Dempsey vs james j jeffries

"Jeff quit when the top black fighters were becoming undeniable"

He actually retired right after Marvin Hart defeated Johnson. Hart would have been the logical contender for his next defense, so if facing a black contender was the reason for him retiring, he had a path to stick around for a while.

I think the reason Jeff retired in 1905 is that he had gotten married and his wife wanted him to retire, and a bride does have influence on a guy.

"His opponents were small, drunk, washed up, retired, or sub standard (Ruhlin)."

That wasn't how the folks at the time thought about it. In 1950, Nat Fleischer in the September issue received this query in his question and answer section:

"In The Ring Record Book we find that Jeffries, as you stated in your interesting series on his life, fought more top men than any of his successors or predecessors. Among these were such great fighters as Joe Choynski, Gus Ruhlin, Joe Goddard, Peter Jackson, Bob Armstrong, Bob Fitzsimmons, and Jim Corbett--a truly great list. What is your opinion about Jeff?"

Answer--"I always placed Jeff in second place. He was a great fighter and his record shows it."

My question for you is why were these fellows so wrong. There was certainly no reason to pick Jeffries out as facing better opposition than let's say, Dempsey or Tunney. But they seemed to. Total number of fights is far less important than the quality of the opponents fought. Of Jeff's 21 or 23 fights, he fought as many as 19 against men who might have been rated fighters at some point in their careers if there had been ratings. His number of tough fights against top men is really not that much different from how many Dempsey had.

 

My answer is relevant to his time he was great but most of those contenders would not have fought as heavyweights in other eras.......there would have been a ample supply of quality heavies in other eras....also some of those guys were used up by the time Jeff fought them so the quote leaves alot of relevant information out sort of misleading isn't it?

 

Okay let's look at these names.
Choynski was a great fighter but he was conceding nearly 50lbs !He held Jeffries to a draw and some thought he should have gotten the verdict.
Ruhlin was never a great fighter he was far too inconsistent,they drew when both were comparative novices and Ruhlin's corner pulled him out after the 6th round in their second fight .Ruhlin had been mercilessly battered by Fitzsimmons earlier, knocked senseless ,dragged to his corner and seated on a stool which he promptly slid off.He was put in a chair at ringside which he fell out of ,carried to a back room in MSG and spent the night there on a make shift cot with a Doctor in attendance in case he died.He had blood coming out of his ears ,nose and mouth all night and lapsed in and out of consciousness .Afterwards his manager had him taken to his home for a week of convalescence,he was damaged goods imo.
Goddard was a good puncher but not a great fighter as his record shows, and he was 40 years old when Jeffries fought him!
Jackson was 37 alcoholic and consumptive .Jackson had not fought a real fight since 1892 against Frank Slavin in which his ribs were cracked,[ it is postulated that this was the origin of his TB],Jeffries fought him in 1899, 7 years later!
Whilst Jackson was living in London, articles were written in the Times expressing concern and regret about his sorry condition, his habitual drunkeness and his trembling hands.They are available to be read. There is no way he should have been in a ring in1899 and the only reason he was is because he was destitute!"
Tom Sharkey said it was a disgrace he was permitted to fight Jeffries and that he would have been ashamed to do so.
Jeffries himself, usually an honest man said," he was just a shell."
Armstrong was a gatekeeper a great gym fighter but never a great ring fighter and he is more remembered as a sparring partner .A young Jeffries took a decision off of Armstrong. Armstrong has a record of 34 fights 17 wins 11 losses and 6 draws.Not the CV of a great fighter by any means.
ps Armstrong can be seen working King Levinsky's corner against Max Baer.
Fitzsimmons was also a great fighter ,but he was 37 and 39 years old when he fought Jeffries,and coming out of a 2years retirement in both cases.
Corbett was 33 for their first fight,he had just one fight under his belt in the previous3 years and he was dsq'd when his second entered the ring to stop the fight because Sharkey was beating the **** out of him. Corbett went 23 rd with Jeffries and was in front when Jeffries landed the finisher.
In their second fight Corbett was 37 year s old and thoroughly washed up he had just one fight in the previous 3 years and that one was considered a fake, he hadn't won another fight for7 years! Yet he went 10 rounds!
A great list, but closer inspection shows for the most part they were great in name only .

