The date of the Griffin fight is in much dispute. Here is Adam Pollack in a post on this site: "I'm pretty darn confidant Jeff did not fight Griffin any later than 1895." Jeff multiple times said the Griffin fight was his first fight and long before his 21st birthday. This is Adam from In the Ring with James J Jeffries, page 12 "its date and exact result remain uncertain. The fight likely took place somewhere between 1893 to 1895." Jeffries "also said that he did not fight professionally again until a couple of years later, in 1896, when he was 21." The story I have heard is that Jeff fought Griffin as a teenager but then promised his parents that he would not fight again until after his 21st birthday.