"Jim J. Jeffries vs. Max Baer" (Heavyweight Title Dream Fight.) Who is the man?

Your three points are factually correct, but it seems to me not all that persuasive.

"Jeffries chin is untested against men of that size"

But a chin is tested not by big men but by men who can punch. Did Carnera or Jose Santa test a chin to the same extent as Dempsey or Marciano?

"He never met a man his own size"

There were no good fighters his own size and there would not be for over a half a century (except possibly for an occasional Willard-and none were really top flight). In his own day Jeffries was matched with the top fighters, not with the biggest men. Which big man of the Jeffries era do you pick over him? The giants of his day were not even able to compete with Fitz and Choynski. Why do you presume they could compete with Jeffries?

"He held a weight advantage over all his opponents"

This just repeats the same point. Jeff was the biggest good fighter of his era, by far.

**All the arguments against Jeff boil down to arguing size is more important than quality. And all are wrong.

***Why exclude Fitz and Choynski?--Because 20 of his 23 fights were against men who seem to have weighed 180 or above, and Jeff did better against men of this size than Baer did.

 

It all depends on how Jeffries reacts to Baer’s nuclear power, and if Baer is a significantly harder puncher than Fitz, Sharkey, Choynski, Ruhlin. He almost certainly hits harder, but how much harder? Jeffries basically walked through their punches, and Ruhlin said that he couldn’t land effectively on Jeffries after round 2. I doubt Baer is more technically efficient than Ruhlin as the Ruhlin that Jeffries fought in their rematch was tidied up as a more technical boxer by Corbett.

Jeffries would land and time Max effectively, likely also makes Max miss most of his punches as well. I’m just not sure how well Jim takes those shots. If his chin holds up, late KO/TKO for the Boilermaker.

 

He never showed it in an actual fight.

 

He did utilize head movement and rolling with his shoulder in a lot of fight descriptions we have of him though, even in fights where he took a lot of damage and got cut. In fact in the Pollack book of Jeffries I was surprised by how many times he was described ducking like in the first Fitz fight for example. In the footage against Ruhlin, Gus doesn’t offer up much offense for Jeffries to avoid and even then you could still see Jeffries roll with Gus’ right toward the end of the round, which he also does in the training footage.

Obviously, Jeffries wasn’t pulling back and ducking with his hands down as if he’s prime Roy Jones like in this clip, however it does put to rest the idea that Jeffries didn’t have any defense at all. It can’t just be ignored when assessing his abilities. A lot of his style seemed to be reflex-based after all

 

At first I thought WTF I never said any of that ! But of course you quoted a post of mine from 2011 ! lol

I find hard to believe that he never showed head movement in a fight though McVey, while he does his thing in the there in the video. And we are comparing him with Baer, a guy with zero body swing at all......

 

Max Baer.

A big fighter with power would have been a problem for Jeffries. Its why I think Jeffries couldn't have been champ in the 1910s because he would not have been able to deal with Fulton, Willard, Carl Morris and Coffey. Not to mention the smaller guys with power like Langford, Flynn and Lang.

Jeffries fought 6 ft 4 Bob Armstrong who was fighting at a super lean 187 and whom Jeffries outweighed by 25 pounds fighting at a super lean 187 and still he struggled mightily. With modern judging Jeffries might have lost its really unclear. He also outweighed the Akron Giant Gus Ruhlin by 18. Jeffries is someone who really needed his size advantages.

The era following Jeffries retirement was smaller and honestly I doubt Jeffries ability to beat those guys. If Jeffries is struggling to beat Tom Sharkey hows hes doing against Schreck, Root, Hart, O Brien and Ketchel? While Jeffries reigned until 1905 his reign was almost exclusively against retreds from the 1890s.