BTW You quoted Fleischer,well it was Fleischer who stated Jeffries retired to avoid the black challengers!

 

I would name Jeffries as having the best heavyweight title reign, of the period between John L Sullivan and Joe Louis.

If not him then who?

 

Well, you strongly laid out your case.

"You quoted Fleischer, well it was Fleischer who stated Jeffries retired to avoid the black challengers!"

And obviously you don't agree with Nat's opinion of the stature of Jeff's opposition. I don't agree with his retiring to avoid black challengers opinion. Who would these black challengers have been. Langford? A middle at the time, long short of growing into a top heavy. Jeannette hadn't done anything yet. It is possible Jeff wouldn't have even known his name. McVea was coming off three losses to Johnson. I don't think most would have considered him an obvious contender. That leaves Johnson who had just lost to Hart. Whatever, Hart seems to have been the logical next defense for Jeff at the time he retired. What both of us might agree on here is that Nat's opinions are not necessarily Truth with a capital T.

Of your opinions, I think you undervalue Armstrong. He was more than just a gym fighter with KO's of Slavin, Joe Butler, and Denver Ed Martin. It seems a bit odd to me to focus on Martin as the guy Jeff should have fought and then dismiss Armstrong who KO'd him in 1903.

Fitz and Corbett were older, and laid off, but at least they seem to have been in shape. Dempsey won his title from a Willard who was not only older than either of those two, and laid off longer, but obviously off the film showing his flabby gut, not in top shape.

My take is that all the champs prior to Louis are undercut by the arguments you make here. Opponents were long laid off, out of shape, old, small, or never amounted to much. You note fairly Fitz's layoff, but Willard had laid off longer when Dempsey beat him, and so had Dempsey when Tunney beat him. Johnson, whom I rate the best of the champs prior to Louis, had wins over the old and washed up Jeff & Fitz, middles Langford and Ketchel, and green versions of Jeannette & McVea, a small Burns (in 1906 Burns was negotiating to fight Tommy Ryan at 158 for the middle championship. The fight fell through because Ryan insisted on Burns making 154 and as Burns felt that was too light, the promoter subbed Hart for the heavy title, and the rest is history) and of course the usual ordinary contenders. Still, Johnson was on top longer and beat more good men than any ATG claimant prior to Louis.

 

I think this is a fair judgment.

 

Most of the fighters any champion faced prior to 1960 would not be in the modern heavyweight division. But they were in the heavyweight division of their own era. I think for an historian to say most heavyweight champions were not heavyweights is goofy. It is an unlimited division. It boils down to the heavyweight champion being the man who can defeat any man walking the Earth in a boxing match.

With the way science is going with DNA manipulation, there may come a day when "Frankenstein" heavyweight champions will average more than 7 feet tall and 350 or so lbs. Will that make all the previous heavyweight champions really not heavyweight champions?

 

Well we are talking about Jeffs era specifically where a 167lb man can reign as the heavyweight champion (even in Jeffs era there were middleweights and Ltheavyweights)because the bigger men were not tough enough to handle a rehydrated jrmiddleweight and post Jeff era Rommy Burns took the reigns back from the big men if we are talking about todays version of the jrmiddle it is true that Conn and Carpentier fought heavyweight champions but Carp was wrecked in 4 and Conn ran from Louis until he tried to stand with Louis.......Fitz stood with Jeff because he was not a mover and even with his advanced age, 2 yrs retirement and smallish size he was wrecking Jeff for 7+ rds.....he did not gain 35lbs of quality muscle to stand with Jeff he was his usually spindly self

 

I just find your Jeff-Johnson-Willard-Dempsey line of logic unconvincing.

Johnson was an active 32 when he fought the long laid off Jeff who was 35. No reason to think Jeff wasn't indeed the "hollow shell" of tradition. It would be a shock if it were otherwise.

Johnson was 37 and out of shape when he fought Willard. He still dominated the fight for over 20 rounds. Yes, a younger Willard, in the best shape of his life, proved able to last against an aged Johnson. You take this as proving Willard had a better chin than Jeff ever had. Might I pose a question. At 32 Ali KO'd George Foreman in 8 rounds. Four years later he twice went fifteen rounds with Leon Spinks. Do you also draw the conclusion that this clearly shows that Leon Spinks had a better chin than Foreman?

