Greatest heavyweight from Sullivan to Louis?

better than jack johnson, denver ed martin, and sam mcvea?

not that harsh, just like tunney with heeney......jeffries wasted away a oppertunity to raise his legacy by using up his last resources on an unknown joke of a contender jack munroe. With Two Top heavyweight contenders out there jack johnson denver ed martin.....instead jeffries fought a weak non dangerous jack munroe. its a shame.


Imagine rocky marciano not fighting archie moore in his last title defense.......but retiring after fighting don cockell. Imagine how bad his title reign would look? thats basically what jeffries did.

 

One other thing for everyone jumping up and down about Joe Louis being beaten, it needs to be remembered that we dont know when this article is from. If it was early in his title reign, he had not long been knocked out by Schmelling, who wasnt that great (in an ATG sense), so there is every reason that he would be seen as having a very shaky claim as the best ever, in fact unless it was well into his reign, i would have thought that he wouldnt have had much of a claim at all, other than with those that use the "Evolution" theory.

 

All I am saying is jeffries should have fought jack johnson before retiring. johnson was the best out there, and the public was clammoring for it from the books and articles I have read. Jeffries not fighting johnson(who was top rated and called him out) is like marciano retirng rather than fighting # 1 contender archie moore who called out marciano many times. i would have crucified marciano had he not taken on moore. i mean jeff did eventually have the guts to get in the ring vs a prime johnson in 1910, but jeff certainly coule have answered alot of questions about his legacy by taking on johnson in 1905.

btw i do give jeffries credit for taking on top black contenders hank griffin and bob armstrong. fitz and dempsey and tunney never fought black contenders.

 

JOhnson's position against Jeffries was almost the same as Rocky Marcianos position against Nino Valdes. Both were the top contender at one stage. Both lost a fight to another fighter when they were the top contender. As a result neither got a shot against the prime Champion. the difference is that in Johnson's case, he improved and went on to earn a championship whereas Valdes wasnt good enough. In hindsight the Jeffries Johnson bout should have been made, but at the time even though it could have legitimately be made, Johnson was only really one of 3 or 4 guys that Jeffries could have defended against and it would not have been that big a match. Certainly it would have been no where near the box office draw that it became all of those years later.

 

The money and promoters never offered a 1898-1905 between Jeffries and Johnson. Johnson suffered set back losses to Klondike, Choynski, Griffin, and Hart during these years.

I do think Johnson was the #1 guy out there for a small window of time from the later half of 1903 until the Hart fight, but he blew it in the Hart fight with a lousy performance. Had Johnson knocked Hart out, the interest level and money might have been up.

PS: Fitz and Dempsey fought black contenders. It is possible that Jeffries has an early KO wins over top black contneders Ed Martin, Frank Childs, and Kid Cotton as reported by news papers. The trouble is many news papers went bankrupt, and tracking down the primary sources is not easy.