Dempsey vs james j jeffries

I think he was being kind.

 

Dempsey would have killed him as easy as he did Willard

 

I disagree Jeffries was a tough MF and a prime version would not fold early for anyone.
However ,Jeffries said the reason Sharkey gave him fits in their two fights was because he was on him constantly and never gave him time to regroup. Dempsey was much quicker than Sharkey, bigger, more polished,harder to hit ,and hit harder ,he would be on Jeffries from the get go.I would expect Jack to beat Jeffries by late tko because of facial damage ,or by convincing decision but it would be no walk in the park.imo.

 

Dempsey might well have believed it, because he was weaned on Jeffries legends.

We however were not.

We also have a much clearer picture of what Dempsey was, than we have of what Jeffries was.

In order to beat Dempsey, Jeffries would have to either outbodux him, or break him down first.

Given our not so clear picture of Jeffries style and precise capabilities, he might have been able to beat Dempsey, but it would probably be more prudent to predict that he would not have done.

 

This would be a war but I think Dempsey gets the far better of it.

 

That's basically my take on this dream fight.

Jeffries was a very strong, big guy and he was no doubt a lot better athlete and fighter than Willard so I believe it would have taken Dempsey longer to wear him down but Dempsey's speed and power should enable him to cut Jeffries to ribbons n stop him around say round 10.

My one proviso is what is the actual distance for the fight ?

If it was say a 20 rounder then Jeffries chances MAY go up a bit

Cheers All.

 

Dempsey was a particularly humble fighter, especially Post retirement. I pick Dempsey in that fight.

Jeffries was highly regarded in his era for fighting from a crouch. Notice few if any fighters do that anymore, because it’s not great technique. It does give a fighter a bit of a power boost when he is able to explode from that crouch to throw hooks. But it otherwise makes the fighter slow and stationary.

Dempsey was one of the earliest fighters to use good head movement effectively. And he had plenty of power to not have to rely on fighting from a crouch.

Jeffries was certainly durable. 8th round TKO Dempsey.

 

Possibly....I think that given how badly Fitz beat up Jeff before getting caught I can't see a more dynamic Dempsey not stopping him early......I think back to how hard Jack Johnson tried to hurt Willard he actually made an effort to hurt and stop him which was not his normal style compared to how hard he had to work at not stopping Jeffries earlier than he did...compared to what Dempsey was able to do to Willard......comparitive results with a playful Johnson vs Jeff and an aggressive version vs Willard IMO showed the differences in chin resistance between Willard and Jeffries vs a common opponent.....we do agree as do insiders and honest witnesses even Jeff's friends that Johnson extended the Jeff fight on purpose.

It is IMO Jeff's chin reputation is built off small, old and drunken fighters with bad technique and shoddy ring generalship. When Jeff finally fought a high quality 200+ lb fighter in Johnson yes he had been retired but he had sparred with the best sparring partners Whit America could muster and he could barely handle Johnson's power and it seemed Ruhlin hurt him and we know Fitz did. But the same power with bad intentions by Johnson hitting a fairly defenseless Willard had barely made a dent....Jeff vs Johnson vs Willard vs Dempsey is the link analysis I am thinking.

 

I think that this is unlikely, and probably irrelevant as well.

The only other fighter that Johnson stopped in a title fight, was the middleweight Stanley Ketchell

 

I would say that this is a horrendous link analysis.

You are taking a prime Johnson's results against a shot Jeffries, and comparing them to a shot Johnson's results against a prime Willard.

 

Why would that be irrelevant if Jeff can't handle Johnson's power according to Jeff's own friends, corner, ref, corner, Johnson carried him after the first 3-4 rounds and played with "Mr Jeffries" how could he have handled Dempsey's? No matter how many sensational self promoting stories Jeff and pro white writers wrote Jeff never beat up Johnson but Johnson did beat up Jeff rather easily.....poor old saint Jeff he didn't get to fight old, retired, small or drunken fighters he had to fight a prime fighter nearly his size poor Jeffy

 

You need to get over your irrational hatred of Jeffries, and start learning about the era, instead of just reading Boxrec.

Johnson fought an uncharacteristically aggressive fight against Jeffries, because he knew that he could not depend upon the judges.

Look at the rest of his record, there is nothing to suggest that he was likely to be holding back here.

Even in the unlikely event that you are right, it would have minimal relevance, because Jeffries was little more than a shell at this point.

If you are going to criticize Jeffries for fighting inactive fighters, then you can hardly fail to see the same quality in him prior to this fight, and downgrade the win accordingly.

 

We don’t have a ton of great footage of Jeffries so we have to rely a lot on written accounts of his style, but we do have some footage. I’ve embedded an incredible piece of historical footage of his second fight with Sharkey. It’s only a snippet, but we get to see some of Jeffries style.

This was to be one of the first fights ever truly filmed (other previous fights filmed had real elements, but were essentially staged for the cameras). It was indoors and so to film it they needed powerful lights. You can see the insanely low and bright lights in the film. You also see the corners desperately trying to cool the men down between rounds. The wattage was sooo powerful that the heat they produced was miserably hot and actually burnt the fighters’ hairs. So hot that it burnt the film in the cameras so the fight couldn’t be filmed. So how do we have film of the fight?

Incredibly, a fan snuck in a camera! In a cigar box!!! I’ve always wanted to see this camera, because my understanding was that cameras of the day were big and clunky! Not cigar box portable.

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Anyway, Jeffries is the taller fighter. From the film you can see Sharkey uses an 80/20 stance allowing him to dart in and out. He appears the faster of the two. Jeffries tends to hunch forward and even carries weight over his front leg. He is slow and plodding but is constantly walking Sharkey down and in close exchanges he does his best work. He wraps Sharkey up and leans his weight on his opponent and lands heavy uppercuts on the inside.

We don’t have a context of what rounds we’re watching, but Jeffries wins a 20rd decision. Based on what I’m seeing in this video, my guess would be that Sharkey out pointed Jeffries in the early rounds, but was exhausted and worn down by the 9th-10th round at which point Jeffries ploddin, but relentless march forward became his advantage.

 

His previous career was in an era where he could get away with following in straight lines and his left hand down to his side against small, old, drunken, washed up or retired fighters

Well my friend this comes from over 40 years of reading, watching, training, fighting, reffing, fighters and studying period articles.....not just boxrec.

Again with you pro saint Jeff crowd it seems Jeff is unbeatable even though Corbett does not get the same pass for coming out of retirement to fight Jeff but Jeff gets credit.....Jeff trains for over a year to lose 100lbs and declared himself in the best shape of his life....he had the best sparring partners white America could conjure and every champion before him was behind his efforts and he was bigger than Johnson he had the advantages.....Johnson was known to carry fighters and play in the ring doing just enough to win or humiliate a fighter.....he did this with Jeffries as well........with all those close to the fight admitting Jeff could have been stopped anytime Johnson wanted to end it.....we have been over this in many debates

Jeff did not ever beat 1 person in his career of the caliber of either a Johnson or a Dempsey....he never proved he could handle a prime heavyweights power because he simply fought one real heavyweight as champion in Ruhlin who had been wrecked by an old balding middleweight for all intensive purposes in Fitz.....I will lay off bashing Jeffries when their is an equilibrium achieved with his career compared to other fighters.....as it sits now he is a mythical status fighter