I don't think Jeffries would fare very well. He was an attrition fighter that would wear his opponents down that he had a great size advantage on- corbett, Sharkey, fitzsimmons. In the 70's most opponents would match his size and some Like Ali and Foreman were larger. His style wouldn't be as effective. Now Jeffries was a great athlete so if you let him train and learn the advancements of the sport and the style of fighting fewer rounds I am sure he would be able to adapt and do very well. He was an elite athlete, with a great chin and a great will to win. I just think his style as it was would not fare well. Imo
Taking Jeffries as he was against the rated fighters of that decade: Quarry :think Bonavena W Foster W Liston D Liston was an old man by then Garcia W Bugner W Bobick W Knoetzee W Evangelista W Chuvalo W Bodell W Cooper W Coetzee W Lyle L Patterson W Norton W Shavers W Foreman L Ali L Frazier :think Weaver W Clark W Young L Ellis L Spinks W 25 opponents. 17wins 5 losses 1 draw 2:think undecided. So pretty good really.:good Edited to give the Bugner fight to Jeffries.
Mcvey you a L for a bugner match-up is that a confident pick I can't help but feel if Jeffries let's enough leather go bugner may go into his shell a bit and Jeffries may get a UD win in America on punch output . I am also assuming that Jeffries as a period of assimilation to the era as it's a body of fights question
yet your the same guy who said Jefferies wouldn't fare so well in the 70's in other threads?Mcliar at it again....
No it's not a confident pick, I think it could very well go the way you suggest. Actually I think you're right Bugner too passive to win this ,Jeffries by dec.
He wouldnt beat either Ali ,Foreman or Lyle imo ,Quarry and Frazier are toss-ups. NB it's Jeffries.:good
Jeffries in his prime I think would be able to beat 1970's version of Ali or Frazier in most years of the decade. I think he'd take Norton out as well, but would lose on points to Holmes in the late 1970's. Foreman vs Jeffries would be a huge match up.
As much as I respect him I think he does poorly. A 39 year old 167 lbs Bob Fitszimmons gave him hell. An equally sized Joe Choynski fought him over 20 rounds to a draw. 6-2 Gus Ruhlin fought him 20 rounds to a draw. And Jeffries had his nose broken on some three occasions by some of these men or men of similar description. Honestly I think some of the lower echelon men of the seventies like Chuvalo, Quarry, and Ellis would beat him. Never mind Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, or Holmes.
He wouldn't make it past amateur level, boxing had moved on too much for him. Nearly every top pro would absolutely shut him out or knock him out.
As he was, probably journeyman caliber. I really don't see what a ranked fighter like Wepner had that Jeffries didn't. If he'd had access to the tools to help him adjust to where the sport had gone to, he'd have gone considerably further IMO. His measurables were by no means out of place in that era.
I agree with some of the things you say. But the problem is that he relied heavily on his physicality in his own era and there were times when that was almost not enough despite facing men who were smaller, older, etc... Being 6'0, 215 lbs in the 1970s wasn't especially unique. And that defense of his would need a serious improvement or he'd be eating more leather against some of those technicians in just three rounds than he traditionally ate in an entire evening ..
Very true, his reliance was on outlasting an opponent through attrition. It's because of this and some tangible film such as his fight against Gus Ruhlin, which always made me believe he was really just a primitive version of George Chuvalo and I have never seen anything that could convince me otherwise. Even some of his fights if shifted to the '70s such as the first Corbett fight or the second Fitz fight would have yielded a loss in todays game. There are those that believe the legend rather than their own eyes who will tell you it was all part of his master plan to lure them into his trap. Well I don't know about that. Getting beat on intentionally isn't much of a plan. Still, I do agree that he fought in accordance with the game of the day and will say that if fighting in the '70s he would have been taught differently, trained differently and fought differently. Whether he could have made the grade is speculation from there on.
Agreed on all the above. Jim Jeffries was a traditional strong man. Tough, Rugged, and Sturdy. He did have some athleticism but I don't know if he was made to have the fluid mobility of a lot of the men of later periods. He fought with his guard low as he advanced towards his opponents, which would give someone like say Jerry Quarry a nice opportunity to land some counter shots. As you say he might have been a totally different fighter under different training standards for better or worse, but if transferred from 1904 to 1974 unchanged I seriously doubt he makes top 10.