That is why Corbett, Fitz, Jackson, Choynski and Co (Jeffries is usally lumped in their) were considered a golden generation much like the 70s is now. It is a shame that most people ignore this and they are genreally downgraded to below all of the later eras.
This has to be brought into the argument. Practically everybody on this forum rates the best champions of the 30s shuffle higher than Corbett and Fitzsimmons, but you would have been hard pressed to find somebody of that opinion prior to the second world war.
I said Jeffries would have beaten Johnson early in his reign. Prime for prime Johnson always beats him imo. Joe Gans disagreed he picked Jeffries to beat Johnson though he and Jack were good friends. Johnson in a sydicated series of articles, and in two books picked Fitzsimmons as the greatest heavyweight.
hard to say with these 2, both had there day and when they did meet Jeffries was 35-36 after a 6-year lay-off and had to lose 70-100lbs with no tune-up so I'm sure a prime Jeffries would have been a much much bigger problem....I go back and forth but both stood out in their day
The wins over Fitz, though, could certainly be viewed in a different manner. Other than the fluke loss by DQ to Sharkey, no one else but Jeffries defeated Fitz from Feb 1890 to Dec 1905, a period of almost 16 years. I think one could view this as within the time and place (discounting questions of size) as about as impressive a pair of wins as one could imagine.
Both were great. Johnson has the edge in resume. Both missed the opportunity to become an arguable #1 of all time (along with Louis and Ali) by not facing each other in their primes.
"Jeffries" and/or "Society" would be the credited responses. "Hart" would be worth half credit. Not that it matters, though. You don't get points for greatness by getting ducked.
Eh, they were close enough right before Jeffries retired. From a historical perspective, a Johnson/Jeffries match would have been among the two or three greatest heavyweight fights of all time. It would have equaled Louis/Schmeling II in historical significance, but been a showdown of two ATGs near their primes like Ali/Frazier I. A green Johnson would be the best scalp on Jeffries's resume, and a prime Jeffries would be better than anything on Johnson's.
It was absolutely huge anyway...I think that Jeffries might have toppled over, given his style, if he'd remain active enough to be considered prime around 05. Of course, there's no way to know really.