Tim Witherspoon vs James Jeffries

Well, at least Jeffries wouldn't be massively outsized.

However, Jeffries started boxing in 1895. The first gloved championship was held in 1892. Prior to that, LPR fights were bareknuckle, allowed throws etc. They were as different from MoQ fights as are kickboxing matches.

Gloved professional fighting having only been around a few years (prior to that, people only trained with gloves, not the same thing at all) how much knowledge do you think had been acquired on the best way to do it? I would think that the answer is: not very much compared to now.

Which is consistent with watching the fights of this time. By the 1940s, the skills have radically improved. I don't think that there is a huge difference in skills between the 1940s and today. But watching Joe Louis is a very different thing to watching Jack Johnson.

In general skills only increase. We have film of nearly every major fighter of last 100 years. If they were doing something we needed to do now, then people would do it.

Which isn't to say Jeffries wouldn't be successful if he grew up today and had today's training. The man was 225lbs and could run the 100 in even time (they say). But pluck him out of today and put him in with 1990 Witherspoon and he gets taken apart.

Take Witherspoon and put him under LPR rules against John L Sullivan and I would bet Sullivan. It's hard to beat a man at a game he's been doing his whole life when you've never done it before.

 

I guess that your pick here depends how much weight you place on the "evolution of the sport" argument.

If you place a high premium on success during Jeffries era, then you will give him the nod based on his resume, if perhaps with reservations.

If you are convinced of the inherent superiority of fighters from Witherspoon's era, than you will give it to him by default.

 

It could go either way. Witherspoon in his toughest fights tended to allow his better opponents back into the fight, and wasn't always in the best of shape so I'll go with Jeffries via decision.

 

It would be easy to belittle Jeffries' success and say something like "Witherspoon by Anders Eklund style decapitation." But the division was drastically different back then and Jeffries' opposition had little in common with the opposition Timmy faced 70 years later. And that is not entirely Jeffries' fault.

Straight out of time machine, I think Witherspoon wins in lopsided fashion. Give Jeffries some time to train and adapt, a few bouts with modern heavies... and then we have fight on our hands. As much as I don't really care for the guy, there is no denying Jeffries had some great fighting attributes and was game to the core.

 

I pick Jeffries, but my pick hangs upon the assumption that Jeffries was what I think he was.

I know exactly what Tim Witherspoon was, and I probably know just as well what Jack Sharkey was, but with Jeffries I am relying upon interpretation in many places.

 

Against whom was Jeffries applying this high level of pressure and what price did he often pay for the effort?

 

I picked Sharkey as an early example of a heavyweight who I think to be very well understood.

We know exactly what his suite of skills were, his strengths and weaknesses, and those of the fighters who he was demonstrating them against.

In Jeffries case we are often going on verbal descriptions, and very poor quality film, for both him and his opponents.

 

His chin was not proven against any good heavyweights it was tested against a middleweight whom if fighting today would dehydrate to 147/154 and a 183lb Sharkey who if fighting today is the size of Adonis Stevenson....the heavyweights were so weak in his era they were ruled by middleweights and ltheavyweights that were too powerful for the weak chinned heavies of the time......Witherspoon is way too big and powerful for the 6'(not 6'2") 225lb Jeffries who never fought a good heavyweight and the 1 time he did in Johnson he was manhandled by a man he outweighed by 20lbs.....Jeffries IMO must have lacked power when he could not KO the face first small Sharkey and was taken rounds by Fitz and the overrated Corbett and was getting his butt kicked.....lets not forget the biggest factor....Jeffries would not fight a black fighter who posed a threat he only fought them when they were washed up through alcohol and in bad condition all the way around even for those days.....Jeffries myth has grown because there is limited footage of him to examine and what little there is is not very impressive not to mention the racial bias of the time is intertwined with his superiority that lacks credible fights against the best black fighters of his time....he is simply the white superman that cannot be challenged because of the lack of footage.

 

You have definitely put 2+2 together and got 7 here.

No the myth of Jeffries has not grown, it has decidedly diminished.

In his prime, he arguably had the greatest aura of invincibility, that any champion has ever had.

For most of his title reign, there wasn't a black contender worthy of putting in the ring with him.

The same newspapers that condemned him for drawing the color line, did not give the best black contenders a chance against him.

The black contenders that he drew the color line against, still often regarded him as the GOAT.

The small men that he fought, continued to be rated among the greatest heavyweights, right up until the second world war.

2+2 = 4, or at most 5!