Most likely To Stop Jeffries Before 15?

He asked for other examples I gave them,there are more.

 

Because ,as Ive already said Fitz underestimated him and took him lightly.
It i s interesting to speculate how Fitz might have done had he gotten a title shot in1900 the yeqr he kod both Ruhlin and Sharkey in the space of two weeks.instead ofwaiting another 2 years, by which time he was nearly40.And still he beat the **** out of Jeffries for 8 rds ,until his hands went on him.

 

It was just one fight.

Why were other top fighters, including Fitzsimmons himself by the way, unable to do this in other fights?

I think that a lot of people read accounts of that one fight, often written long after the event, and assume that all of his fights were like this.

That is where the myth originated!

 

So why didn't Ruhlin bust him up then?

He was a top fighter, who could surely have managed something, against an opponent with no defense!

 

So what if he did?

Even based upon a poor performance, a guy like Fitzsimmons is going to be landing plenty on a man who does not have effective defense.

It is not going to make the difference between him giving Jeffries an helacious beating, and not being able to land anything much on him!

Fitzsimmons taking Jeffries lightly would explain him losing, but it would not explain him being unable to land on a fighter who lacked defense!

 

im with you. I though it was Jeffries Corbett.

 

Two fights ,the 1st Corbett fight as well.That's the two best opponents he fought and beat. Sharkey had no skills and was essentially a small swarmer ,Ruhlin had a meltdown,that his 4 best opponents. Which emphasises my previous statement.The accounts I read were the next mornings papers.The obvious point here is that your shortcomings in defence ,boxing skill ,are not glaringly apparent when you are facing men inferior to you,but become obvious when you step up your quality of opposition and don't get them out of there quick.A modern comparison might be WILDER.

 

The Wilder comparison might be a pertinent one, but not for the reasons that you think.

What did Corbett, and Fitzsimmons in the second fight (but not the first), have in common?

They both forced Jeffries to fight on the front foot.

My hypothesis is that Jeffries defense worked well enough when he could stand off at range, or when the opponent had to come after him, but that it malfunctioned when he had to chase the opponent down.

Fitzsimmons obvious realized that his strategy from the first fight would never work, and fought a much more mobile fight.

Perhaps he cottoned on to the fact that Jeffries would not be able to defend himself coming forwards.

Perhaps he saw the Corbett fight, or perhaps he saw something in his first fight with Jeffries, that he later worked on.

Obviously in the end the strategy did not work, but it was a good play, and arguably saw better results against a better version of Jeffries.

 

This falls down because in their1st fight Corbett fought a back pedalling fight and was still ahead on points before he began to tire.Also Jeffries fought a reactive fight against Sharkey second time around and it was very close.
Bottom line Jeffries defence just wasn't that good!

 

Doesn't this strengthen my hypothesis?

Yes, because he was basically fighting with one arm.

You can debate how good it was, but he was not this face first fighter, who beat opponents by absorbing their punches.

That is clearly a piece of boxing mythology.

 

I see the feints and head movement at least.

 

ALL OF THEM.

 

Why no Herbie Hide and Bruce Seldon on this list????

 

More bad information, Jeffries had a slip and duck defense. By the end of his career, Jeffries defense was much better. Are you going to penalize a guy who won the title on his 11th fights ( rather easily ) for not being a finished product on defense?

Whatever defense he lacked on the way up, his chin more than covered for.

 

Did he need to do it? He was in stalking mode. Ruhlin was on the run. All this judgement from one round? You are on a roll Mcvey...