Holyfield vs Jim Jefferies

Why do you find them more credible? Why do you find a bench press so impressive? It is often a misguided test of strength.

 

My point is strength means very little when it comes to boxing men your own size and we have no way of knowing if Jeffries was any stronger than Holyfield.

 

Nope he weighed 208lbs

 

UOTE="janitor, post: 19659575, member: 3871"]Do we really know that?

It doesn't seem to me that we can prove it one way or another.

There were people saying that Jeffries technique improved after the second Fitzsimmons fight.

I have produced the quotes previously.

We have to at least consider that they might have been on to something.[/QUOTE]
Lets look at Corbett's form leading up to the second Jeffries fight.
1prior to the McCoy fight.Corbett had won 1 fight in the previous 6 years, against the aging middleweight Charlie Mitchell in1894!
2.Corbett's win was three years earlier than the Jeffries fight ,over light heavyweight Kid McCoy and that fight is viewed with a lot of suspicion as many thought it a fake.
3.Corbett had been retired for thee years when he challenged Jeffries a second time.
4.Corbett was two weeks off of 37 years old, ancient for boxing in the early 1900's, and particularly so for a man who depended almost entirely on his speed reflexes and foot work.
5.Corbett arranged to have oxygen in his corner for the fight and it was administered between rounds.
6.Corbett's corner, led by Tommy Ryan had a pre-arranged signal a large palm fan to indicate they wanted the fight stopped,which they used as Corbett did not make any kind of a showing in the fight.
7.You say Jeffries had improved his technique . You suggest this was because Jeffries improved on his first performance against Corbett ,I state that it was because Corbett had gone back to such an irretrievable extent that even when he was fresh he was helpless against the 27lbs bigger man. I further state that Corbett's form over the previous years proves emphatically that he was washed up.
The fact that oxygen was provided for Corbett prior to the fight and a signal to stop the fight was pre-arranged, tells us how Corbett and his own corner viewed his form and his chances.

 

It's tough to tell about Jeffries .. He could have been a 1900 George Chuvalo clone or he could have been a better Tommy Morrison with a chin .. the only thing I feel confident in saying is that the Johnson bout really destroyed his legacy and his own stupidity and arrogance caused it.

 

Honestly I do think Holyfield might get a bit overrated, he was very good, but I think watching someone have a really exciting fights can give people overly favorable opinions of their ability. I can imagine when he becomes an old timer in about 80 years, how certain people might talk about him. "Struggled against 5' 7" Light Heavyweight Qawi. Won the heavyweight title from lard ass Buster Douglas. Couldn't stop a 42 year old Holmes or Foreman. Lost the series to Bowe, the same Bowe who was battered by Golotta twice. Lost to Michael Moorer. Beat a shot Mike Tyson. And got a gift draw against Lennox Lewis. Lost to John Ruiz, lost to Chris Byrd, lost to James Toney. Bunch of rose tinted con men frauds claiming a 200Ib brawler would have a hope against Johnny Sunbeam."

 

Considering Holyfield was a blown up cruiser on PED's, he should be right up Jeffries alley according to some.

I think its safe to say Jeffries had more brute strength than Holyfield did. Many consider him to be the strongest heavyweight champion of all time. Holyfield gets no such accolades.

Holyfield didn't do well vs. the top big men he fought. He's 1-4 vs. Bowe and Lewis on a fair scorecard. 1-1 vs Moorer, 1-1-1 vs. Ruiz, and lost to Valuev and Ibragimov. I think its safe to say that Jeffries was bigger than Moorer, Ruiz, and Ibragimov, and would be about 230-235 today.

As I said before Holy was Ko'd by a former middleweight, who was older as well.

 

Lets look at Corbett's form leading up to the second Jeffries fight.
1prior to the McCoy fight.Corbett had won 1 fight in the previous 6 years, against the aging middleweight Charlie Mitchell in1894!
2.Corbett's win was three years earlier than the Jeffries fight ,over light heavyweight Kid McCoy and that fight is viewed with a lot of suspicion as many thought it a fake.
3.Corbett had been retired for thee years when he challenged Jeffries a second time.
4.Corbett was two weeks off of 37 years old, ancient for boxing in the early 1900's, and particularly so for a man who depended almost entirely on his speed reflexes and foot work.
5.Corbett arranged to have oxygen in his corner for the fight and it was administered between rounds.
6.Corbett's corner, led by Tommy Ryan had a pre-arranged signal a large palm fan to indicate they wanted the fight stopped,which they used as Corbett did not make any kind of a showing in the fight.
7.You say Jeffries had improved his technique . You suggest this was because Jeffries improved on his first performance against Corbett ,I state that it was because Corbett had gone back to such an irretrievable extent that even when he was fresh he was helpless against the 27lbs bigger man. I further state that Corbett's form over the previous years proves emphatically that he was washed up.
The fact that oxygen was provided for Corbett prior to the fight and a signal to stop the fight was pre-arranged, tells us how Corbett and his own corner viewed his form and his chances.[/QUOTE]


I like these threads. Shall we count your mistakes?

Its Let's, not lets

Footwork is one word, not two!

Corbett was 36 for Jeffries in the second fight, not 37 as you falsely claim. You get his age wrong on the first fight often too.

Jeffries technique did improve. You can read about that if you bother to research! Not bad Mcvey, I only see a few errors in this post.

 

Having looked into it, the arguments for it being fake are fairly flimsy IMO, some suspecion before hand, and the claims of their wives both of whom hated them. The reports from it all seemed pretty convinced it was genuine. There were people then claiming just about every fight was fake too. You ge some now, like claiming various of Wilder's opponents took dives.

 

I like these threads. Shall we count your mistakes?

Its Let's, not lets

Footwork is one word, not two!

Corbett was 36 for Jeffries in the second fight, not 37 as you falsely claim. You get his age wrong on the first fight often too.

Jeffries technique did improve. You can read about that if you bother to research! Not bad Mcvey, I only see a few errors in this post.[/QUOTE]
It's a pity you can't read properly,otherwise you would have noticed I stated Corbett was two weeks off of 37!

I made 7 points and you haven't addressed one of them.
What a pathetic illiterate clown you are!

 

This is a very reasonable question, and one that it is hard to answer.

I will make the observation however, that Jeffries is a "fill in the blanks fighter."

There are a lot of variable that we are trying to interpret from contemporary accounts, and this is one of them.

We have to consider that Jeffries might have been more technically astute than some people are allowing for!

 

Certainly.

During the training camp for Munro, Jeffries shot a large steer, and lifted it onto a wagon in front of a number of journalists. One local ppaer claimed that after the steer was cut up and weighted, it came to more than 500lbs!

Local papers also claimed that he trained by moving around a 300lb sand bag, and even provided photographs of him doing this.

Obviously a local contemporary newspaper report, is the gold standard of evidence for a boxing historian.

A lot of the other claims of his athletic prowess, come from secondary sources, and can provisionally be dismissed.

 

I understand the timeline well enough, and the facts allow an element of interpretation, regarding how far gone Corbett was.

We can argue the point as long as you want, but this is going to be the bottom line!

This was no an unknown practice at the time.

Jeanete did it in his 49 round bout with your namesake!

Obviously it could have been either.

The interesting thing, is that people at ringside wee not saying "Corbett was washed up", they were saying "Jeffries has improved!"

Again, I feel that there is room for interpretation!

 

I don't Corbett was finished, why else would they have a pre-arranged signal to halt the fight?