James J Jeffries?

That's weak sauce. Plenty of gym rats look good in training, thousands.... Put them in against modern athletes who with amateur pedigree and good coaching. Different story.

 

I understand this, but the footage still shows us that Jeffries could do certain things.

It suggests that contemporary observers were spot on, when they said that he was fast for a man his size.

It also shows that he had an uncanny ability to judge distances, and that is basically god given.

This does not suggest him to be some antediluvian George Chuvalo, it points to him being something much more complex.

 

Because they were the only white challengers with any semblance of credibility.

 

There I would have to disagree.

I don't think that there were any very compelling black contenders, until relatively late in Jeffries reign.

Obviously he made his reason for not fighting them clear enough.

 

Aged and inactive contenders (for both sets of matches) are the only ones Jeffries could scrape up for notablybelated rematches?

It’s obvious that Jeffries’ perceived development/progress was somewhat illusory given the lack of account for the age, inactivity and ongoing deteriorations of said opposition.

Johnson was on the radar long enough for Jeffries to have taken up that challenge.

Lil Arthur’s profile was certainly sufficient for Jeffries to specially preclude him based solely on his maintained invoking of the colour line - a preclusion Jeffries stoically held to even when the colour itself was being questioned as well as Jeff’s true motives for using it to bar Johnson.

 

But it’s relative - that was just his brother Charles “Jack” Jeffries he was sparring/wrestling with - and we know Johnson flattened little bro Jeffries in 5 rds in 1902.

A match could’ve been set up with big bro Jeffries based on the revenge angle alone.

Per the available footage of the Ruhlin fight, Jeffries didn’t try on/display anything like he was clearly more comfortable doing against his brother for the training camp promo film.

 

Jeff was ringside when Johnson knocked out his brother,Jack leaned over the ropes and said to him," I can do the same to you" Bill Brady , Jeff's manager said Jeffries never wanted any part of Johnson.

 

Jeffries fought no hoper Munroe on the 26th of August 1904.
By that time Johnson had beaten,
Kennedy,Klondike,Childs,Gardner,Ferguson multiple times,Jeffords,Butler,Russell,McVeyx3,Martin,Black Bill.
Nobody is going to tell me Johnson did not deserve a title shot over Munroe!
Jeffries defended his title in a farcical bout against John Finnegan 4-2-4 on the 6th of April 1900.Finnegan had been ko'd in4 rounds by Ruhlin in his previous fight.
RUHLIN V FINNEGAN
" Finnegan of Pittsburgh was on his back ten seconds after the first bell. He beat the count and survived the round, but took a beating in the second round, only saved by the bell. In the third round, two hard lefts knocked him through the ropes. He crawled back in to beat the count again, but his seconds had to carry him to his corner. Seconds into the 4th round Ruhlin dropped him again, and inside the next minute and a half he dumped "The Pittsburg Stogie" on the canvas four more times. As the police moved to stop the fight, Richard McCormick, Finnegan's manager, ran into the ring and carried his man to his corner."

JEFFRIES V FINNEGAN
"Finnegan landed the first blow as they came to the center of the ring, and Jeffries then put his left on the Pittsburgh man's jaw and he went to the floor. Finnegan came up in a few seconds only to be sent to the floor again with a blow in the same place. He stayed down longer this time and when he again rose he was in visible distress. He had hardly assumed a fighting position before the champion put his left in the pit of his stomach and Finnegan went down completely out. Referee Siler counted the seconds off and when he stepped back it was seen that Finnegan was crying. He staggered to his feet, reeled against the ropes and his seconds rushed into the ring and carried him to his corner. It was several minutes before he recovered sufficiently to leave the ring. Jeffries said he weighed 220, but he looked 30 pounds heavier. Finnegan weighed but 180, and he looked like a boy beside the champion." (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
That's two defences that were mismatches.

• At that time Frank Childs had beaten Armstrong x3,Klondike multiple times,Jack Bonner,Joe Butler.Was he not a more compelling challenger than Finnegan?

 

He was not alone in not defending the title against black challengers. It’s common knowledge once he won the title black opponents were off limits. It was a horrible unwritten policy of the time. However, we know he did face black opponents on his way up in a very short time period for a pro fighter. Something he should receive some credit for, as predecessor’s such as Sullivan had not.
His resume is extremely good for 19 pro fights.

