Jeffries: "I could never have whipped Jack Johnson at my best" Credible Quote?

But the guy 60lbs lighter than Jeffries that he drew with knocked Johnson out cold, when he was an old man:rofl

 

Did he have a source and time stamp? Otherwise it means nothing imo.

 

You know the facts, Boilertard. Johnson was both green as baby **** and nowhere near the size he filled out to in his prime. He most certainly didnt have anywhere close to 60lbs on him.

Bottomline line is that the 220lbs Jeffries competed well against, almost exclusively, middleweights, white middleweights, white north american middleweights.

Calling him a world champion is ridiculous. He was the champion of one race, in one country, of men half his size.

You people will call me a 'reverse racist' but i just do not understand how anyone could celebrate this man and what he represented.

 

That is exactly the problem with you.

Any value judgment you make about a fighter that clouds your assesment of them will diminish you as an analyst. I don't agree with a lot of the things that King Henry VIII did, but I will still give a dispasionate asesment of his strengths and weakneses as a monarch.

And your point about Jeffries claim to the title being diminished is pure nonsense. The best black heavyweights around when Jeffries won the title were:

George Byers (knocked out by welterweight Tommy West)

Bob Armstrong (beaten by Jeffries)

Frank Childs (beaten by Jeffries acording to some papaers)

There is absolutely no doubt that he was the best heavyweight on the planet when he won the title.

 

Choynski was 31 years old, he would go on fighting for another 3 years beating Maher,Childs and drawing with Hart. He was hardly an old man when he beat Johnson.Only a year older than Johnson was ,when Johnson won the title in fact.

 

Jeffries was just as green as Johnson when he fought Choynski, but the difference is that Choynski was further past his prime when he fought Johnson than he was when he fought Jeffries. Both are great results for Choynski in fights he probably expected to win. Maybe Choynski is a little underated today? I am not sure how many fighters in history could have come out with a win and draw against Johnson and Jeffries, regardless of their weights.

Completely wrong. He knocked out the reigning coloured champion, so technicaly he was the coloured champion. He knocked out Hank Griffin, who beat Jack Johnson, in his debut match. He beat heavyweights who weighed over the heavyweight limit and he beat the very best fighters that were available. In fact, he cleared out the entire division.

And when a decent sized black challenger emerged, he actually came out of retirement to face him. I have no idea why so many people prefer to see fighters fight big guys instead of good guys. Shouldnt the Klitchskos be copping flak for fighting small guys like Haye and Adamek instead of Valuev, by this logic.

Nice Try, but not only did he win the championship of both races, he toured Europe and beat the French champion. As well, there were no English capable of beating him. Of course the Australian Champion may have been a chance, but Mick Dooley had gotten a bit old by this time and was losing to guys he would have probalby beaten in his prime. You are barking up the wrong tree on this one, i am sorry.

I dont see why.

but, you should read Jeffries take on the Johnson situation, which i posted on one of the other threads, rather than going by popular opinion, or even media reports which are always sensationalised to sell fights.

 

Bull****. He blatantly ducked Johnson for several years during his reign. Claiming he wouldnt give a black man the opportunity to be the champion. Dempsey did this for an even longer period with Wills in his era.

The fact is that the era did not allow blacks equal opportunities on equal grounds to flourish in the sport of boxing at the time, which diminishes the entire era. Who knows how many would-be black boxers were never able to come up or even begin a career, given an equal chance to make it in the sport? In life in general, too.

Why is this a point? Because since the colour line was broken, blacks have utterly dominated the Heavyweight division in all eras up until the 90's.

 

I think the other difference is that Jeffries held a huge weight advantage over Choynski ,[63lbs ] whereas Johnson was not much heavier than Choynski himself, as has recently been discussed on here.

 

In other words, whites can't fight.

 

How do you blatantly duck someone who was Knocked out by choynski and beaten by Hart. If Jeffries ducked anyone it was Hart or Choynski, both of who beat Johnson, and one of whom actually drew with Jeffries. In those days, you didnt become considered the best fighters, by beating a series of lower ranked fighters. You had to beat the higher ranked fighters.

Look at Johnson's record. by the end of 1903, he had lost to Choynski, decisively (the hightest rated fighter he fought). And he also Lost to Griffin and couldnt defeat Griffin in several tries. The same Griffin who Jeffries had knocked out in his debut fight, as a teenager.

Then to make matters worse, after a excellent run, some of whom with hindsight were known to be brilliant, he fought and lost to Marvin Hart who was his first real top rated challenger.

Dont get me wrong, I am a huge Johnson fan, and with hindsight i wish the fight was made and it would have been the best fight available. But, it wasnt a blatant ducking.

This is not a fact at all. Blacks didnt get the cinderella Jimmy Braddock style title shots, that is true. But Jack Johnson managed to earn his title shot. Peter Jackson didnt get a title shot, but he did get his chance to fight Corbett and was considered the world champion by many. No others really were good enough and could actually beat the best white fighters of the time. That has more to do with them not getting a shot than the colour line. The main guys to suffer because of the colour line were Lanford, McVey and Jeanette and their problem would have been with Johnson. Also Wills had a minor problem as well, but it is not as bad as many state. It was really just a fallout in fight negotiations.

Yes, but they were not good enough to dominate at the time in question! The top black fighters did fight the top white fighters it is just that they didnt win as much as you seem to think they would. And nowadays, it is the former Soviet fighters who are dominant. Does this mean that we should draw a line through all previous eras where these fighters were not dominant.

 

The weight argument is a load of irrelevant rubbish, imo.

If Johnson was worried about his weight, he should have done more pushups and less running. Why should a fighter be given a higher ranking just because he puts on more weight?

I think it is safe to say that the jeffries who drew with Choynski starts a heavy favourite against the Johnson who was Ko d by Choynski. My whole problem is not with Johnson (as i am a huge fan) it is with the idea that Jeffries blatantly ducked Johnson. How do you duck a fighter who was Kod a couple of years ago by a fighter you beat, who couldnt beat the fighter you knocked out as a teenager on debut despite several tries, and who was outpointed recently by Marvin Hart. It just isnt possible.

In fact, i dare say that if Jeffries had fought and beat Johnson (and johnson retired on the spot), he would be ridiculed for taking the fight and ducking Hart or others.

 

Boucher was of course someone's alias who rhymes with Ovey.

You can't put a lot of stock on a quote based on what someone allegedly heard on a train. Who was the reporter? What paper did he work for? Is there any context to the article? Nope.

Its clear Jeffries said if he was younger he would have won. That is what we know.

 

To Janitor and Boilermaker, i think you are missing the general point i am trying to make....

What i am saying is that in general, in that time, blacks had less opportunity and potential to even begin to succeed, in anything. The not being able to fight for the title is just the icing on the cake. Right up until the civil rights movement the playing field was not level. Yet still before that, blacks had dominated the Heavyweight division since the colour line was broken. And after that they certainly dominated.

Only recently, in this era now, the playing field has changed, as the white eastern europeans are now poorer than the blacks, pehaps. Though they are still up there. White America isn't.

BUT in Jeffries era, the scale was almost vertical. And that diminishes the era greatly.