If any other Heavyweight Champion retired undefeated.

Louis and Dempsey would never be champ lol.

I think only Sullivan, Jeff, Marciano, Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Spinks 1 and 2, Holmes, Tyson, Holyfiled, Moore, and a few others could retire as unbeating champions.

The list is pretty short imo.

Most evey one would retire as contenders or as in the case of Dempsey, no ones lol.

 

Jeffries is one guy who could clearly have benefited from doing so.

 

I don't know if Jeffries' resume would have improved much, had he elected to remain retired. Most people give him plenty of slack for being well past his best when facing Johnson, and even credit him for having the guts to take him on under such circumstances. Furthermore, he left the game with very few recorded bouts, to merit having any sort of comparable record to the Rock's.

 

frazier and foreman. if frazier beat former champs patterson and liston and knocked both out then retired after the first ali fight it would have been as good if not beter than marciano. You could then say like marciano, joe beat all the active champions and with beating the likes of bonavena, quarry, mathis, ellis and chuvalo he cleaned out a division.

If foreman beat 32 year old ali then hung onto the title beating lyle and retired after the Frazier rematch it would be close too because with his career starting in 69 you could say he also beat all the active champiions of his era like marciano did.

 

Wasn't going to happen. :nono

 

People need to stop this.. George was never going to beat Ali, no matter all the excuses and the supposed "ducking" by Ali. It's all bull****. Foreman got knocked out. end of.

 

In some ways this shows how good Marciano really was.

If Joe Frazier had retired before his first loss he would have had an outstanding resume, but it would still look like a career terminated in mid stride as Jeffries career does.

 

Maybe not a HW legacy but Jones had only ever lost a DQ , retiring after the first Tarver fight would improve his perceived H2H ability at HW.

 

Being undefeated back in the early days wasn't all that of big deal.

Fighters had to eat, and support their families.
So many guys took fights on short notice, in other fighter backyards and
with jaded referee's or judges.
Boxing was a real job.

I think James J. Jeffries benefited big time, because of a successful farming business.
Big, white and strong, but really lacking in technical skills.

Besides Rocky Marciano, who got out of the game at the right time, and didn't
press an aching back, which he was increasing in pain by each training schedule.

Maybe Joe Louis.
He really made only (1) mistake. Under-estimating Max Schmeling.
The Ezzard Charles fight was a desperate plea for financial help.
And the Marciano fight, was simply sad.

 

It was actually quite rare to see any guy go undefeated for any length of time back in Jeffries' day, let alone a world champion with multiple title defenses.. Jeffries, as you say, might have benefitted from a few advantages that most of his peers didn't, but it was still a rare achievement none the less, especially given how early he began fighting the best in the world.

That "one mistake" still cost him a victory, just as it cost Lennox Lewis and many others their "0" for making the same mistake. I will also ad that Losing to Schmeling may have been the best thing that ever happened to him, because it FORCED Louis to improve in his soft areas. Had he managed to polish off Max early, his short cummings may have gone unnoticed and led to an eventual loss or losses, somewhere down the line..

 

MR MAGOO,,,,,,,,

Well stated,,,

Also, I think we all forget.
Back in the days of the 25-rounders and up, if a fighter was hurt or tired, and
took a knee, the round ended.
They were a little more civilized than we thought.