Jeffries offers to fight Johnson in a cellar

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/art...es fight cellar weekly articles&searchLimits=

i forgot this link to the earlier article i was referring to.

 

Sam McVey was but 20 in the last fight when Johnson beat him. While Munore was not a world beater, he was viewed as a contneder who could hit, and leading up to the fight, had not been stopped.

When Jeffries was matched vs. Munore or a non elite level opponent, he did exactly what a great champion should do. Destroy them. The match wasn't a 6 round or 10 round joke like Johnson often had, and unlike Johnson who fought an out of shape Munroe years later, Jeffries most certainly Ko'd him hard. There was never a question of who the winner should be.

As for farce of title shots, I think Johnson had way too many of them. Why not finish Ross, Flynn, O'Brien, ect... Why have 6 round title matches?

 

good form mcvey, good form

 

I didn't think they could pack that much bull**** into one page 'Langford was robbed against Johnson, Johnson had fought no one by 1904 etc" its a wonder he didn't repeat the drugged tea excuse.
Any respect I had for that big ,surly ,racist , arsehole ,just evaporated.

 

Are you sure Langford did not win a round? As we know, Sam was but 156 pounds for that fight. Interestingly enough Johnson himself said Langford floored him to the press in France. Should we take 'Papa Jack at his word?

So Johnson used the color line worse than anyone in history. The two best white hopes were McCarthy and Smith. Smith scored a tko in a 4 round exhibition match where the press said Johnson was dazed and his manager had to halt the action. McCarthy died young. As for making money, we have been over this. There were many references of 30k, 50k, even 100k purses for Johnson to fight the top three ( Langford, Jeanette, and McVey ) ranked guys of his time. some of the offers were from big name guys such as the man who promoted Johnson vs. Burns.

Agreed on Langford, but you discount Jeanette. Remember when Johnson beat Jeanette, Jeanette was but a novice fighter, sometimes with losing record. Yet toward the end the battles were close. Jeanette on film in his prime, moves well and is active. To say Jeanette did not have a realistic chance to beat Johnson after 1910 challenges your own intellectual honesty. Sam McVey was just a teenager when Johnson beat him, Mcvey post 1910 could certainly beat Johnson, who in 1905 could not even hold out and out work Marvin Hart, who in my opinion was not even as good as a prime McVey was from 1908-1913!!!

 

I guess my question regarding this was how much did Jack really stand out? He wasn't exactly the Peter Jackson to Jeffries' John L. Sullivan. He hadn't exactly cleaned out the division in impressive fashion as Jackson had. In fact he was criticized for being an incredibly boring fighter that, when in the ring, seemed to do everything in his power to make sure a fight didn't happen. Today we admire this ability to "shut down" an opponents offense. But back then to the people who spent the money and sat there hoping for some action it was torturous.

Peter Jackson was considered as having a very good chance of beating Sullivan and I think a fight between those two would have drawn a good gate. Johnson on the other hand was considered by many to not be in Jeffries' class and was John Ruiz as far as thrills in the ring go. I agree with you that Jeffries probably didn't like the thought of the social repercussions and headache of losing to a black man. But I can't dismiss the money situation altogether either. From all I've read about the times and how both men were perceived by the press and public in general I don't believe a Jeffries-Johnson fight would have drawn much at that time.

Johnson may have been the standout challenger but that doesn't necessarily mean that he loomed as a threat in the same way Peter Jackson or Harry Wills did. Jeffries' contention that Johnson "wouldn't draw flies" is probably correct and he told him so.

 

I wish I remember where I put that Pittsburgh Press article in which a Jeffries camp member states that Jeff has no real problem with fighting blacks (he'd done so before) and that if the money was right he would fight Johnson or whatever other black challenger would be a good box office draw. It is a matter of record that he was really getting tired of the whole "heavyweight champ" thing and especially the drudgery of training.

Personally, from what I've read of Jeff he seems like the type of guy who definitely would have fought Johnson if he loomed over him in the same way Jackson loomed over Sullivan or Wills loomed over Dempsey. The action would have been guaranteed and the money would have been right.

 

Johnson fought Munroe exactly 10 months after Jeffries did:rofl
Jeffries did not ko Munroe, Ed Graney the referee stopped it.atsch
There was never a question whom the winner was between Munroe and Johnson either.
The only question was, what the **** was Munroe doing in a title fight with the world champion?

 

If Johnson wanted to earn a jeffries fight, surely he needed to dispatch Monroe easily. I mean you laugh at Monroe's claims for a title shot, and Johnson cant beat him.

 

No ,don't take Johnson at his word for it because he never said it . Take 3 eyewitness accounts from papers just posted by Surf Bat ,plus plenty of others that can be shown.
According to you Langford's best weight was 170/175lbs or so you just posted so he was 15/ 20 pounds below his best weight when he fought Johnson, Johnson scaled 185lbs for that fight his best weight was 208lbs, so he was 23lbs below his best weight.and Langford was the more experienced fighter with over 50 contests.
You don't even know who that is, I had to tell you who bankrolled it before.

 

How come he repeatedly stated he would not defend his title against a black man under any circumstances.
Do you not beleive Jeffries would have made more money fighting Johnson in 1904 than he did against Munroe ?