How long would Jeffries have held onto the title, if he wanted to continue

The world champion on the right beats the referee in the middle.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p...sijiZQL4mS8lnBmv05ssq6krLFSaeGBihsIPT1tRb9J8w

 

He might just have a chance when this picture was taken.

 

Haha, whatever you think. The man in the middle makes the other two look like Welterweights. Burns beat O'Brien who wasn't interested in any action ( I have that fight ) and Hart. Those are his two best wins. He also had his share of losses.

 

The guy in the middle makes the other two look like professional boxers. They make him look like a 55 year-old grandpa.

You can spout all the stats you like. Jeffries looked awful in 1907. And when he got back in the ring, he was awful.

You paint pictures like he was some amazing, finely tuned athlete. He was a has-been in 1907.

Burns wins.

 

The title of the thread says

"How long would Jeffries have held onto the title, if he wanted to continue"

If Jeffries was active, don't you think he'd be in better shape for matches? The answer is obviously yes. This picture means zero except to show how small Burns looks next to him

Burns wasn't that good If you put stock into the people of the times or the fighters themselves, quite a few champions before and after him were viewed as better, including 2-3 men Jeffries beat.

 

Jim Jeffries quit because he didn't want to do it anymore and he felt there was no one left to challenge him.

If he'd continued, you think he'd have shown up at his best? The 110 years since he fought tells us all we need to know how that story ends.

Jeffries loses in an upset to someone he overlooks. I'll take Burns. In 1907, Burns was at the top of his game, and Jeffries could give two sheets about anything, in particular, training.

The world champ on the right beats the referee in the middle.

https://lelands.com/images_items/item_82605_1.jpg

 

It certainly has.

Is Burns the most likely candidate, and would Jeffries even have fought him?

I suspect that if Jeffries had stayed on, we would have seen bigger, if not necessarily better men challenging him!

 

The problem with Burns is that he had wrong style to beat Jeffries. He was very good inside fighter who could also counter and move on his feet well, but that wouldn't work on Jeffries. Jeffries would mureder Burns inside and he wouldn't look for his head, he would go to the body and Jeffries was a murderous body puncher.

Burns was tough and I like his style, but he would be out of game here, unless Jeffries would have come to this fight completely undertrained.

 

In the last days of Jeffries reign, all of the men being touted as potential opponents, were big men!

Munro, Johnson, McVea, Ferguson etc.

Nobody in the press, seems to have been looking for a small cute guy, who might be able to outpoint him!

That would likely have had a bearing on his future challengers!

 

Jeffries retried because he says he lost money in the Munroe fight and the purses were not as good. He also had a falling out with his long time trainer. I think he was too prideful to halt-training. Maybe he would be more careful about picking more financially sound matches.

Okay--you think Burns who was 2-3 weight classes below would pull off the upset? That goes against everything I know about boxing. Upsets do happen but not with that size disparity vs an ATG as champion. . Jeffries would be 31-32 year old in 1907. Hardly old. Jeffries had a great chin and natural stamina and would be facing an easier group without any punchers in it.

Even if by the wildest chance you were correct, that's still an extended reign of another three years.

 

What makes Jeffries even in height with Babe Ruth, whose height is usually given as 6' 2"? Is it the photo of the two with Sharkey? But a still photo can be misleading because of the varying distances from the camera the men are standing and with the ground not necessarily being level. The Harvard MD measuring Jeff in 1903 is solid evidence, and film shows him to be stocky, appearing about 6'. What no one has considered is that Burns' listed height of 5' 7" might not be correct, or actually a height wearing shoes. Perhaps he was only 5' 6" in stocking feet. We don't really know the heights for the most part, but that Harvard MD seems the most impressive source on Jeffries.

What is clear off the film of the Squires fight on you tube is that Burns is much smaller than Jeffries when you can see the two moving around each other and interacting. A 220 lb if in shape man versus a 168 lb man seems reasonable.

One thing about Burns, though. Yeah, he was put down after losing to Johnson, but he went into the fight a 3-2 favorite, about the same odds as Jeff had in 1910. Burns might not have been viewed that poorly until the racist backlash after his defeat spun it into Johnson didn't win the title from a "real" champion as a way of making Johnson an illegitimate champion.

Apparently, Hart is the biggest good fighter, at about 190 lbs, that Burns ever defeated. The others seem to have been in the 180's or lower. Flynn's weight is given as 169 versus Burns. O'Brien is listed at 164 & 167.

That said, I think Burns was a better fighter than Sharkey who managed to last 45 full rounds with Jeffries. He seems faster and more athletic, less reliant only on strength and toughness, at which Sharkey obviously was at a grave disadvantage against the much larger Jeff. But Burns also seems somewhat shorter and 10 to 15 lbs lighter than Sharkey. I think Burns would beat Sharkey more often than not, but also think Jeff would be too big.

I pick Jeff to still win in 1907 or 1908, unless he let himself come in really out of shape, which might open the door for an upset.

 

"Mr Allnut"

We are discussing a trivial issue in boxing history. Can't we avoid name-calling?

Bob Armstrong was the "colored" champion from 1896 to 1898. He lost the title in early 1898 when he was stopped by Childs. Childs certainly had Armstrong's number and defeated him three times. But Childs lost to George Byers on September 14, 1898. Byers was the actual champ until Childs finally beat him in their third fight on March 16, 1901. Childs then lost to Martin and Johnson.

Armstrong couldn't handle Childs, but stopped Martin.

Griffin drew with Childs and defeated Johnson once and drew with him twice. In four fights, neither Childs nor Johnson defeated Griffin. But Martin KO'd Griffin.

I don't think any of these men really stood out above the others until Johnson emerged. It is A beats B, B beats C, C beats A, etc.

And with Armstrong and Griffin losing to Jeffries, and Childs and Johnson to Choynski, it appears the best white fighters were a notch better in the late 1890's.

 

I'm not name calling, it's a line from the African Queen when Katherine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart,[Charley Allnut,]" can you make a torpedo Mr Allnut",being assured he can she says," then do so."
Armstrong stopped Martin on Martin's debut.

I was referencing you saying you wanted to talk about Burns ie "then do so MrAllnut",

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Sharkey was gone and Johnson refused to fight him, Langford poses little threat, McVey and Jeannette would be good fights but ultimately not too big an issue, an aging Jeffries might lose to Luther McCarty? Or Willard. Either way he goes down as an atg

 

okay. Sorry. Didn't know what the nut stuff was supposed to refer to.