Old School boxers have left few videos of very poor quality. Their knowledge is based primarily on written sources and this requires the intervention of boxing historians who analyze them, not unlike how historians do for other topics and themes, from politics to economics, from military history to religious history etc. What are the best books on James Jeffries in your opinion? I'll mention three for now: -Ultimate Tough Guy: The Life and Times of James J. Jeffries, by Jim Carney; -In the ring with James Jeffries, by Adam Pollack; -A Man Among Men, by Kelly Richard Nicholson. Three valid authors, in my opinion, with three different approaches to the figure of Jeffries. All three, however, rate him very high, I think. Opinions?
Pollack’s book is like an encyclopedia on Jeff’s career prior to 1905, it might be the greatest boxing book I’ve read with regard to the sheer amount of info on it.
All of @apollack ’s books are like the university textbook of any fighter there written on. I don’t see any biases / amateur poetic nonsense just the facts. They're brilliant and highly educational hey @apollack do you have this bit of trivia in your collection? Jimmy Doyle was once trained simultaneously by Jack Johnson and James J Jeffers's… been saving that for you smart folks…see if I can teach you something for once
Early on in California? I’m certain it was some fights before Robinson but it might’ve been publicity before the bout? I barely remember it was quite early on in his career. If Arcel taught Larry a bunch about jabbing in one afternoon think of all two HW champions could teach a young fighter eh? I believe they spent a camp with him, if I’m not mistaken, I could be mistaken but I definitely read it in a Ray Robinson bio.
Pollack's book is levels and levels above the rest .. it is far more than encyclopedic .. it has tons of coverage from newspaper and first hand accounts from Jeffries start to the Munroe fight .... it makes the others read like young fiction for grade school kids.
As several have already stated, Adam’s book on Jeffries is without peer. Definitive. You might also be interested in this series of articles, as told to a writer by Jeff himself. The articles were published in 1935. Excellent read imo. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3586.htm
Well, you never know your luck in a big city..…I just did a search and came up with a free online version of Two Fisted Jeff published 1929 (link below). Can’t vouch for it but I’ll knock it over soon. https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll21/id/2675
My pleasure Champ. Our interests are common so it’s good to share what we can, especially when it comes to the old timers where the information is that much more limited, as you have already highlighted.
