Top 10 ATG White Heavyweights

Marciano fought the 4 best black heavyweights of his era, all are HOF ATGs Joe Louis, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, and Jersey Joe Walcott. He also fought other Black Journeyman like Tiger Ted Lowry, Eldrige Eatman, Keene Simmons, Big Bill Wilson, etc. Rocky did not take on some of the younger top black contenders of his era talented foes like henry, valdez, baker, and walls which can draw minor criticism.....but none of those fighters proved they were better than the old black fighters rocky beat. Rocky did not draw the color line.

 

Yes. Although I would have liked to see him take on Denver Ed Martin in 1903, after Martin was PROMISED a gauranteed title shot to the winner of Fitz-Jeffries rematch after defeaing Bob Arsmtrong for colored heavyweight title. Also, a Jeffries vs Childs matchup would have been a good one.

 

Boilermaker... Tommy Burns ran into one of 'the greatest of all time', in your estimation, being Jack Johnson..... Jeffries was only 2 years older than Johnson... yet avoided him like yanks avoided equality in the day!

Pity ol' Jim never had the showdown with Johnson earlier. The USA banner would have been further eposed in falsehoods, racism, manipulism, pretence and clumbsiness.

Jeffries Ko'd Peter Jackon when PJ was a fkn old man, 37 y/o. And you praise Jefferies for that???

As terrible as the Johnson/Jeffries beating was in 1910, its showed a simililar outcome to what would have transpired. Thankfully this belting is on tape.

I guess having retired, for the sake of avoiding an earlier belting from Johnson makes Jeffries a real hero. Get serious mate.

As far as genuine Champion Qualities, Tommy shits on Jefferies.

 

When was this promise? In July 02, Denver Ed Martin had a win against Armstrong. This was in England. Jeffries however was in California at the time. Is this when you are talking about?

Later, in December 02, Armstrong and Denver fought a no decision, but according to Cyberboxing zone, Martin was knocked down 5 times in the fourth round of a 6 round fight. It is hard to see how Jeffries could justify fighting someone who was knocked down 5 times by someone he had already himself kod.

What is worse for Denver Ed Smith, is that in 1903, he lost in 20 rounds to Jack Johnson, was knocked out in 3 by Armstrong and then knocked out in 1 by McVey. I cant see how this win would have been worth anything to jeffries legacy at this time. Incidentally, there is a report floating around that credits Jeffries with a win against Denver Ed Smith and Childs, so he may have actually fought and beat both of these guys. Either way, while i agree that it would have been good if Jeffries had fought these guys and Johnson and maybe others, there are always fights that can be made with hindsight, the reality is that noone gave any of those guys much of a chance against Jeffries.

 

Burns himself said Jeffries was the greatest. So did Johnson, and most of the other top fighters of the day by the way. I suppose you think they were all wrong?

Burns over Jeffries? No one of the times said that, and very few today would say that. The 1910 Jeffries vs Johnson fight means little in a pure boxing sense. An older in-active champ who has not fought in years takes on a younger active champ still in his prime. Its a time tested story with a familiar ending.

However, unlike Jeffries vs Jackson which was a blow out, this one went 15 rounds. If you are honest about Johnson's ring results when Jeffries was champion from 1899-1905, Johnson would be hard pressed to win. Do you really think Jeffries losses to the likes or Choynski, or Griffin? Or looses and looks bad vs Marvin hart? Or takes Munroe the distance as Johnson did? Or Everett the distance as Johnson did? Or gets Ko'd by Klondike? Come on now. Johnson became better around 1907-1908, but while Jeffries was champion he was most certainly erratic, and at times lack luster.

If you want to look Johnson's title defenses as champion, they are mediocre. Fight reports say O'Brien was the better by a shade, and Jim Johnson was ROBBED in his title fight with Jack. Chalk up at least one loss here. I suppose getting floored by a middle weight, barely edging a mere contender in Frank Moran, taking a weak challenger in Ross the distance, and winning a foul fested fight vs Flynn are accomplishments? Not really, they are signs that Johnson himself was not as domiant as a heavyweight champion should be.

In additon, it is clear as day that Johnson skirted the best contenders while he was champion in Langford, Jeanette and McVey. What if Ali skirted Frazier, Foreman and Norton? Would his legacy suffer? Surely. yet Johnson seems to get a pass. Why is this?

