For some reason reason, I am so interested on Jeff Sims. His fight with earnie shavers it's enough to make me rank one of my favourite fighters. He's skinny and lanky but he punches really hard. 21 wins 20 ko's. There's a lot of stories of jeff sims that i do not know if it's true or not. Can anyone help know if there was anybody was there during jeff sims debut or fights ? How was his debut ? How cool did he kayo his opponents ? Is it true that his fight with jimmy young was a disputed decision ? Did he went war with Young ? Was his 20 kayo's impressive ? Is it true that he dislocated trevor berbick's shoulder with one punch ? If my memory served me right, there was a story in which i heard that when he fought jose ribalta, they say there was the this punch that spun his head around. Was that also true ? I hope you can help me with this. I tried to rely on boxrec, but boxrec couldn't help me either.
The story I know of is that he had a big feud with journeyman heavyweight Tom Prater (fought Holmes and Cooney) who was the other main even heavyweight from the area that turned very personal and very ugly in the long buildup to their fight. After Sims, who was on the upswing, kayoed Prater in a tough battle, Prater retired altogether. Sims was a wild man personally and was shot reportedly on several occasions over either drugs or women. The famous story is that Renaldo Snipes wouldn't hang with him because he said Sims "attracts lead". I think he also fractured Ali's jaw in sparring too, maybe in training before the Holmes fiasco. Super hard puncher.
I remember Jeff Sims well. He first came to my attention when I read an article in either World or International Boxing that was titled, 'The second coming of Sonny Liston'. I did get a chance to see him live in the early '80s when he fought a trialhorse named Alf Coffin in Chicago. He made short work of Coffin in 2 rounds and his power was evident. However, I will admit it was not Sims that drew me to this card. It was these prospects from across the pond named Frank Bruno, Barry McGuigan and Lloyd Honeyghan that I was interested in seeing. It was a good showcase card, even Quick Tillis was on the card. I always remember the Tillis fight because I met Angelo Dundee after the fight and Dundee was piloting Tillis at the time. But not a lot more to elaborate on Sims, unfortunately.
Sims didn't fracture Ali's jaw. Ali was visiting gyms during the slow buildup to the Holmes fight. He went to one gym where Sims was training and got in the ring in his street clothes to goof around like Ali was prone to so. But Sims was borderline ******ed. Ali didn't have a mouthpiece and Sims punched Ali in the mouth as hard as he could trying to make a name for himself and Ali's exposed teeth and the punch resulted in Ali needing stitches over his upper lip. People were very mad at Sims over it because he was an idiot. So if you see footage of Ali in mid 1980 he usually has a mustache. That's because he couldn't shave due to the stitches. Then he kept it for a while and called himself Dark Gable (like Clark Gable). There are still some fights of Sims on YouTube. Bonecrusher destroyed him in a round. Witherspoon wiped him out. Tyrell Biggs suffered a cracked collarbone and still beat Sims easily with one arm. Sims wasn't really very good ever. And he didn't seem to be mentally there. Like he had brain damage of some sort. If you see any more interviews with him you will see what I mean. The highlight of his career was probably knocking down Shavers before losing to him. Ron Stander knocked down Shavers, too, but he actually beat Shavers. Just a kind of creepy guy whose one shining moment in a losing fight is still shared by boxing buffs. But he was pretty forgettable in the ring. This content is protected
I knew a guy who lived in Florida not far from Simms and saw him get into a fight where it took five cops to get him into a squad car. He broke Tyrell Bigg’s collar bone in the ring. Split Ali’s lip in sparring. Only fight I ever saw him in was against Tim Witherspoon but Simms was done by then and spoon easily kicked his ass
The story of the Shavers fight is it was on the undercard of Ali-Berbick (Muhammad’s last fight) in the Bahamas. Sims knocked Earnie down. Earnie allegedly said, ‘Ease up kid, we have to go 10 rounds. This is a big fight card and we have to fill time before the main event.’ Or some such. So a few rounds later Shavers opened up and took Sims out. After the fight, Sims supposedly said, ‘Hey, you said we were supposed to go 10 rounds and take it easy.’ And Earnie replied, ‘Welcome to the big time.’
I have an article somewhere where Shavers said he had a sleep in the dressing room leading up to the Sims fight and something happened, he wasn't woken when he should have been or something or other and reckons he was still waking up properly when he got dumped.
