Once And For All: Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries

C.M. Clay II showed me a video, where Johnson made exactly the same with his 265 lbs- brother... :good

 

Oh yeah? Well I have videos of Jeffries lifting Butterbean over his head with one arm.

 

What a pity, you´re just an ignorant Johnson- hater! Grow up!

 

Jeffries had 6 months to train. Weight draining is like a quick-fix. I doubt Jeffries situatuion was that bad.

 

"Everybody in the whole cell block,
was dancing to the jail house rock!"

I'm sorry, I'm listening to some Elvis right now and I couldn't resist, lol!




Carry on.:hi:

 

I'm not referring to weight-draining by dehydration, but by starvation and heavy training. 100 lbs. in 6 months after being sedentary for five years is a pretty big chore...especially if he's trying to gain stamina and boxing heavily at the same time. The man lost a third of his bodyweight.

I can also pretty much guarantee that the methods they used to drain the weight were unhealthy.

 

:shock:


You don´t know what you´re talking about! What Jeffries did, today every doctor wouldn´t allowed that. It was like suizide- trial, you know why he looked so quickly tired and so? Because of his circulatory and all that, it isn´t so like today where nutrition experts create extra a for you individual training plan with all details, and where exists helps like supplements and stuff like that... please informate yourself at first before you post

 

What Luigi says is accurate. You simply cannot lose that much weight that fast at that age with early 20th century methods and expect to be able to fight effectively. Incidentally, I have to correct myself--it was 80 lbs., not 100. Still a third of his bodyweight...even with six months to train, Jeffries was going well over the 2 lb/week maximum set by modern doctors for healthy weight loss. And weightloss in the early 20th century was anything but healthy.

Nor do you go from picking up 200 lb. men and swinging them around like children to getting your arms bent around your back without some serious physical decline.

Surely, Clay II, we can agree on these fairly uncontroversial points so we can continue with the styles analysis? If not, I will try to meet whatever standard of proof you require.

 

I could almost picture someone like Christopher Lee in his role as Count Dooku, saying those words.

 

All Jefries would have to do is lose about ½lb. a day, which is nothing for someone over 300lbs. I'm not saying it didn't affect him at all, but I don't think it was so bad that a guy who is boasted to be able to go 40+ rounds in his prime to be reduced to getting winded after three rounds of fairly docile action.

 

I don't really care for Jeff's style. I might be missing something, but in all the film I've seen he goes into that crouch with his left down by his thigh and his face hanging out there to be hit. I guess it must have worked but I don't understand why. I have never seen him throw a jab or an overhand right, and he appears to have very little head movement.
Johnson is much quicker with his hands, and hits with both hands, while Jeff seems to rely almost exclusively on his left, and Johnson can jab now and then, even if he rarely does. Jeffries might land a big left and take Johnson out but I think more often than not the fight goes about the way the 1910 fight did, with Johnson battering Jeff with his quicker hands and superior technique.
If Johnson had a defensive weakness, it was to a straight right, a punch that did not seem to really be in Jeff's arsenal. As for Jeff's defense, he suffered three broken noses in 20 fights and was pretty badly cut up quite often. He could take it and did, but I don't see much defense at all. It is most odd as he does seem to be very light on his feet for such a big man. I would think he could have used movement and a jab to his advantage.

 

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I do think Jeffries showed far better movement and defense when he stood more erect, from what I can tell off the film. The crouch slowed him. This is Gene Tunney from 1940 on Jeffries:

"I know there are first-rate judges of boxing who pick the big fellow as the greatest of all. But I am not one of them.
"The ring strategy of Jeffries was entirely the thinking of Tommy Ryan. Tommy taught him the famous crouch, body haunched away over and left hand stuck out. Had him just go plodding ahead like that, pushing the left out straight.
"Jeffries decisive quality was his tremendous physical toughness and endurance, the brawny giant who could hardly be hurt. The Ryan system was for Jeffries to take all the beating the other fellow could give him, just go plodding in a crouch and absorb all the punches that came his way, until his opponent wore himself out hitting him. It has been said that Jeffries . . . often displayed little love for battle, and sometimes wanted to quit. Well, you could hardly blame him with that Tommy Ryan strategy of having Jeffries take all the beating the other fellow could hand out."

It is only fair to quote Jeff's more succinct comment on Tunney:

"Tunney wouldn't have lasted three rounds with Fitzsimmons."

 

Interesting post,there are some on here who think Jeffries adoption of the "Ryan crouch"made him an elusive target,yet reports of his fights .particularly his two with Fitz state "his nose was broken,his cheeks were gashed to the bone and he had dep cuts over both eyes"[The History Of the Heavyweight Champioship,Fleischer].Jeffries seems to have plodded forward ,absorbing punshment ,thudding in his big left when he could and wearing down his smaller opponents,a"miracle of endurance "indeed,but hardly a clever defensive boxer,as some like to paint him.Watching the blurry footage of Jeffries against Ruhlin,it was Ruhlin who appeared the more mobile and agile of the two,Jefries stalking him in his stolid fashion ,before getting close and landing a big shot to floor Ruhlin.When I was younger around my twenties ,I had Jeffries in my top 10,nearly forty years later ,I beleive his reputation is based largely on the gradual demolition of faded veterans who were inactive and past their prime,but that is often the nature of boxing ,the young feast on the old.I think Jeffries main assett was as Tunney said,his allmost superhuman indestructability,but again he never met a man his own size ,in his prime ,who was a top flight fighter,so we have to take on trust how he would have fared against big punching hitters of recent years,Fitz was a big puncher,and he pounded Jeffries face into steak,but he only weighed 167 and172 lbs for their fights,plus he was respectively 37 and 40 years old.