 

Jeffries was quite prepared to fight black men, but would not risk defending his title against one .Im aware of the colour bar at the time ,particularly as it applied to black heavyweights.I'm also aware of apologists excusingJeffries not defending against blacks by saying there really were not standout black challengers during his reign,which is so much horse ****! Neither the hapless Finnegan or Munroe were ever more than cannon fodder for Jeffries and there were better qualified black challengers out there for him to defend against.
It could reasonably be argued that
Sullivan
Corbett
Fitzsimmons
Jeffries
Hart
Were only ever White Heavyweight Champions ,since none of them defended against blacks.
Jeffries title reign is not "extremely good."imo.
Fitz was nearly 40 and had been retired for 2 years.
Corbett had not won a fight for over 6 years.
Corbett, in his 2nd challenge to Jeffries was 36 and had been retired for 3 years.
The defences against Munro and Finnegan were farcical mismatches. That accounts for 5 of his 7 defences.
His pre title bouts.
Goddard was 40 years old.
Jackson 36, was an alcoholic,consumptive shell, who had not fought for over 5 years.
Henry Baker? According to the San Francisco Call, "...Henry Baker, the fat boy of Chicago, came first. He looked like a New York Alderman; layers of fat hung over his waistband..." and "Baker looked like a pigmy alongside the California champion..."
Choynski?
Jeffries had 52 lbs on him.
"Noted baseball umpire Jim McDonald was selected by both parties to act as referee. Jeffries dropped Choynski with a left hook just before the bell ending round 3. It was the only knockdown in the fight. Joe drew first blood in the 11th. Choynski landed more often, especially with the straight left, but Jeffries landed the heavier blows. The San Francisco Call reported that Choynski deserved the decision."

 

If you want to disregard all champs until Tommy Burns that is your pejorative. You wouldn’t be alone in that assessment. I think it’s only required to face your best challengers irregardless of their skin color. Unfortunately in that era some of the best challengers were excluded because of their race.
I disagree on Jeffries resume, it is extremely good elevated by the few fights he had with the quality of opponents he faced. You’ll find very few champions that could beat the men he faced in only 19 pro fights. Hank Griffith in his 3rd bout, a tough draw with 49 fight veteran Choynski in his 8th fight. Two fights with Sharkey. Even if Fitz was Rusty the reports said he fought extremely well and in between their first and second bout he was still scoring impressive wins. Most reports of the day thought very highly of Jeffries.
To make a comparison- Jack Dempsey’s Duck of Harry Wills was far worse than any duck made by Jeffries. Wills was the outstanding challenger for the entirety of Dempsey’s 7 year championship run. His run also began a full 14 years after Jeffries first retired. Precedent had also already been broken when Burns defended against Johnson. So in many ways Dempsey’s color line was far more egregious than Jeffries and somehow Dempsey was glorified for the next 50 years while Jeffries who came out of a 6 year retirement to face his successor was vilified.

 

Dempsey is not the subject under discussion.

 

I don’t think one has to get tangled up in any of the whys and wherefores to flatly and simply state that Jeffries refused to face his most pressing challenger due to his invoking of the colour line.

As such, that in itself is a glaring omission that puts Jeffries’ perceived domination of the rest of the field into heavy question.

Any other fighter who used the colour line in the same situation would/should be judged the thusly - but as already said, we’re discussing Jeffries, not anyone else.

Jeffries fighting any black fighters on the way up does not, in any way, offset his refusal to defend the title against any, otherwise eligible, black contenders.

At any rate, Jeffries could’ve elected to set the precedent that the much smaller Burns did just a few years later.

As to that precedent, after Johnson’s defeat of Jeffries in 1910, there was major backlash, riots, murders, etc.

The search for a Great White Hope continued. When Willard finally won the crown, the white establishment undertook to prevent a black man from ever fighting for the title again.

It wasn’t until 1937 when Joe Louis, who had to carefully mind all his Ps and Qs along the way, became the first black man to be granted a shot in some 22 years.

Jeffries successes against much older and smaller opposition were not really notable for any special display of skill.

Rather, it was Jeffries youth and his greater size, strength and his durability especially that ultimately saw him prevail. To repeat, Jeffries himself said as much after he won the title from Fitz.

Suffice to say, Jeffries didn’t gain his rep. for being impervious to punishment by dodging too many punches.

By 1902, he still couldn’t get out of the way of the damaging punches of an even older and further inactive Bob Fitz.

Fitz did go on a nice tear after losing the title to Jeffries - but he wasn’t granted a rematch until 2 years after the last fight of that tear - he was inactive during the interim.

As to Fitz, he only needed a total of about 10 rounds over 2 fights to flatten Sharkey twice - Jeffries couldn’t turn the trick once over two fights totalling 45 rounds.

 

Top post!

 

There is enough legit criticism possible with Jeffries that one need not go into blatant fantasy.

"he refused fights with Childs and Martin before he was champ"

Martin debuted according to box rec on June 6, 1899, with a KO loss to former Jeff victim Bob Armstrong. Jeff fought for the title against Fitz 3 days later. Why should anyone who has never had a recorded fight get a shot at the #1 contender? Martin is generally thought to have been born in Sept. 1881, which means he was 17 when Jeff fought for the title. He might have been four years older. Regardless, he was a beginner.

Childs lost to George Byers at 165 lbs. on Sept 14, 1898. So his claim to a "black" or to a "colored" title at this point was weak. Over 1899 and 1900 he fought five draws. He was hardly an outstanding heavyweight contender at this point.

As for Jeff, it is valid to score him for drawing the color line against Johnson and McVea.

But except for Jack Sharkey, which of the old white heavyweight champions fought more good black heavyweights prior to getting a shot at the title?