James J Jeffries Feats of Athleticism

His ducking ability is well documented.
Seriously there is a lot of BS attached to Jeffries life, eg contracting pneumonia and curing himself by drinking a case of whiskey,lifting 400lb bales up into wagons single- handed,never striking an opponent with his full force for fear of killing him.etc
He was a big man for his times and undoubtedly a strong and tough one, with a degree of athleticism belied by his size , but he was generally facing much smaller and older men, today he would be about the size of Adamek and its hard to predict how his," take a licking and keep on ticking" approach, would fare against men in their prime and significantly bigger than himself . Monte Cox is a hero worshipper of Jeffries and repeats a lot of unsubstantiated fairy tales.I wouldn't call him a reliable source myself. For example Jeffries did not lose "over a hundred pounds ,"to fight Johnson,more like 80lbs and he was down to weight nearly a year before the fight. Talk of his power is exaggerated too, imo he never duplicated the feats of punching Fitzsimmons did, koing both Sharkey twice and nearly killing Ruhlin ,Jeffries had,as Johnson stated ,"a solid wallop " but he was hitting on men in the main much smaller . I do credit Jeffries with having a top chin though.

 

I thought the hay bail story was about Willard.

 

If the 100 yard dash time isn't apocryphal (which of course it very well may be) that's even more impressive than it might sound. He'd have been running in leather shoes on either grass or a track of packed dirt with no starting blocks. (And presumably didn't train specifically for sprinting.)
If -IF- that actually happened, holy ****...

 

Before him it was Jeffries, and you could probably find it attributed to Sullivan earlier, if you cared to dig deep enough!

 

It is probably best to confine ourselves to what is supported by some sort of primary evidence here.

The San Francisco Call reported that he lifted a 510 lb steer onto the back of a truck, the incident being witnessed by a number of journalists.

It also reported that he trained by moving a 350 lb sand bag around, and there are surviving photographs of him doing this.

He was obviously an exceptionally strong man, even for his size.

He routinely ran 10-15 miles in training, thought this was not unusual for world class fighters of this period.

 

He was rock solid despite some loose skin from the weight loss at 226 (I've also heard 227) against Johnson:
https://i3.wp.com/cdn.vox-cdn.com/t...e/3162077/johnson_v_jeffries_large_huge.0.jpg

https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca8...sjih-3d58faca-0fbc-481d-8e18-9d91590ad41a.png

 

Sharkey was 5' 8" and usually around 185lbs he went 45 rds with Jeffries without being stopped.
Choynski was 67lbs lighter and5 '10.5" He held Jeffries to a draw.
Ruhlin was 6'2" and 199lbs He was retired in his corner.Is the average heavyweight 200lbs?
Jackson was 37 alcoholic ,consumptive and had not fought in nearly6 years.

Jeffries was 208lbs when he won the title.
Jeffries weight in title defences was as follows;

Sharkey215lbs
Corbett 218lbs
Ruhlin215lbs
Fitzsimmons 219lbs
Corbett 220lbs
Munroe 219lbs
Average weight 217lbs
What would you say the average heavyweight scales today?

 

This.

And remember when quoting roadwork distances that these numbers often included walking. Still a good workout but not as impressive as some would suggest.

 

That's not all that impressive. It equates to over a 12 second 100 meters. And if you factor in the handtime to auto conversion we are talking about 12.2. Dozens of high school girls go faster every year in the US.

And starting blocks would cause more harm than good to someone who didn't know how to use them.

Sure, he was an athlete. But let's not paint him to be superhuman.

 

It should be noted that he seems to have dehydrated himself for some of his early weigh ins, in the misguided belief that this was beneficial.