James J Jeffries?

McVey, Martin and Johnson were all championed by the media to fight Jeff, mainly because the prospective white challengers were so poor. This was a persistent them in the last few years of his reign, not that one has to jump to everything the media says. Jackson as a pre-title opponent was a farce, he was on his downward spiral to his death. The Ruhlin win was decent, the Munroe one was not, Sharkey and Fitz were good defences too. The first Griffin fight has always bothered me, different tales, different dates and I could never find first-hand reports. Perhaps Pollack did, that's one of his books I haven't read. BTW, Martin had a lot of fights prior to his boxrec record, some wins at a decent level.
Having said all that, I think he is better than your Chuvalo type, faster and a heavier puncher.

 

Ruhlin doesn’t put up any offense in the Ruhlin fight to make Jeffries display what he did in the training footage, like his brother did. All Ruhlin did was put up a weak jab throughout the round and Jeffries was catching-and-shooting that with his left hook. Nothing to force Jeff to constantly slip, duck and roll with his punches.

 

Another country heard from...

 

People who criticize a champion's title reign retrospectively, tend to make two common mistakes.

One is taking the worst person they fought, and suggesting a better alternative.

Sometimes that was a tune up fight, with minimal preparation, and the opponent had to reflect that reality.

The second, is not factoring in the time that it takes to negotiate and sign the contracts for a fight, and hold the inevitable training camp.

 

If after a handful of fights,you retire with a thrice broken nose, scar tissue above and below both eyes and a cauliflower ear,you are no defensive wizard.
In their second fight 39 years old ,coming out of 2 years retirement, Fitz was described as hitting Jeffries when and where he pleased,not much slipping, ducking, or rolling there.

 

After the finish of the Finnegan debacle a laughing Jeffries waved to the crowd and said," I told Brady I would knock him out inside of a minute." Finnegan lasted 55 seconds including the count not much of a tune up was it?
You long ago assumed the mantle left by the banned Mendoza. Chief Apologist for Jeffries.

 

It doesn’t eliminate you from being a good defensive fighter either,it just demonstrates Jeff’s willingness to abandon his comfort zone as a counter puncher as go for the easy route of victory as a big man through imposing his size on the chase even when he was bad at defending himself while doing so. LaMotta had solid defense when he wanted to yet ended his career with far more scar tissue damage than Jeffries. Bob had plenty of trouble hitting Jeffries in their first encounter when he was on the pursuit aside from cutting Jeff up in the middle rounds. Plenty of ducking and slipping in those fight descriptions.
Like I said in the last time we discussed this topic; there’s a very good chance Jeffries just naturally had poor skin tissue that was vulnerable to cuts and this is evident by the fact that he had issues with cuts in training camp as well. I don’t think this reflects on his defense when he was in his comfort zone as a counter puncher not on the pursuit, the vast majority of accounts that I’ve seen of Jeffries describe him as being difficult to hit when he’s not on the chase. Ruhlin said that he couldn’t hit Jeffries clean at all after round 2.

 

Shame on you for giving Janitor my rightful crown! lol

 

Now you are just being mean.

I have come to Jack Johnson's assistance enough times, including when the aforementioned Mendoza was here.

You don't actually have to be in one camp or the other.

You can appreciate both.

 

You believe what you want to.I'll just compare retirement photos of Jack Johnson76 fights retiring in his middle 50's and Bob Fitzsimmons78 fights retiring in his late 40's to those of Jeffries 24 fights.

 

I'm in neither camp .
Johnson's style does not appeal to me at all.
I see no actual evidence that Jeffries was ever defensively adept and the injuries he sustained in fights point to the opposite.
I'm not being mean,I'm being honest,both with you and myself.
I really don't think you are .

 

I think Jeffries took more risks with what he was bad at than those two did and at the elite level, as a result paid the price for it far more physically.

 

With no disrespect, you are very firmly in one camp.

 

Correct. Johnson was talked about at least as (very) early as 03, after having defeated Martin for the Coloured HW Championship in Feb 03.

I personally wouldn’t call that a small window and Jeffries’ scheduling and opponent selection otherwise during 03/04 was highly questionable at any rate and shouldn’t be upheld to suggest a small window left for Johnson otherwise.

Jeffries had also addressed Johnson’s outstanding eligibility and precluded him based primarily on the colour line, nothing else.

So, actually being realistic, per Jeffries’ edict, there was never going to be any window of opportunity for Johnson, eligibility notwithstanding.

Corbett had already lost to Fitz and Jeffries. He was 3 years inactive prior to a rematch he hadn’t earned the right to receive at that point in time. Corbett was duly bounced by Jeffries multiple times over 10 rounds before being KO’d.

Then of course, after that, there was Munro, who shouldn’t require explanation as to his lack of eligibility absolute and relative to Johnson.

Johnson could’ve even come after the Munro fight but of course, nothing doing in that regard as far as Jeffries was concerned.

He sat on the title until Johnson’s highly controversial loss to Hart and, surprise, surprise, then chose to retire.

Just imo, I think it’s pretty clear that Jeffries should’ve faced Johnson but the fight didn’t happen simply due to Jeffries maintained adherence to drawing the colour line.

I think any rationales offered otherwise present as excuses on Jeffries behalf.

 

My point was that, let’s say, even if a champion of the day could cite extenuating circumstances beyond his control to explain WHY he didn’t face his top contender(s), the simple FACT remains that he didn’t face him or them, so, for whatever reason(s) he didn’t materially prove himself to be the best of the best.

Therefore, whys and wherefores don’t actually come into what is a simple, sound and straight forward analysis.

The loss to Hart was a robbery. Johnson didn’t have himself to blame at all.

Greggains criteria was framed to attack the very core of Johnson’s style - basically demanding that Johnson not fight as he usually did - and Johnson’s established style had already served him well to date - a style that previous judges had otherwise clearly scored favourably.

Imagine if a random ref/judge had told a fighter like Ali that he wouldn’t be having any of that fancy dancing stuff, swaying out of the way or back pedalling? Stitch up much?

Imo, it’s very clear that Johnson, a defensive fighter and extremely effective counter puncher, defeated Hart by a very good margin and by way of a very acceptable (broadly) boxing style.

Could you also imagine Greggains arbitrarily applying that criteria to the likes of Corbett?

Well, of course he wouldn’t have because Jim was white - “You run as much as you like Jim and I’ll score every one of your taps a point - it’s clearly scientific and perfectly legit.” Lol.

So, in summary, we had Jeffries refusing to face Johnson based only on the colour line. We had Johnson enjoying a very nice streak until being robbed against Hart. Then we had Jeffries, who had been sitting on the title, conveniently electing to retire after Johnson’s “loss” to Hart.

Personally, I don’t think it’s too difficult to join the dots there.