Let's Be Honest : Color Line and HW Champs

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. They were not contenders, perhaps they should have been but they were not. Some of them, most notably Childs and Griffin were very good fighters, some of them were not. Russell was never top class, his win over a near retired Griffin is his only performance of note.
Klondike I have no record of ever fighting Kennedy or beating Childs (who whopped his ass 4 or 5 times) and the Johnson contests only achieved signifigence with hindsight. BTW if he did fight Kennedy I'd be very interested in the details.
Childs I think was a great fighter but a lot of his career was as a middleweight and wins over Bonner, Walcott and Butler were in that weight class. Beating Klondike was considered no big deal but the win over Armstrong and the draw with Griffin should have catapulted him into contender status but for some reason it didn't-probably because he was black.
I agree about Finnegan but he was never considered a contender and I also believe Munroe to be no better than most of them.

 

How about Russell's win over Everett .Hindsight or not they prove Klondike was a very capable fighter imo.Butler was a claimant for the Coloured Heavyweight Championship as was Childs,all these guys were significantly better than Finnegan and most Munroe, those times did not have Ring ratings so when I call them contenders I think I am justified

 

interesting. certainly no reason why jeff should have retired without fighting jack johnson. Then again, jeffries did say he never would have beaten johnson on his best day.

 

Everett was a nobody. We cant declare anybody contenders with hindsight-we can say they should have been contenders-nothing more. Contenders are decided by the contempory boxing world, if you read the papers of the time, nobody mentions Klondike, Butler, Rusell, Griffin or indeed Childs as contenders. Armstrong had a following until Childs did a number on him. Kennedy, Maher, Ruhlin, McCoy, Sharkey were seen as the contenders 1895-1902 to corbett, fitz and jeffries-rightly or wrongly. A contender is someone who is percieved to be in contension.

 

I know the definition of a contender thanks ,and its CONTENTION not CONTENSION.
ps, perceived, not percieved,I don't normally pull people up on their spelling,
only when they condescend to me.

 

when i wrote that response i was actually thinking that Old Fogey would produce this quote and was even going to make mention in my post, but i got too lazy. AS damning as the article sounds, it is no more than a publicity stunt and an attempt to mould his image. It should be taken as seriously as the "i would never beat Johnson" line or Sam Langfords "I will fight any man except Jim Jeffries" or Mike Tyson's "I want to eat his children". The colour line was invented by Sullivan for publicity reasons. More than likely, this was due to the fact that he was trying to bring honour to the belt and recognitian by mainstream politicians so that he was not arrested after every fight. This is the major reason why he nearly always fought in gloves and not bare knuckled.

Jeffries had no problem fighting black fighters, he fought and dominated the very best of his time. If Hart had dominated Johnson, he really would have been the only decent fighter left and i think Jeffries would ahve had one more fight against him, because he would have been seen to be a decent challenger. If Johnson had won, it would have created the same outrage and stir and i am fairly sure that Jeffries would have used his retirement to create one more big pay day. Obviously this is speculation,but what is clear (as probabl prortrayed in the article old fogey referes to) is that Jeffries had cleared the division. Johnson was probably the best contender, but so what? A fight with him would not be an especially great reward so why take the fight. IN fact when he did finally fight the main white contender, he lost and blew all chance of fighting Jeffries for the title. This situation is no different whatsoever to what happened to Lennox Lewis, who technically ducked Chris Byrd but really does not get or deserve any criticism for doing this. It is an identical situation.

 

You are wrong about Childs.

One contemporary paper called him "one of the greatest coloured fighters that ever lived".

 

Yeah, I'm a lousy speller and I didn't intent to be condescending but you seemed to miss the distinction between who should have been a contender and who actually was.

 

What am I wrong about? I agree with the above sentiment. What I said about Childs was that he was not seen in the main as a contender for the Heavyweight championship.

 

At the time Jeffries had his last "fight " against Jack Munroe 26th Aug 1904,Johnson had beaten.
Haines
Kennedy
Everett
Childs
Gardner
Russell
Martin
Mcvey
Ferguson
Butler
He was the standout challenger to Jeffries ,if Jeffries had no problems fighting blacks ,why didnt he fight Johnson?
Jeffries last fight was year before Johnson lost to Hart, so how did he blow his chance ? Was Johnson not a more credible challenger than Munroe?

 

Sometimes a quote gets out there on the web and it takes on a life of its own. Who is the source here? What paper every quoted Jeffries saying I could not beat Johnson at my best? I have yet to see it. Produce it.

Here is what Jeffries said word for word for in the post Standard at Reno.


Hears No Unkind Words.

The way I was treated after the fight was a credit to the justice of men who saw the battle. Not one sneer did I see. Not one unkind word did I hear. On all sides it was: "You did the best you could or knew how, Jim. That's all we expected.'1 I am thankful that this feeling: of sentiment exists.

I suppose that my battle will picked and repicked to pieces by the sporting writers, boxing authorities and fight critics It will be claimed that my training- was at fault,' Let me answer these now. My training was all it could possibly have been. My condition was as good as it could be. In fact my condition was more than remarkable. As for my fight—it was the best fight that was left in me.

Had I met Johnson when I was in my prime the result would have been different-I would have beaten him. As it was, I wore myself down and was beaten as much by the effects of my own exertions as I was by Johnson's blows. -James Jeffries

 

If Childs is one of the greatest coloured fighters that ever lived and campaigning primarily at heavyweight, couldnt that be taken to mean that he is a contender for that title?

 

Childs was a bulked up middle who probably never topped 175 and I never seen anything to suggest he was considered a contender for the title.

 

Fair enough ,its a draw.:good
I dont usually read the accounts from contemporary fights of the 1900's if I make a mistake Mendoza will jump on me soon enough . I meant that as there were no ratings as such, its rather difficult to assess the standing of fighters. I must admit I did think Frank Craig had a better record than he actually possessed, so I learnt something.

 

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Jeffries quotes from the Post-Standard come from a special run on the day of the fight; they, and a lot of other neat fight reports, can be found on the below pdf

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