Well you've got one race entirely ducking another race for several decades. Call me a reverse racist, but blacks have been pretty dominant in the higher weightclasses throughout time. I mean even in times when they were **** on, Langford was apparently the best. And after him Jack Johnson was the greatest HW and toyed with the two best whiteys of the time. Then after that apparently Wills was for a long time the 2nd best but was never allowed to prove he was the best, which makes him the best imo. It cannot be ignored no matter how much of a taboo subject it is and how threatened and defensive old whitey gets discussing it. Its pointless talking to fans when it comes to old vs modern, but when you go as far back as Jeffries, too much is made of the poor quality film it is clear to see it isnt boxing as it became(vastly superior and global)
He dispatches NOONE brutally. The guy has a glass chin and Jeffries would walk thru his shots and beat the crap out of him by the 5th rd.
Its hard to say really. There is enough fog surrounding Jeffries that we cannot interpret him with the level of acuracy that we can with Jack Dempsey for example.
Even though he went life and death with a succession of caveman midgets? Wlad has had a level of absolute dominance over the past 6 years largely versus giant sized heavies, not over fighting gob's or emaciated old cornishmen.
These caveman midgets were better than some of the guys who have stopped Wlad. At least theyt were elite for their day.
Seriously, I like Wlad here. Modern rules, it´s Wlad. Jeffries may take some punishment, Jeffries may even have the upperhand in the clinches but most of the time Wlad would keep him on the end of the jab. Jeffries had a great chin and I see it going the distance with Wlad winning a very wide UD. I don´t rule out Jeffries catching him though. The same fighters under Jeff´s rule and Jeff stops him somewhere between round 15 and 20.
Jeffries power is quite hard to judge. Some contemporary observers thought it was nothing special and others thought he could flatten a horse.
Janitor the impression I have gotten from reading about Jeffries was that he wasn't that much of a puncher, more a 'wear you down' kinda fighter, rather than a one shot puncher. I tend to think sources citing him as a big puncher or a huge puncher tend to be the sensationalist claims that go along with the Heavyweight Champion.
Not trying to rain on your parade ,but we are comparing the fighters as they actually were ,not as they might be with the added advantage of modern nutrition,training etc . So we have Jeffries in whatever year you think was his best ,versus the same for his modern counterpart,Wlad.