Is Jim Jeffries criminally underrated today?

OTE="FrankinDallas, post: 20656487, member: 320"]Lol grown men arguing about the size of boxers thighs.[/QUOTE]
I'm not arguing about the size of thighs or chests , I'm calling BS on it ,and it patently is as I've proved!

 

Yeah. How fast he can run. How high he can jump. How big his thighs are. What has any of this directly to do with how good a fighter he was?

I expect the discussion to move on to the size of what was between his thighs soon.

*I want to make clear it seems to me to be Jeff supporters who bring up these side issues of physique and athleticism to pump him up.

Jack Torrance held the world record for the shot put for 14 years, from 1934 to 1948. He was 6' 5" and weighed 260 lbs. He tried his hand at boxing but was mediocre. It is reasonable to think Torrance was stronger than Jeffries, and certainly Joe Louis. But so what?

 

Siler was chummy with Johnson. The bottom line is Hart was the better the entire second half of the fight. Johnson was covering up and in one round threw a grad total of one punch. Historian Adam Pollack says Hart won and doesn't consider the decision a robbery.

 

Delaney and Jeffries didn't like each other, as such his words mean little. In fact Johnon hired Delaney to help him out vs Jeffries for the 1910 fight. Remember?

Post Jack Munroe Jeffries straight up tells the press Johnson is a contender. As we know, Johnson lost to Hart, and out went his top contender status.

As champion Jeffries fought Hank Griffin, who as you should know, was black and also defeated Johnson. Jeffries floored Griffin multiple times in 4 round match. The color line was broken that day.

In my opinion, had Johnson fought well and beaten Hart AND there was a Reno like purse, Jeffries takes that fight.

 

2 Newspapers stating it was a robbery at the time > Adam Pollack's opinion.

 

The Call (San Francisco)- 1905 Mar 29 (page 10)
Marvin Hart matched his gameness against the cleverness of Jack Johnson in Woodward's Pavillion last night, and at the end of twenty rounds of fierce fighting Referee Alex Greggains gave an entirely just decision in favor of Hart. He was the aggressor throughout, and there was never an instant that he was not trying in an awkward style to land on the elusive negro.

San Francisco Chronicle- 1905 Mar 29 (page 8)
To put the thing briefly the way it appeared to a man who had not interest one way or the other—only a desire to see fair play and to have the better fighter win—on the score of aggressiveness Hart was entitled to the verdict. On any other score Johnson should have been the favored one. This is a thing that will be argued on the street corners for days

The San Francisco Examiner- 1905 Mar 29 (page 10)
PLUCK AND AWKWARDNESS BETTER THAN A MIXTURE OF CLEVERNESS AND COWARDICE
. . .
BY W. W. NAUGHTON
. . .
It would be ridiculous to say that Hart is a better ringster than Johnson. If Johnson were only as stout hearted as the man from Louisville the chances are the negro would dispose of his opponent of last night in ten rounds.
Johnson did his best work with a straight left. He also bruised the side of Hart's face with right crosses. Hart, although anything but a neat boxer, had an awkwardly clever way of stopping Johnson's uppercuts.
Hart scored his biggest success with a heart punch. He reached Johnson's ribs with this blow a number of times in every round. He also clouted Johnson on temple and jaw with right swings.

The San Francisco Examiner- 1905 Mar 29 (page 10)
By Jabez White.
Hart was the aggressor all the way and the referee could do nothing but give him all the glory. The big fellows clinch too much, something you very seldom see across the pond.

Oakland Tribune- 1905 Mar 29 (page 6)
Clearly showing himself strong on point, Johnson lack the grit and aggressiveness of Hart and this lost him the fight, for previous to entering the ring the big fellow had been warned by Referee Greggains that should the battle go the full twenty round he would give the verdict to fighter who was the most aggressive—in other made the fight.
And on this line Hart fully earned the long end of the purse. He was after the black man at all times except when sent back by the colored champion's hooks and jabs. Had the decision been given on points scored by clean hitting, blocking and punishment administered, then Johnson would have won by a country mile.

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/gif-jim-jeffries-charges-into-gus-ruhlin.655592/

 

When you are trying to reconstruct a fighter like Jeffries, you have to constrain as many variables as you can.

What does it prove if he was strong?

Only that he was a strong guy by todays standards, who was a top fighter by the standards of his own era.

 

So that is as clear as mud then!

 

Perhaps we could agree that if people couldn't agree at the time, we should try not to form too strong opionions based off second hand opinions

 

I think that Jeffries was always going to get out of the fight game, around the time that he did.

His dream was always to live on an alfalfa farm, and be very antisocial.

 

Yes but against what scale is the question ... he sure didn't look so strong against Johnson in even the opening rounds .. I'm nt doubting he was a tough SOB but on an all time basis it's not proven at all to me .. all we know for sure is he didn't use PEDS !

 

It's possible he was only a strong guy by his days standards. I've never seen any reporters name on those feats he is supposed to have performed.
Maybe they happened,maybe they didn't ,or maybe they did but got exaggerated with the telling and re- telling of them?
For example there are about three different heavyweight champions who are supposed to have lifted wagons on their own and held them off the ground whilst wheels were changed on them.What are the odds on that happening? I've heard the one about the pipe on the farm which two of Jeffries workers could not budge but he did it on his own.The 300lbs bale he is supposed to have lifted alone up into a wagon.I used to keep horses and have never seen a bale that weighed more than about 65lbs,and we are talking1906, before much of the mechanized plant we have today was available. Why would you make them bigger so that they needed two people to stow and load them? It would be like loading cement into 2 cwt sacks ,ie defeating its purpose.
There's a similar story about Harry Wills attending the funeral of a friend, the friends home was on the top floor of an apartment block.Wills is supposed to have arrived and ascended the stairs to find three other mourners unable to move the casket.The story then goes that he got them to put it on his shoulder ,and on his own walked from the top floor to the bottom and out the door onto the hearse .So many holes in this story that it strains credibility.Rather like Jeffries running through a wood with a full grown deer he had killed on his shoulders.I've carried/shouldered smaller deer in the UK ,Muntjac and Roe from where they were killed back to the vehicle,and picked up Fallow deer and put it them the back of my 4 wheel drive and believe me I knew I had done it! And deer in the US are significantly bigger than those three species I've mentioned.
I know about lifting dead weights, not weights specifically designed to be hoisted,but weights like big enamel sinks, kerb stones, cement bags,etc As a youngster I did heavy manual work including hod carrying ,carrying roofing joists , plasterers labourer,tilers Mate and I worked 7 days a week ,12 hours a day stowing cement from a conveyor belt onto lorries , so I'm somewhat familiar with the difficulties weights not designed to be lifted present.
No doubt Jeffries was a strong man,but today would he be any stronger than a Holyfield,a Tua,a Chuvalo, or a Bonavena?And thats omitting the super sized heavies.

 

It comes down to the following problem.

You either place some value, on the testimony of the journalists of the day, or you don't.

If you don't, then you don't have a basis, for very much about anything in that era!

The fact that Johnson handled him, is not a huge counter argument, for two reasons.

1. Johnsons own documented feats of strength, are similarly impressive.
2. Jeffries had been out of the ring for a long time.