James Jeffries vs Deontay Wilder

You missed lots of points then. All true. I laid them out in a chronological order. Give it a look and tell me what you disagree with without going into depth. I don't think you will, but I'm curious to see if anything I was said was wrong. It will take 3 minutes.

 

Does anyone really believe Jefferies was any more skilled than Wilder?

 

Yes.

 

How? He started at a similar age and looks even more crude on film and he was larger than 90% of his contemporaries. How can you reasonably assume he's more skilled than someone fighting over 100 years later?

 

No.

Jeffries wasn't more skilled. Didn't hit as hard. Wasn't as experienced. The size of the opponents were ridiculously different. There was anywhere from a 50 to 100 pound difference between the best fighters Wilder faced and best Jeffries faced.

Jeffries was a pioneer and should be respected for that. But he couldn't compete today. The guys he faced wouldn't even be heavyweights today.

If a Wilder-Jeffries fight lasted as long as Wilder-Arreola, I'd be shocked. And Wilder stopped him with a broken hand and a torn bicep.

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I do not regard rankings to be the be all any the end all.

For example I am sure that Cleveland Williams was better before he broke the top ten, than he was when Ali beat him at the end of the road.

However they do give you a ballpark idea of who the top players were at the time.

If an allegedly formidable contender has not beaten anybody in the top ten, that should set alarm bells ringing.

If a champion is not defending against people in the top ten, that should set a lot of alarm bells ringing!

In Jeffries case, we have a situation where your second scenario, was preceded by your first.

You had a man who was little more than a middleweight, who knocked out the two top heavyweight contenders, within a few weeks of each other.

That man was then quite rightly considered to be the most qualified challenger!

To clarify, I have a combat sports background, but I am not a boxer.

The only boxing that I have done is sparring.

Yes I know what it is like to fight a bigger opponent, but you also know enough about boxing history, to know that some men simply beat those odds.

Once in a while you get a Mickey Walker or James Toney.

You also know that this kind of fighter would have more chance against a Breazle, than he would against a Povetkin.

Yes you can can produce examples like that, that contradict my use of rankings, but I find it to hold true more often than not.

A fighter's results against men in the top ten, are sometimes very different, from their results against men outside the top ten.

Any fighter who is consistent against men in the top ten, is an absolute monster!

A fighters top ten opponents will usually beat them and drop them, more than the rest put together!

 

But the public can be fooled. This isn't a valid argument. Millions of people got duped into believing Adrian Broner was the next Mayweather and He even received a p4p ranking until he was humiliated by Maidana. Im sure you're familiar with the term "manufactured fighter". Of course, I am not suggesting Jefferies was manufactured, but his image certainly could have been. I don't think he was in on it, but again you can look at the clever marketing and silver tongue of promoters like Eddie Hearn who somehow got thousands of boxing fans on forums and YouTube to believe Joshua was the greatest thing since sliced bread and would have KO'd Ali with a jab.

It's all about perception and marketing. The People hyping up Jefferies don't even need to be malicious or full of it; the case can simply be that the writers did their job watching fights and reporting that Jeff is apparently the best heavyweight ever having beaten every top contender in dominant fashion and retired undefeated. They don't have to know that the rankings were tinkered with and other fighters were overlooked to shower him with praise in their writings.

And don't pretend that there weren't plenty of fighters in history who waited eons to get their shot and were ignored by tbe top management. Again, this does not require some deep web conspiracy as we have evidence of these sorts of things happening before and after Jefferies and even today.

Basically, Jeff's hard work and wins were 100% legitimate, the writers were just doing their job and the public were oblivious because they were fed the perception that in only 20 fights he was the "world" champion after having beaten old inactive Andre Ward sized fighters because the boxing commission "said so".

How were there no rankings? I'm lost, what did you mean when you wrote this:

I wasn't trying to imply nobody alive back then actually legitimately believed he was as good as the historians claimed. Im saying their perception has a filter and the claim itself has an asterisk* due to Jeff having a VERY short career, the condition and age of the few decent fighters he fought, and the color line. It's that simple. In any other sport his record would be rightly criticized if discussed 100 years later. It doesn't mean people back then were dumb, just naive and lacking an alternate to compare his record to.