Johnson did mix it once with a live contender when he was champion in Gunboat Smith. Smith was white, but he was hardly a " hope ". Indeed Smith floored Johnson, had him badly dazed, and Johnson's manager stopped the fight in the 3rd round of a 4 round exhibition match. So says the NY Times.

Finally Johnson's claim that he took a dive was shamefull. Willard, clealry hurt him before the KO blow, and took him out with a flush shot.

 

"There's a report floating around.."

There was fantastic evidence of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" also.. not so long ago!!

Sadly, the tail went between the legs in DISGRACE, and the reports become VERY embarrassingly worded as '....weapons of mass murder"

Dont ya love the US media manipulation/dictatorship of world events/attitudes. It has not changed in 150 years.

 

Flamego,

Regarding WMD's, there is no doubt Hussien had them. He used gas and chemicals on the Kurds ( and killed tens of thousands ), and Iran. Those are WMD's. Because these WMD's are not found today is not proof that they did not exist.

The nation of Iraq is a giant sand box the size of Texas. Good luck finding something burried in non-metallic containers or something that might have been dumped into the sea. To illustrate my poinnt, The Titanic itself was lost at sea for decades, and it was the size of a football field! My point is some things are hard to find in present day, but this does not mean they never happened or did not exist. Back to boxing...

 

Mendoza.. I was making a couple of points.

Burns had the will (via great financial inducement) to fight Johnson... Jeffries would not, until being dragged off his fat arse to do so.

Tommy wasn't that BADLY beaten up either.. he went to hospital for some observations, and went to the horse races at Randwick afterwards.

As for the TITANIC and WoMD.... Colin Powell even defaecated in the face of the Yanks.. admitting there was NO.. NO..NO.. "INTELLIGEANCE LEGITIMIING THE ACCUSATIONS".. peace bro.


Saddam was a nutter... almost as bad as the BUSH ****s.

 

Much easier to prove yourself "best of an era" when you get to fight Trevor Berbick, Frank Bruno, and a freshly-thawed Larry Holmes instead of Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis, and, well, Mike Tyson.

Holyfield exposed Tyson every time the two men were in the ring together. No amount of post-hoc hand-waving is going to put that toothpaste back in the tube.

 

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!"

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkU4t2dUEwk[/YT]

 

Love your handywork as always sir Evil....

 

Oh Magoo, you've done it again!

 

Ridiculous comment. There are thousands of threads, but to save some time, how about you suggest exactly when you think that Johnson earned a shot at jeffries.

Was it before Jeffries won the world Title in June 1899? Maybe the 7 rd draw or the win on fouls against Jim Mccormick. McCormick was he the same guy that lasted 2 of the 4 rounds with the great John L. Even if it is a different guy, boxrec shows he seems to have been kod an awful lot by every good fighter he faced, although he did once upset Denver Ed Martin, so maybe he was better than many people think?

Or was it when Jeffries won the title. Maybe the 4th round loss to Kondike John Haynes or the Draw with Pat Smith should have earned him a championship shot.

Perhaps it wa in February 1901 when Johnson was KOd in 3 rounds by Choynski. Choynski had at least scraped a controversial draw against Jeffries earlier in his career, although he was coming off a 2nd round loss to Jeffries victim Sharkey and a 7th round loss to Barbados Joe Walcott! the year before. Sadly, Choynski would go on to lose to Kid Carter in the first round. Surely this is what had Jeffries ducking for cover?

Still Choynski taught johnson how to fight didnt he? So maybe it was from this point on that Jeffries ducked him. So when did Johnson earn the title shot now. Was it the performances against former Jeffries victim Hank Griffin? Griffin did last 14 rounds with Jeffries, you know, although it was possibly on Jeffries Professional debut! I am sure it was the 3 draws and a loss to Griffin that took us up to 1902. Surely Jeffries ducked Johnson by fighting Fitzsimmons. I mean after all, Fitzsimmons had only knocked out the only man to go the distance twice with Jeffries, in 2 rounds and who by my count had knocked out his 5 opponents since losing his world title to Jeffries in a total of just 12 rounds! It would have been much quicker but former world title challenger Gus ruhlin lasted about 6 rounds. I am sure he saw this as a much easier fight!

