Jeffries vs Johnson. The picks before the fight.

You have a good point. I noticed on the general forum thread that a discussion of Maskaev and Peter went on for pages with no one mentioning that Maskaev is 39 and has not fought in 2 1/2 years.
I see some comments on Vitali Klitschko coming back which also ignore his age and long layoff in predicting success. At this point, Vitali is a crap shoot.

 

After the bout with Jack Johnson Jeffries (himself) acknowledged that not even in his prime could he ever be able to defeat Jack Johnson

 

I would say Vitali has absolutely almost no chance of coming back to regain anything like his old form. He will probably stay retired.

These guys have SLIM SLIM chances. Anything is possible but some things are highly unlikely. George Foreman's comeback was an exception, and it took 6 or 7 years of campaigning with severe set-backs and some lucky (or undeserved) breaks to final accomplish the goal. Riddick Bowe's "attempt" at a comeback is more typical.

 

Modesty becomes him - I guess.

 

Jeff did change his mind a while AFTER the fight though.

 

Ketchal pick Johnson to win. Wow.

 

Agreed.

I remember a certain person here giving Holyfield a good chance to beat Ibragimov.

 

I hold my hands up to that.
And by fight time the overall consensus was swaying towards Holyfield winning, or at least his chances were considered pretty good. That's the infectiousness of it, and people start to think like, "well, he's still Evander Holyfield after all" ..... it's crazy though, but that's human nature.

I can call it out 9 times out of 10 when others are doing it (like Tyson fans ever since '98 or so), but it's harder to see when you're doing it yourself - well, actually, you just dont care at the time, you know it's irrational but you carry on believing anyway.

 

We're all human.

 

Well, it depends on the title, and the "champion" he beats.
I dont just credit guys for having alphabet belts.

But, AT HIS AGE, after a 3-4 year layoff, IF he comes back to beat a current top 3 fighter that is IMPRESSIVE.

 

Well he made a fortune from the fight, so he was hardly a fool.

Obviously he was nowhere near his best, yet the reality is that did far better in his final fight than Joe Louis, Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Michael Spinks, Joe Frazier, and 99% of other great fighters.

People seem to forget that there is absolutely no shame whatsoever in being knocked out after a long fight with a one of the all time greats, who probably put on one of his best (if not his best) ever performances. It is also forgot that while Johnson was the dominant and deserved winner, Jeffries still landed plenty. In fact, i am not even convinced that there was another fighter around at the time, that would have necessarilly beaten Jeffries. Sure some like langford would start favourite, but it would by no means a certain bet. Johnson had already dominated Langford, Mcvey and Jeanette as easy or easier than he dominated Jeffries.

In all honesty, Jeffries should be applauded for putting up one of the gutsiest performance ever against a younger, hungrier, all time great fighter. He should be respected for this. Imagine if Bowe came back to fight Lewis after a long lay off, Ali came back to fight Holmes, Holmes came back to fight Tyson, Louis to fight Marciano, Willard to fight Dempsey, Dempsey to fight Tunney. The list goes on. Actually most of those did happen didnt they.

Now i think about it, what fighter came back from a long layoff (a real retirement where they didnt train through it) and actually perform as well as Jeffries did against an all time great. I cant think of any. Ali v Frazier, maybe, but it was a much shorter break, and ali definitely trained through his "retirement" but not really as hard. And he had plenty of warmups. I suppose Foreman vs Holyfield possibly, but Foreman had plenty of tuneups. When i think about it, this could have quite possibly the greatest ever comeback performance against an all time great champion, in the heavyweight division

 

What if he fights Vlad and is knocked out late in the fight?

 

Jeff did not proform that well, I have seen 7 rounds of there contest, and Johnson relly did put the smack down on Jeff. It was one of the most one sided contests I ever saw.

Louis, did better against Marciano, than Jeffries did vs Johnson. This was more of the tone of Ali vs Holmes, only the ref and or coner didnt stop the fight. If Ali had Jeffires crew on his side, for the Holmes fight, it would not have been stop in round 11.

 

So you think Jeffries put up a better fight than Louis against marciano and Frazier againstr Cummings?Louis was competitve againstRocky for a while and Frazier got a draw in his final fight .Jeffries wasnt in the fight with Johnson ,he only lasted because Jack was in no hurry to knock him out,wanting to get his pound of flesh, after all the **** he had to put up with.Jeffries showed little,he was the original empty shell ,his vaunted strength wasn,t to be seen ,Johnson handled him easily in the clinches,all big Jeff had was his undoubted courage and high tolerance of pain,it must have been 15 rds of torture for him,being thrashed and humiliated by a man who he personally disliked.Ali after 3 1/2 years of inactivity and 18 rounds under his belt took on the best fighter in the world ,gave him hell for 15 rds and put him in the hospital,I dont see much comparison.