Look at Deontay Wilder lol. You can literally look at his resume and compare it another boxer (Joshua) to see how bogus most of it is outside of Stiverne, Ortiz, etc. The 4 different sanctioning bodies are a blessing and a curse. Back then, an old shopworn Fitzsimmons won the belt in a watered down era and did nothing for 2 years before getting smashed by an actual heavyweight (and a crude one relying on size and toughness at that).

No idea. Other than YouTube documentaries and a few articles I don't know much about the more obscure fighters of this era (especially the black ones).

Well that's just it, how are we allowing old, inactive, light heavyweight sized corbett and Fitzsimmons as "extraordinary contenders" but we criticize the huge skilled but old Ortiz with a superb amateur background? Or Dominic Brezeale who wasnt the most skilled but he was ranked #1 by the WBC and had a weight advantage? Gerald Washington who people on this very forum accused Wilder of ducking? Stiverne the reigning legitimate WBC champion with 20 lbs advantage? Calling Wilder a bum for losing to an undefeated skilled 6'9 50 lbs heavier Fury?

No, I will not gloss over Jeff's record due to "rankings" and then turn around and say Wilder's record is garbage. It's nonsense.

To quote the bitter Larry Holmes: "He was a young man beating old guys. I'm an old guy beating young guys".

 

There is no assumption, but there is evidence.

For a start, being more skilled than Wilder would not be hard.

Take away his power, and he probably never makes it out of the amateurs.

Jeffries level of skill is difficult to judge, because we have to work with bad film, and eyewitness accounts.

Some people were praising him as a clever boxer towards the end of his career, and that would at least imply that he had a bit more technique than Wilder.

 

Yes they can give you a ball park but Cleveland Williams is actually a very good example. He was a shell of his former self and with careful matchmaking he was able to get a crack at a prime Muhammad Ali. The fight did not LOOK like two highly rated contenders, it looked like a bully beating up a kid for his snacks.

That's why people make videos and articles saying "so and so got exposed"...kind of like WILDER! "How did he make it this far?".

Similarly, I can't help but wonder how old inactive fitzsimmons and Corbett remained credible challengers to Jefferies even AFTER he beat them the first time and they got even older, more shopworn, and inactive in the rematch!

And then that same middleweight did nothing and was a 36 year old man with a receding hairline inactive for 2 years before facing a hulking prime fighter 50 lbs heavier.

Anything sounds good without context!

Yes it happens once in a while but the exception doesn't disprove the norm. You normally don't see canelo sized guys beating up basketball power forward sized heavyweights. That's WHY Fitsmzsimmons, James Toney, hearns, were given so much praise. You don't expect a guy that small to beat fighters that big.

Which begs the question: why are we praising one fighter for doing what is expected and bashing another fighter for doing what is unexpected???

Well I agree with all that. You just seem to have a problem with the idea that some top 10's are better than others and refuse to think that any comparison can be made across eras, which is puzzling because you seem very fond of cross era discussions.

 

Yes, take away Wilder's power and he has a lot more losses. Most people agree on that.

Jeff's best quality is probably his chin and toughness. How does Jefferies do with the exact same size, style, and build but having the chin of David Price?

 

[QUOTE="janitor, post: 20505567, member: 3871"
Some people were praising him as a clever boxer towards the end of his career, and that would at least imply that he had a bit more technique than Wilder.[/QUOTE]

What a clever boxer looked like in 1900 was far different than what a clever boxer looks like in 2020.

We can see what fighers looked like in Jeffries' era. And we can see Jeffries wasn't a clever boxer.

Times have changed. We're comparing a fighter from 1900 to one in 2020.

Going back to what I said yesterday about people choosing to believe articles from 1900 rather than their own eyes, you should trust your eyes a little more.

Jeffries was fine for 1900. He wouldn't be allowed to fight super middleweights today.

 

I can answer that for you.

Between them, they beet the three best young contenders of the era, a mere few weeks apart!

Look at the dates of Fitzsimmons wins over Ruhlin and Sharkey, and Corbett's win over McCoy.

You will understand why Jeffries was expected to fight these men!

But if they do, then it should mean exactly the same as a bigger fighter beating the same man!

I make no assumption that eras are equal, but we can compare what each fighter accomplished relative to his era, more or less.

Things become problematic when you assume to know that one era was better than another.

It would only take one or two upsets to turn that idea on its head.

Things become more than problematic, when you assume that the B team of one era, could beat the A team of another!

That is a massive assumption!