The 4 best opponents Jeffries beat were old especially if we're talking easy wins. Goddard, Fitzsimmons, Peter Jackson and rematch Corbett. All north of 35. Which makes his loss to Jack Johnson very ironic. Tom Sharkey, Armstrong and Corbett the first time all gave him trouble. Like with Armstrong its pretty unclear how close Jeffries actually came to losing to Tom Sharkey. But Sharkey went the distance in competitive fights. Jeffries won all his fights in that era but even in his era he probably needed his size and age advantages to do that.



Yes Uzcudin beat Max Baer in a 20 round decision but Uzcudin has one of the best chins in the history of the HW division. Baers main weakness guys he has a hard time hurting. Jeffries isn't that guy. But even if he was I doubt his ability to outbox Max Baer like some guys in Maxs era were able to. The only guys from the 19th century I give a chance H2H against later greats are Fitz and Goddard and thats because power translates to all eras. The things that made Jeffries great really wouldn't.

 

After what 23 fights,Jeffries retired with a nose broken 3 times,a cauliflower ear,and ridges of scar tissue above and below his eyes.

 

Jeff, KO, 30s fighters are fake

 

I don’t think this on its own tells the full story. Many MMA fighters with solid defense have similar issues with facial tissue and cauliflower ears, it’s largely a consequence of wearing such tiny gloves or wrestling which Jeffries was particularly involved in. Not to mention, Jeffries is someone who often took the “easy route” as a bigger man by walking his smaller opponents down despite his comfort zone being the counter-puncher; taking plenty to dish out a few when his opponents went on the run. That being said, when Jeffries actually tried to focus on defending himself instead of taking risks he seemed competent at it, even good.

Even in boxing there are some fighters with solid defense who’ve had similar injuries. LaMotta, for example has pretty underrated defense imo yet he claimed to have broken his nose six times and gotten 50 stitches on his face. White boy scar tissue just sucks, and while you can argue Jake had more fights it’s not exactly clear how many fights/exhibitions not known as fights that Jeffries had. Didn’t he claim it was in the hundreds?

 

Jeffries continues to be the most vexxing of all Heavyweight champions in fantasy fights. I think he was great enough to cross eras, but it’s just so damn hard to be sure. I think a fight between him & guys like Marciano or Frazier I would give a lifetimes earnings to see.

 

Corbett,Fitz and Johnson were comparatively unmarked when they retired so was Choynski.
Bottom line Jeffries had a porous defence imo. MMA fighters use tiny gloves and take round house kicks to the head totally different sport.
Fritzie Zivic said Lamotta had crap defence ,he said he would get insulted if you missed him.
It's known how many pro fights Jeffries had, 4 books have been written about him to my knowledge and nobody has come up with any additional fights.

 

It must be noted that he was advanced faster than pretty much any heavyweight champion in history.

He was fighting the best contenders while he was a total novice, and with the smaller gloves of the era.

You would expect some consequences to follow that.

 

I feel like that mainly translates to Corbett, Johnson, Fitz and Choynski being better defensively than Jeffries, rather than reflecting poorly on Jeff’s own defense. As well as Jeff’s willingness to absorb punishment and go out of his comfort zone; Jeffries was clearly not effective when on the pursuit by pretty much every account out there, and unlike the above 4; he regularly disregarded his poor front-foot defensive skills in order to get the job done more easily due to being so much bigger and durable. It was simply the easier route in most of his fights to utilize his size on the front foot and to take hits to give some, and he paid the price for it. However, I don’t think this would reflect Jeffries' defensive skills with the more reactive style he usually used.

MMA fighters wear the same ounce sized gloves as fighters from Jeffries’ era, and some of the best hand-to-hand technicians frequently get marked up as a result even when elbows and knees aren’t thrown frequently. There’s also a good chance Jeffries had some natural skin condition issues that exposed himself to getting cut, as it seemed to be a frequent problem even in training.

Zivic was wrong about Jake, he does a very good job at not taking clean hits. Maybe he's similar to Jeffries, in the sense that he would sometimes disregard his own skills and brawl due to his confidence in durability and it being the easier route to a victory.

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I wouldn't stay up past 7PM to watch this hack fest.