contenders he could be considered the best bet, but that didn't appear to be much of a bet as Johnson wasn't exactly dazzling people with his performances.

I could be wrong, but from all I've read it appears that the ones who clamored most for a Johnson-Jeffries fight were the writers and sportsmen who wanted to see the ugly color line broken. Was Johnson merely a tool to be used to advance an honorable agenda? Again, I don't know. But it is definitely worth some thought.