Prime James J. Jeffries vs Jack Johnson

The only viewpoint provable by empirical evidence. I can sit around all day and say I am at my peak and can run a 10 flat 100 meters, but until I do so, it is all so much hot air.

Leonard's best victories were Duran and Hearns.

So, Johnson's great legacy is based on beating a 6 year retired boxer turned Alfalfa farmer who had zero tune-ups before fighting for the world championship? This is better than beating Langford, McVea and Jeanette? You mustn't think much of them.

 

I'm actually reading a book on Johnson right now, just as he's fighting Burn in Australia for the heavyweight title. He brought up a good point that may also apply to Jeffries. He said that Burns fought in a crouch and had to raise himself to launch an offense and any good boxer could hit him during the transition.

Also Johnson was a master at avoiding getting hit. So if Jeffries couldn't hit him for several rounds he could easily tire himself out. I would also suggest that Johnson had far, far more fights under his belt than Jeffries did and fighting all those black fighters repeatedly would be harder than fighting many of the titled Jeffries fought.

So it's a tough call, but obviously I'm favouring Johnson.

 

Jeffries fought some tough customers and was learning on the job. He was a far better boxer when he retired than when he got the title. A prime Jeffries would be Johnson's best scalp. And I think a motivated Johnson would win in a boring affair.

 

For some reason Johnson seemed to loose fights he was capable of winning. The first Kondike fight comes to mind. Johnson knocked him down in the first round and only the bell saved him.

This basically means Johnson should have been able to win this fight.

I also think being black probably meant that close fights went to his white opponents regardless of who actually should have won but the flip side of that is that Johnson knew that and should have fought accordingly.

 

OK I was just checking whether you had the prerequisite level of intelligence to understand the difference between legacy, ability and achievement, but you clearly don't :good

 

Jeffries stated publicly and in print ,that should Johnson beat Hart he would NOT fight him.

Read the link.

http://www.fultonhistory.com/fulton.html


The consensus was that Johnson won the first 10 rounds of the Hart fight which, as it was a 20 rounder means that he should have received no worse than a draw. George Siler the premier referee of the time watched it from ringside he called Creggains verdict for for Hart "a very strange decision" .

Here is a report of the fight.

http://www.fultonhistory.com/fulton.html




You keep regurgitating the fact that Gunboat Smith in his own words "put Johnson nearly through the ropes", in a sparring session .

Gunboat Smith was a big puncher, bigger than Jeffries I should think. Johnson's manager did NOT" halt the fight ", there WAS NO FIGHT IT WAS A SPARRING SESSION .

What the hell being stunned or knocked down by a sparring partner means in evaluating a fighters chances against another fighter escapes me entirely .

Toxie Hall dropped Rocky Marciano flat on his butt with a left hook that dazed Marciano, and Charley Goldman halted the sparring for the day.

Light hitting Jim Corbett is reputed to have kod Jeffries in sparring ,and ringside primary sourced reports of their first fight state he had Jeffries stunned a couple of times in their first fight .

Tyson was dropped by Page among others.


Vitali Klitschko who has a good chin was dropped twice in sparring in 2005 , in short,it means jack ****.

The knockdown of Johnson by Ketchel looks extremely iffy to me, Johnson appears to be falling before the punch connects.

In the first Klondike fight, Johnson is described by George Siler as being half starved he went down from a body shot which was what happened when Simon kod Walcott ,same circumstances, a half starved fighter succumbed to a body attack.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433066622964#page/115/mode/1up


Johnson did not train for O Brien, he could not lose, a six rds no dec against a light hitter?

You keep repeating how exposed he was, there are many, many conflicting versions of that inconsequential 6 rounder.

Jeffries did not weigh over 300lbs, and he had over 18months to get in shape.

When he came back from Carlsbad in October 1909 he was already down to fighting weight ,thats 9 months before the fight. Jeffries did NOT say he would have beaten Johnson in his prime,in his very first interview after being thrashed by Johnson he said this.

http://www.boxinggyms.com/news/jeffries_johnson1910/jeffries_johnson1910.htm


Thats three" innacuracies "corrected,[I'm feeling charitable so I'll call them innacuracies, instead of what they really are ,deliberate lies].


Any objective observer [not you of course], evaluating Johnson's draw against Jim Johnson would factor in that the champion broke his left arm early in that fight yet still salvaged a draw.

They might also factor in that Jim Johnson subsequently drew with Langford twice ,and Jeannette twice and beat Jeannette once, beat and drew with Jeff Clark and ko d Pelkey, none of these opponents were boxing with a broken arm as a handicap ,nor had they been out of the ring for over a year and a half , were nearly 36 years old and 22lbs over weight.

 

Hard to gauge given how washed up Jeffries was when he actually fought Johnson and it still took over 30 minutes of fighting in terrible heat before father time and Johnson's fists got to him.

I'm leaning to Jeffries to stop Johnson if it's a scheduled 45 rounder, late in the 3rd quarter.

 

The fact that Jeffries lasted into the 15th rd , may have had more to do with Johnson's desire to punish him for all those insults and slights he had to suffer from Jeffries, than any competitiveness on Jeffries part.
Tex Rickard , the referee, and a huge Jeffries booster, said that Johnson could have finished it whenever he liked.
Prime for prime I see a titanic struggle with periods of extended clinching ,Johnson being successful at neutralising Jeffries attack and taking a decision.

 

McVey,

those Fultonhistory links don't work. that is a strange site. you have to open the articles in a new tab and then post a link with that site, otherwise, you get directed always to the same front page of the site.

 

One largely subjective criterion and two that we obviously disagree on but which still can be further argued.

If you are befuddled by my argumentation, just admit it and keep the corner you have painted yourself into happy and clean.

 

The longer the fight went, the more it would be in Johnson's favor.. Jeffries would need a knockout at some point, and better sooner than later. It would be a tough proposition to KO a man who had some of the best survival skills of anyone in history, and the tendency to linger around forever. Incidentally, I think Jeffries going 15 rounds with Johnson while being past it, was partially staged ( though only speculation. ) In the photos and limited fight footage that I've seen, along with interviews,etc, It would seem that Johnson could have taken him out much earlier than he actually did... It was billed as being by far the biggest boxing event ever to that point in history, and Jeffries was an icon of the white community, who in truth, was generating most of the bout's revenue. I'm wondering if someone tapped Johnson on the shoulder and said " let the old guy put on a show for a while. "

 

Sorry B , they obviously worked for me and I keep them in my favourites.

 

Well having just read about the fight (again) last night, it appears that Johnson won every round except perhaps one, up until the 15th. So it really wasn't anywhere close to a competitive fight. Jeffries said he could see when he should be going on offense and defense but the mind and the body weren't connected the way they were in this youth. He also said he didn't think he could ever have beaten Johnson.

Regarding the outcome of the fight, Johnson would have made far more money if he lost than he did winning. The purse was slip 60-40 the boxers both had a large share in the film rights, which would have been huge had Jeffries won.

 

This brings up a good point: would Jeffries crouch against Johnson, or go upright, as he increasingly tended to do subsequent to the 1900 defense against Corbett.

Bob Fitzsimmons, who thought Jim better off more upright, though Jeffries made a mistake crouching against Johnson.

 

Johnson did say that Burns fought crouched and that throughout the fight he often simply waited for him to try and attack and caught him while transitioning from defense to offense. So, I would agree with Fitz on that assessment. Funny that virtually all the former heavyweight champs and some fighters such as Langford were in Jeffries corner for that fight. Yet, Johnson was confident enough in victory that he told his brother to bet every dime he had on him. Many negros did just that.