James Jeffries vs Deontay Wilder

I understood his point about beating a ranked fighter vs an unranked fighter doing more for your legacy.

My main point was that it is objectively more difficult to beat a boxer 50 lbs heavier and younger than one 50 lbs lighter and older regardless of their ranking (assuming the unranked guy isn't some novice with zero experience). I was attempting to drive the point home by painting a picture about the drastically different reactions people would have for the 2 possible endings of a fight between Canelo and Wilder: the fact NOBODY would care if either fighter was ranked, neither fan nor reporter. It would drastically boost the career of one fighter and put a heap of criticism on the other.

But the biggest elephants in the room are

-how good was the ranking system in Jeff's time?

-doesn't the fact an old shopworn Andre Ward sized guy became champion say a lot about the era? The people DURING that era were concerned about the size difference between him and Jeff before the fight! Yet 100 years later people are quick to throw heaps of praise on Jeff when if that fight were made today there'd be just as much concern and criticism, if not more! That's why I find this logic perplexing to ONLY focus on "rank".

-the final elephant to address your last point, Jeff had one of the shortest reigns of any heavyweight champion, even by modern standards. So for Janitor to go on this crusade about him "fighting the best, unlike Wilder" is quite ironic given that he had less than 30 bouts and said some nonsense about not wanting to hurt the young up and coming fighters since he "felt like Alexander" and had nothing left to prove. On top of that, he drew the color line!

Sounds like mental gymnastics to me.

 

I think it comes down to how Jeff handles Wilder's power. Wilder hits hard, and I'm pretty confident he hits harder than anyone Jeff faced. If he can take Wilder's punches, then he has a good chance. If he can't, then we all know what that means.

 

I'm assuming a 12 round bout.

I don't think Wilder is the kind of fighter that could defeat Jeffries, who was comprehensively outboxed by and older Corbett for 23 rounds (!) before landing a lucky KO punch. Guys like Fitzsimmons, Choynski and Ruhlin (first fight) did well, cut him up, blackened his eyes but could not KO him.

Wilder had that one punch power, but the one thing, and IMO the ONLY thing, that separates Jeffries from the pack is his ability to take punches and punishment and come out on top. Over 12 rounds, I give Wilder a 33% chance of winning a decision. Over 20 rounds, Jeffries knocks him out.

Now, ask me how Jeffries would do against Lewis, either Klit, or Fury, and that's a different story. Or rather, different stories. They all TKO Jeffries, easily IMO.

 

I agree. But if you retire very early with several other potentially good matchups available, I can't objectively say you dominated or were the best of an era, with or without a color line.

For comparison, Rocky had 49 fights plus a short amateur career and people criticized his early retirement but Jeff gets a pass. Rocky pretty much left no stone unturned.

Ok so if the rankings were not only biased and affected by prejudice but also not good to begin with, how can Janitor take the moral high ground about Jeff "beating the best"...? That's the part I don't get. People make fun of Joe Louis' bum of the month club but nobody can say he was a ducker regardless of the skill level or size of those opponents. He consistently demolished all the best contenders black, white or yellow, light heavy or super heavy didn't matter.

Well shoot I can see how this can be a hard comparison to make. A poor ranking system full of bias with one belt vs a watered down ranking system with 4 belts. They're both turds but one is polished and the other has sprinkles.

 

Here's the issue, you yourself said the rankings in jeff's time were flawed and biased so how do we objectively know if all the praise he received was justified?

It would be like if I made a biased grading system and one of my preferred students ended up with the best grade in the class. How do we really know said student deserved to become valedictorian?

Ok this part is also confusing because how do you just hand wave every ranked colored fighter in the division and assume only Johnson would have been a challenge? People try this same logic with Demspey's color line.

 

Well in the school example i meant like a privately owned school with a smaller number of students, which would be easier to pull off than a nationwide conspiracy. Or a dojo where the sensei is blatantly biased to the rankings of his preferred students.

It isn't a "conspiracy" if we have evidence of a biased ranking system full of biased writers who wrote with flowery exaggerated language.

Or option C, he was a good champion who worked hard and beat who he was supposed to beat for the most part, but might have missed some good contenders due to a very biased ranking system (wasn't his fault) and received a little more praise than he deserved (also not his fault) so it's a little hard to gauge exactly how good he is (especially due to the lack of clear film and the size and age of his opponents). No massive conspiracy theory needed.

Pretty sure there were plenty of other black fighters aside from Johnson available before he retired.

 

You don't actually because it's not a journalists job to handle the rankings. The fighters and trainers for the most part just shut up and fought/trained and weren't extremely vocal about the way things were done. Referees and judges could have been just as oblivious as regular guys like me and you.

Even if you want to go down that route, it is not difficult to imagine that the majority of writers and boxing commissioners were biased and didn't care for the plight of other boxers Who might have deserved a better ranking when you examine the nationwide poop storm of riots and lynchings that occured when Johnson won. Not everyone in America was racist, but enough of them were that even if a vocal minority spoke up they were often silenced or ignored.

We're not exactly talking moon landing conspiracy theories here, this is pretty straightforward and well documented. And like I said, we don't even have to dig that deep since my main point from the beginning was A) the ranking system itself was flawed and biased and B) the fact an old Andre Ward sized fighter was the best heavyweight points to a very weak era even by old school standards.

Even I have to give Jeff credit for his incredible toughness and beating whoever they put in front of him. I even give him credit for coming out of retirement and giving it one last go. At the same time I know hero worship when I see it. I mean you're a mod, look at how much people were drooling over Anthony Joshua before he got "exposed" and people realized he was mortal. Imagine if fury and Wilder did not exist and Joshua beat Ruiz, then unified with bermane stiverne for the wbc to become undisputed and retired young and undefeated. Would the situation be any different? As a witness to the current era of boxing, I could objectively tell my grandkids how biased Joshua's fans were and that they gave him an irrational amount of praise without him having truly tested himself.

There's a big difference between being expected to fight "everybody" and criticizing a fighter who retired in his 20's with 20 something fights.

If Langford and Johnson were the only credible black challengers and one wasn't interested and the other was green and lacked the money draw then that's understandable, but are we certain that out of the ENTIRE colored division there was nobody else worth mentioning for Jefferies entire run?

 

I agree with most most of this of this ,except Johnson was beaten four times and drew some while Jeffries was active from 1899-1905. Johnson had a chance to emerge as the #1 contender but later lost to Marvin Hart.

1899 KO Loss to Klondike
1901 KO loss to Choynski
1901 points loss to Griffin
1905 points loss to Hart.

Add in 6 draws and you get the picture.

So I would say Johnson emerged when the sunset on Corbett, Jeffries and Fitz being 40 + years old. The year after Jeffries retired in 1906-1907, Johnson went on a roll, but who did he beat? After 1906, Johnson would never fight Langford again ( who was 20 year old estimated to be 156 pounds for their only fight ). Johnson beat Mcvey last in 1904 when McVey was a teenager and never give him another fight from 1905-1915. Jeannette wasn't given a fight either with Johnson from 1907-1915 either but I do find it interesting that their last fight in 1906, when Jeannette was 10-10-1 was viewed as even!

So from 1907-the match with Burns, Johnson did not fight the best out there, and beat the likes of Flynn, and who else? Exactly my point.

While I do think Johnson improved a bit post Marvin Hart and was just too big for a 5'7 1/2 168 pounds Tommy Burns, he didn't look great as young champion in his prime, drawing with O'Brien, getting floored by a middle weight in Ketchel, and being cold clocked in a 4 round exhibition match with Gun Boat Smith.

 

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