How Much Better Than Klondike,Griffin,Martin ,were Jeannette,Wills,and McVey ?

Klondike was never a contender and neither was Griffin. Other than Jack Johnson, the next best man that Hank beat was ...Jack Monroe.
Bob Jones and Fred Russel bested him in big fights and Joe Kennedy held him even, thats his level, good but not great.
Martin was a genuine contender, indeed he beat Griffin easily in 1902 and depending if you want to, you could argue that he was up there with the three mentioned fighters, he was taller, a good boxer with good defensive skills and a fair wallop.

 

Martin was surprizingly hyped at his hiatus. You can find papers that picked him to beat Jim Jeffries while he was champion, which I do not find with Jack Johnson. This makes me think that Johnsons win over Martin was verry significant.

Griffin was described as a second rater, and not highly regarded, but people in the trade knew that he could give the top fighters hell in sparring. There was obviously a significant talent there.

Armstrong was perceived in the same way as Griffin, but there were some journalists who identified him as a serious title challenger.

Klondyke was never more than a fringe contender.

 

It is a pretty big "other" for Hank to have on his ledger though isnt it? Or do you disagree because of the stage of Johnsons career.

Martin was obviously a big player at some stage, although i found it quite interesting that i read an article by Bill Squires (of all people) who spoke about Martin in glowing terms, saying that he was one of his best friends, a great fighter and talented sparrer, but that he really couldnt handle the punishment like other top class fighters (presumable like himself!). I got the impression that this seemed to be a fault which placed him back in the class with Griffin and co despite being far more "skilled" than these guys. I almost got the impression of a Dominc Guinn level fighter where he was hyped as the one for a while, but found out. Do you think this is accuarate?

Russell and Kennedy seem to have been quite abit better than given credit for today. Although they didn thave the longevity of many. Whether that is due to a loss of focus or lack of ability, i could only speculate, though i would be interested in your opinion.

What do you know of the Jones Griffin fight? How big was it at the time, and how good was Jones?

 

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...nes&y=8&x=21&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=0

It seems that Griffin injured his right hand in the Griffin Jones fight and this looks to have been the cause of his loss. Might be a little hard to hold this one against him?

 

Did Martin ever beat anyone as good as Johnson? Nope, and he was Ko'd early several times. How was he better? I'll take draws to Kennedy over several early KO losses. By 1902 Griffin's best days were long gone so his lose to Martin in 1902 does not mean much in the context as to who was better. I do think Martin would be viewed as a top ten fighter in the early 1900's.

 

He lost to Martin in 1901, then beat Johnson and drew twice with him.Reasonable to say that Martin's win over Griffin was better than Griffins draw and win with Johnson?
Griffin was 31 when he lost to Martin, had just drawn with Munroe and Kennedy and would only lose once in his next thirteen fight so he was far from shot. He was a very popular trainer/sparring partner about this time and forward. he did seemingly fight Jones with only one good arm for a lot of the fight and had a previous draw with Jones, another black fighter.His other notable fights was an unconfirmed draw with Frank Childs, then a novice middleweight who would soon get drubbed by Dan Creedon and Joe Choynsky and the famous 14 or 17 round loss to a debuting or near debuting Jeffries. Good but not great IMO.
Martin, aside from beating Hank, also beat Fred Russel around the time that he beat Griffin, a near peak Childs,a peak Armstrong and Ferguson, he then beat young McVey, prompting the later to retire for 2 years, all of these wins better than Hanks win over young Johnson.
To me Griffin was on a level at best of Childs, Armstrong, Kennedy, Russel and behind Ruhlin, Maher, Choynsky, Martin and better than Klondike, Munroe etc.

 

Here is the Griffin Russell report. It seems to have been a competitive fight and Russell wasnt a bad contender at teh time. still i think it is fair to point out that Griffin was getting long in the tooth by this time.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...ateFilterType=yearRange&page=5&page=3&index=2

 

To be fair, a win over Sam McVea was probably better than a win over that version of Johnson.

 

Klondike is a hard one to find much info on . I suspect the reason for this is because he was considered (despite the johnson result that is impressive in hindsight) as a bit of a third rater, as this article refers to him in passing as.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...ght&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=12

 

This one describes Klondike a bit better, i think it is clear though that he was never seen as much of a top class fighter, just a journey man.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...ight&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=9

 

Klondike, in hindsight was better than perceived at the time, he gave Maher a fair old go of it, but he was one(or two) levels below the elite fighters of 1890-1900, who IMO were pretty good.

PS good work as usual, Boilermaker.