Johnson did have his chance after 1902. He started to string together his wins and did culminate in winning the coloured championship in February 1903. This is the start of a great run. Jeffries had run out of challengers at this time, and in August 03 when he disposed of yet another former world champion, who had excelled when they last met, it would appear destiny that Jeffries, who had cleaned the division, would take one last fight. Either the best of the white challengers - Marvin Hart or the best of the Coloured Challengers - Jack Johnson. Interestingly, these Men were matched and it seemed that the winner would ahve deserved a shot against Jeffries who had run out of opponents and had to fight the miner Monroe, because Munroe managed to run a publicity campain. Johnson was starting to emerge as the best challenger around. And Jeffries according to press was drumming up publicity by saying he would never defend against a coloured man, so the scene was set for Jeffries to take the fight or duck Johnson. Unfortunately, Johnson blew his chance by losing to Hart, so it couldnt be this time, when Jeffries retired.

So tell me, to save time, when was this alleged ducking?

I agree that with hindsight, it would have been awesom if Johnson had beaten Hart and Jeffries had defended against Jackson. Not sure though what the result would be. I am certain that there would have been one (and maybe more) great fights.

Peter Jackson's career virtually finished in 1893. Corbett blatantly ducked him and his scheduled fights with all the top challengers fell through. Still, he did consistently fight exhibitions and stay in shape in the hope that he would get his world title shot. And he was the Coloured champion as there were no logical challengers good enough to lay claim to his crown at thsi stage. I agree that Jackson was nothing like the fighter he used to be by the time he fought Jeffries, but neither was John L, Jeffries himself, Louis etc when they were all KOd in their final fights. Jackson wasnt just beaten, he was KOd and KOd in 3 rnds. No one had done that since Bill Farnan in 1884. INcidentally, while Jackson did lose his next fight to Jim Jeffords, he did apparently finish his career with a 15 round draw with Billy Warren. This win doesnt count against jackson, but jeffries did win the title. No other coloured fighter was able to take the coloured crown away from Jackson.

Well, with far worse preparation, he certainly did a lot better than Peter Jackson did against Jeffries. You maybe correct about a prime Johnson/Jeffries match, but there is no doubt that Jeffries was a lot better than Hart who beat Johnson and obviously Griffin, Choynski etc. The reality is that when Johnson hit his prime, Jeffries had retired.

do you mean Johnson or Hart?

Tommy did have champion qualities. Unfortunately, he wasnt as good as Jeffries and wasnt as good as JOhnson or many other fighters. Jeffries certainly gave Johnson a harder fight than Tommy did. So how is it that you think that burns deserves a higher rating than Jeffries?

 

Politics aside there were WMD's in Iraq. Powel knows this, and so did the rest of the world. In fact Powel testified to the United Nation about Iraq's WMD's. There is a huge oil ( $$$$ ) linked interest in Iraq, and many nations want favorable contracts here which meant keeping Hussien and his goons in power. Boxing like Politics is often about money.

Jeffries was about the money, and one of the reasons he retired was lack of money to be made in the boxing game. When big money was put up, Jeffries returned, just like when Burns received a chance at his biggest career payday, he took it to meet Johnson.

If Jeffries was offered 1910 money to fight Johnson, he might have taken the pay day. Fighters often say one thing, then do something else if it makes fiscal sense in their favor. Jeffries did share the ring as champion with black fighters.

If Johnson had beaten Hart, there would have been even more interest in the fight.

But back to the thread, I hereby nominate the following seven white fighters for a list yet to be named.

Butter Bean
Josh Cobb
P Cooperman
Chuck Wepner
Joe Savage - Kudos for those who know who he is.
C. Grimsley
Whimpy Halsted ( Spelling )

 

LOL And the Romans were in England for 500 years. so the English have some of that blood...Hanibal was African but was a blond haired blue eyed Greek..Dempsey and Louis had Cherokee blood and Ali's grandfather was Northern Irish, I think Louis had some Irish also....Baer was German and Scotch and his grandfather was jewish...I think...anyway the world is a smaller place then we think...Dempsey was jewish...thats interesting...Joe Choniski was a Jew and a bit of Baer....