Dempsey vs james j jeffries

Can you explain the relevance of this post to my question to Rich?
You think Jeffries was still the champion after being retired for 5 years? You have just emphatically answered the question I posed Rich!

 

Jeffries retired in May 1905! He had already been guaranteed big purses to defend against both Martin and McVey, instead he chose to fight no hoper Jack Munro .

 

You're suck a jack ass. At times I wonder if you trying to pull legs with what you wrote.

If you look hard you see people quote Dempsey below 187 for that fight.

+1

Fitz was 36, not 37. Stop lies, and learn how math works, please!

+2

Dempsey was floored by lesser men, fool. Ko'd in 1 by Flynn, and floored by lesser hitters. FACTS. Jeffries likely fought better punchers in Choynski a guy you think was the era's hardest hitter, Fitz, and Sharkey. Fulton lasted 18 seconds, and Willard who was hit I guess over 99 times on film before being stopped didn't land much. He was a rusty bi-pedal punching bag in that match. Inactive and 37 years old. None of these guys " big guys " tested Dempsey's chin!

What's a full fledged heavyweight in that time? Dempsey was under 190 for the most part.

Jeffries last fight was in 1904.

 

Why do you say Dempsey only fought one black fighter?
The Ogden Standard reported: "The main bout of the evening lasted 'quick,' Jack Dempsey, champion light-heavyweight of Utah, defeating the 'Boston Bear Cat' by the knockout route in the third minute of fighting. A hard blow on the point of the negro's chin did the work for Dempsey, the 'Bear Cat' taking the count of nine, then groggily getting to his feet, only to be put down again for keeps by his watchful opponent. The quick finish was somewhat of a surprise, as the negro appeared to be a strong and finely developed athlete, a trifle heavier, too, than Dempsey!


"His first Nevada fight was April 26, 1915, at an arena built at the corner of Third and Plaza streets in downtown Reno in which he defeated Anamas Campbell via a third-round knockout and caught the attention of an unnamed sportswriter for the Reno Evening Gazette, who described him this way: "Dempsey showed great cleverness and aggressiveness and has a punch with either hand that makes him a dangerous opponent".
That's two more black fighters he fought and beat!

 

Why do I have to either accept everything that Fleischer wrote, or dismiss everything that he wrote?

Presumably I can agree with some of his positions and disagree with others?

One thing that I will say for Fleischer, is that he was irreproachable on the matter of the color line.

He backed the top black fighters of the era to the hilt.

 

Yeah lol no doubt sometimes Jeffries fanboys like Mendoza makes me feel like I would get farther trying to put my head through the great Wall.... when it comes the world of superheros like Jeff he goes loco....

 

I do feel that you are making a bit of a value judgment here.

The fact that Jeffries was a racist, and even the fact that he drew the colour line in principle, are not relevant to his historical standing.

You can be a wicked man, and still be a great champion.

One historian said "It is not even worth asking whether the crusades were a good thing or a bad thing from a historical standpoint".

Jeffries legacy is less tarnished by his failure to fight the top black contenders, than those of Johnson and Dempsey are, on the simple arithmetic that there were no particularly outstanding black contenders for most of his title run!

 

Fleischer wasn't old enough to have seen some the fighters he says are the greatest except maybe on film but certainly long after their best days were gone.....but let's say he saw film of every top fighter even the best preserved film of the era is not good enough to really assess. The Dempsey Willard fight was a very good film preserved and even as grainy as it is the film is still good enough to show the difference in fluidity and well....talent.

The style in which Fleischer wrote in is meant to have flattering flowery sensational descriptions of fighters and it is clear he was biased. I am on a iPhone but when I get back to my computer I will post some counter opinions from newspapers writers who also were at the fights and negative opinions on Jeff with decent explanations from eyewitness impressions....Fleischer style of narrating fights was similar to Bert Sugars style of emotion driven mythical exxagerations

 

I don't agree with a lot of things that Fleischer wrote.

