Jeff or Johnson-best comp as champ?

major difference between being a retired alfafa farmer hanging out at your brothers bar and being a working fighter who fought for the championship three years earlier.

I agree that the second fight is not a super quality win, but people wanted to see it.

 

Only 3 excusses? C´mon, I expected more from you...

 

anybody who thinks that Jeffries was a great defense for Johnson, remember to give the nod to Jeffries over Jackson, just to be fair.

 

Not excuses, just the truth Jack.:good

 

You´re the best when it comes to find the best excusses, Clay...

 

Ring-side observers from the fight concurred these stated conditions. Whether or not you want to brush facts off as excuses and propaganda is your business.

 

I'm not making it up. It's well documented.:good

 

Exactly. In Johnson´s biography, where everytime Jack struggled or lost other strange things happened... :good

 

Not true. Only a few of Johnson's losses were atrributed to strange circumstances, the O'brien fight being one of them.

 

Johnson never lost normally when he was healthy and well-trained, believe me!

 

The Choynski fight was on the up and up. Johnson was in shape, and well-fed in that fight. Choynski was just too experienced for him.

 

The Choynski fight was on the up and up. Johnson was in shape, and well-fed in that fight. Choynski was just too experienced for him.

 

He was determinate robbed in this one...

 

What do you mean?

 

Rightfully or not, that was funny .



On the topic, i think the level of competition is very close. Both faced a lot of little men. Fitzsimmons was greater than Ketchel but he gave Jeffries a pretty bad beating, twice, before the law of middleweight durability vs heavyweight durability bailed him out.


Corbett indeed hadn't won a fight in 5 years although i think here it should be noted that he was fighting several times before facing Jeffries. Fights that have been confirmed. Meaning that at least he was in fighting shape. Jeffries on the other hand, before meeting Johnson for years didn't think he would ever step back into the ring again and (mis)treated his body accordingly, as witnessed from his 320lbs weight. There is a good chance that Corbett still fought exhibitions; how many did Jeffries have when he was officialy retired at his ranch?
I don't think this is a particularly good win for either one.

I think as a name and considering the circumstances i described, Corbett was an a bit better win. However, Johnson dominated Jeffries pretty badly from both what i've read and from what i've seen of the fight. On the other hand, Jeffries was getting a boxing lesson for most of the 23 rounds and when he took him out it came as a suprise, he was that far behind despite lacking the strength. For how many rounds was this one scheduled, by the way?

So in terms of how they won, Johnson's domination over Jeffries was more impressive than Jeffries' snatch from defeat over Corbett. But are we merely talking about the level of competition beat or how they did it, here?


I think Jeffries' win over Sharkey is very impressive and probably better than any of Johnson's wins (linear title only) although this was a very hard fight for him.


By the way, didn't Johnson defend against Battling Jim Johnson? Maybe i forgot but i don't remember seeing him mentioned.



Lastly, i would like to point out that if i had to judge their title reigns, i would give the edge to Jeffries. The competition is on the same level but Johnson won more impressive, so Johnson has the edge there. There are two important things to remember, though: Johnsons best opponent is probably Burns, but he didn't choose Burns; he had to fight him to obtain the title. This is a minor point but it serves as an introduction to my next point:

Jeffries ducked only 1 deserving challenger whereas Johnson failed to meet 4 deserving challengers. I think that is a few too many to rate him at the top as a champion. For example, Patterson's reign is wildely criticized but it contained much less avoiding than Johnson's did.

In fact, one could compare Jeffries' reign to Pattersons in the sense that he avoided 1 challenger (Liston, though he did fight him later as did Jeffries). On the contrary, Johnson's avoiding of challengers has not been exceeded in 100 years of boxing. You could argue that Holmes should've met 4 challengers as well (Dokes, Coetzee, Page and Thomas) but the crucial difference is that these men were deserving challengers for a short period of time untill they got addicted to coke or imploded otherwise. Mcvey, Jeannete and Langford basically only lost to each other and beat up the rest. Gunboat Smith was an excellent contender.

A parallel would be if Bonavena was champion in '71 by beating Ellis, then went on to defend against rather soft touches, a shot Liston in '74 (if he still lived) untill he gets beaten in '78 by Leon Spinks. During '71-'78, Ali, Foreman and Frazier all beat up the division and only lose to each other but are denied a title shot. In addition, a solid contender like Quarry is also denied a title shot despite the champion's willingness to defeat "white hopes".