Willard himself was pushing 38, had been laid off three years, and was visibly not in the best of shape for Dempsey. While Dempsey clearly was a big puncher, certainly more dangerous than Johnson, and arguably Jeffries, this doesn't exactly prove to me that a prime Jeff goes down the first time Dempsey lands, and I certainly think a prime Jeff would have presented more punching danger than the Willard of 1919 did.

It is reasonable to think Dempsey could beat Jeff, but your logic here just leaves me cold.

Personally, I think Jeff does survive Dempsey's early onslaught and then wears him down for a late KO. If he is to win, I think Jack has to win early.

 

Well, Fitz was an oddly built guy considered very muscular in his upper torso due to his work as a blacksmith. He had thin legs.

"He was not a mover"

Fitz could move about some.

Fitz went from 1890 to 1905 losing legitimately only to Jeffries (Sharkey won a goofy DQ win from ref Wyatt Earp while out cold on the canvas) and while winning three titles. Jeff had the size, but these KO victories still seem hard to dismiss. Bottom line is Fitz was certainly a better fighter than Carpentier or Gibbons, and probably Conn.

Just technically, Fitz was an outright heavy when he fought Jeff as there wasn't yet a light-heavyweight division. It was created in 1903.

 

Well ironically enough there has been another middleweight in the history of the sport with all the wrecking ball hitters out there that was able to move up and routinely overpower heavyweights with sheer concussive ability of Fitz....no doubt Fitz is an all time hitter I have him as P4P #1 but the observation about the lack of toughness of the heavyweights of the era and IMO the reason a bigger man like Jeff with again IMO average punch resistance for a 220lb man in any other era had he been fighting other top tier HEAVYWEIGHT hitters....note I am not separating cruisers from heavyweights historically.

I am not the only one who applies this logic in H2H matchups but most that do are muted by traditional boxing historians.

 

I guess that it comes down to whether his body weight is everything, or you go on the results that he accomplished, and asses him accordingly.

Fitzsimmons essentially knocked out every other top heavyweight of the era, apart from Jeffries himself.

If he had weighed say 190lbs, I think we would be seeing him on a few top 20 all time heavyweight lists.

The devil is in the detail regarding the timeline:

10 August - Bob Fitzsimmons knocks out Gus Ruhlin
24 August - Bob Fitzsimmons knocks out Tom Sharkey
30 August - Jim Corbett knocks out Kid McCoy

In that one month, the old guard knocked out all of the new generation of top contenders, except for Denver Ed Martin!

That is why Jeffries had to fight these men!

 

I never argued why the era had such fights I think we all understand the era in that way....the entire argument I make is Jeffries era was weak for true heavyweights compared to other eras and for that reason Jeff was not truly tested in the fires of true top notch heavyweight competition and its this reason that I cast doubt on Jeffries ever displaying any characteristic other than stamina that would place him on even footing against the other heavyweights Johnson and beyond....

 

His chin at least should be beyond question.

He was thrown in against contenders and fringe contenders, pretty much from his professional debut, and he was never on the canvas until he fought Johnson. Even in a weak era, populated by small heavyweights, that should be a hard circle to square.

Reading contemporary accounts, and looking at the footage of him sparring, it seems that he was pretty fast and coordinated for a man his size.

He was always in immaculate physical condition, and despite his stance on the color bar, he doesn't seem to have have shown any lack of heart.

Even when looking at his size advantage, it is important to remember that there were plenty of other big fighters in the era!

 

I would imagine that the spectrum of punch resistance among fighters, would be fairly consistent between eras, whether it was a strong era or a weak era.

There is somebody with a chin like an anvil in every era.

So that brings us to the question of whether there has been another puncher like Fitzsimmons?

I could suggest Sam Langford, but you would probably respond that he did not come too long after Fitzsimmons.

Probably the closest thing that we have had to Fitzsimmons since WWII is Bob Satterfield.

If you can imagine a version of Bob Satterfield who was more polished, and had an iron chin, then you might have something a bit like Bob Fitzsimmons.

Is such a fighter implausible?