What you personally should take away from this, is that Fleischer was the staunchest defender of the black fighters of the era, but he continued to rate Jeffries up to the 1970s!

 

Don't change the nature of the discussion we like always have to bring levity back to Jeff's career......I find his record to be questionable when discussing ATG matchups.....I mean who in their right mind believes bring Corbett out of retirement twice and pulling Ditz out of retirement for a rematch or taking the leftovers of Ruhlin who btw had beaten Sharkey who himself was stopped by Fitz......I mean c'mon his record is way overrated....I got it Fitz was the champion when Jeffries challenged that was unavoidable the rest of his defenses he clearly avoided the negro world champ and contenders as well....I understand he had no say over the racial politics of the time but a study of his record says a few things #1 he had no real challengers #2 instead of reinforcing white supremacy over the top black fighters his people did not believe he could it with certainty so they drew the color line just like Sullivan and Corbett before him but another reason why Fitz was the best of the bunch was he would have fought anyone deserving.....he was small, old, understrength and underpowered for a true modern sized heavyweight but without losing to Jeffries he rules until Johnson, Langford or a McVey cones along and Jeffries never comes close to the title again.

 

Of course he rated Jeff til the 70's...how many black fighters were in Fleischer top 10 heavyweights? What was Louis ranked by ole Nat??? When we can look at the white fighters in the era as benefitting from bias and the racism of society of the time when the best black fighters were denied and fought under much harder circumstances then we can be realistic about greatness in head to head matchups

 

Fleischer produced a number of lists, but the one common factor was that Jack Johnson was always at #1.

He went to his grave insisting that Johnson was the GOAT.

 

I don't know of any fighter who was in the ring with both Fitz and Dempsey, especially a Fitz who wasn't very old. Ringside observers are about the only ones who could give any kind of opinion.

"could put anyone out with the right punch"

I think this is the bottom line when comparing obviously savage punchers. It comes down to something like debating off eyesight whether which one of two hit baseballs traveled farther when both flew 480 to 490 feet. The fences in no baseball park could hold either so each is going to be a home run.

Baseball brings to mind a guy of my youth, Mickey Mantle, who was ordinary sized even for his era, less than 6' tall and about 185 lbs. He was the only man to hit the facade above the third deck at the old Yankee Stadium and did it twice. He hit the ball over the roof at Tiger Stadium three times. He hit the ball over the roof at Comiskey Park. He was the only major league player ever to hit the ball over the left field bleachers at Griffith Stadium. All kinds of major league baseball players have been bigger, but few match such distances. So, for boxing, is the possibly few pounds Dempsey has on Fitz necessarily decisive? Who knows? But power performance in sports is not a simple height and weight thing.

 

Before Jack Johnson emerged as a contender, which was relatively late in Jeffries title reign, Fitz, Sharkey, Ruhlin and Corbett were the best challengers available.

If not them then who?

When Jack Johnson won the heavyweight title, the Colored Heavyweight Title was held by George Byers.

Byers want just incapable of beating the best white heavyweights around, he was seemingly incapable of beating the best white welterweights around.

If you think that I am wrong, then draw up an alternative list of opponents for Jeffries.

The one rule I will make, is that every fight must fall upon the date of an actual fight, in order to make it realistic.

 

"how many black heavyweights were in Fleischer's top 10 heavyweights?"

Three. Johnson at #1. Louis at #6. Langford at #7.

He also rated Joe Walcott the #1 welter. Joe Gans the #1 lightweight. George Dixon the #1 feather.

My observation is trying to pin a racist tag on Fleischer actually devalues your input on this thread.

"realistic about greatness in head to head matchups"

I fail to see what all this concentration on bias has to do with a Dempsey-Jeff thread when Dempsey drew the color line as champion also and actually didn't fight black fighters nearly of the stature of those Jeff fought.