Prime to Prime Jim Jeffires vs Ezzard Charles

He came right at him in both fights ,yet went the distance :think

 

I dont think Johnson was much of a puncher at top level,and Goddard only kod two men of note a Choynsky engaging in his 13th fight ,[Choynsky was kod11times],and Maher who was kod 16times,neither man had a sturdy chin.

 

We both know that is a lie. You spend way too much time issuing personal attacks and replying to my posts. If you felt no grudge or importance to what I write, you would not reply at all. No worries, like I said I don't have time to expose your mistakes and bigotry either.

Back to point. Several historians consider Jeffries an all time hitter. The references are numerous, and over names like Dempsey or Louis. When you say none, you are once again wrong. If you want to learn something just ask and I can post plenty of information on this topic.

Let us not confuse style with power here. Marciano was a wild swing for the fences type who often took a while to get guys out of there. Jeffries was more judicious with his punch selection and often did not go for a quick ending, however many of his KO's were a bit more than ten counts.

Marciano who was basically a protected fighter scoring stoppages over dozens of no-names, pretty much everyone Jeffries fought was a accomplished fighter.

 

I have refrained from insulting you because you are nothing to me .
Which historians rated Jeffries over Marciano , or Dempsey for ko power?
Please post them,and please try and stay on topic .
Does 5' 8in Sharkey go 45 rds with Marciano?
He went less than 10 in two fights with Super Middle Fitzsimmons .

 

You had the time to reply to my post ,quite lengthily too, yet you did not attempt to rebut my points as you never do when you are non plussed.

Which kos of Jeffries were more than 10 second count outs please furnish us with them,and PLEASE no more "Historians Say "crap.Marciano is widely acknowledged by all and sundry as an alltime great puncher .Dempsey ,Louis,Walcott,to name just three stated unequivocably that was the case .
Name ONE Historian who stated that Jeffries was an alltime great ko puncher.

 

I've heard several times in this forum that Johnson was lightyears beyond Jeffries in style. I don't see it. I don't think that Johnson's technical "flaws" (if you can call different eras' standards of pugilism flaws, which I usually don't) are significantly less numerous than Jeffries'. Both fight very differently from modern fighters.

That being said...

1) We'd have to look more closely at the extant footage. Certainly, Jeffries' skipping around and countering when he's sparring should count for something since it's the only clear footage of him and clearly designed to show off his skills (as opposed to Greb's "playing around" sparring). If we had a slightly clearer view of Jeffries/Ruhlin it would help enormously.

2) You're right that Jeffries probably wasn't an ATG puncher (although his contemporaries said he hit hard). However...

3) Doesn't his stalking, one-punch-at-a-time style that you mentioned have something to do with that?

4) He doesn't need to be a massive powerhouse to be able to KO Charles, does he?

5) Jeffries tired you out a bit differently from Marciano--with incessant wrestling and short punches on the inside. Would Charles be able to handle this? How lenient is our ref?

6) I agree with your assessment that Charles is a very difficult fight for Jeffries. I'd actually give Charles a far better chance than, say, Johnson or Marciano due to styles.



Charles UD 15 is a very likely outcome.

 

Excuses aside, Jeff in fact did not ko these three men, going 20 and 25 rounds with Sharkey, 20 rounds with Choynski, and 10 rounds with Armstrong.

More importantly, you made a big deal in your post of Charles having been stopped by a 165 lb man, Lloyd Marshall, at a time when Charles was 21 and 168 lbs himself. You glided by my point that most of Jeff's top opponents were also stopped by 165 or so pounders. If the fact of the Marshall ko proves Charles had a weak jaw, most of Jeff's opponents also had weak jaws.

"As for Sharkey, only Fitz flattened him in his prime"

What about Gus Ruhlin? Sharkey lost his second fight to Jeffries, then won six straight by ko, and was at that point stopped by Ruhlin in June of 1900. Fitz stopped Sharkey two months later in August.

"He did manage to floor Choynski three times"

None of the five SF papers mention three knockdowns. They mention one, in the third round, which the SF Call explicitly said was "The first and only knockdown of the fight." Joe Goddard was quoted in the SF Examiner as saying ""The decision was just. Choynski landed the harder blows, but Jeffries seemed to balance matters by being aggressive."

 

Yep. That's why I had doubts about Jeffries' abilities as a top-tier puncher.

But...

The rhythm in Jeffries' era is rather different. Imagine trying to get a KO when the average fight goes like this:

* Try to time the perfect single punch after numerous feints.
* Miss
* Clinch for a minute or two, trading a couple short punches on the inside. The ref doesn't separate you.
* Finally break free. Start again.

Harder, eh?

 

Because Jeff didn't hit him cleanly or because Jeff didn't hit very hard?

 

"Marciano who was basically a protected fighter scoring stoppages over dozens of no-names, pretty much everyone Jeffries fought was an accomplished fighter"

1. I agree with the "pretty much everyone Jeffries fought was an accomplished fighter." Jeff has very little fat on his record.

2. "Marciano . . . scored stoppages over dozens of no-names."

The "dozens" is laying it on a bit thick, but there might be about two dozen "no-names". Jeff is the one who is unusual here. Most champions, such as Dempsey, Tunney, Holmes, and especially Foreman had plenty of no-names on their resumes

3. However, the point you are making is worthless. ALL of Marciano's opponents were not no-names. Jeff only had 20 to 23 recorded fights depending upon how you consider them, while Marciano had 49 which gives him room to have fat on his record and still match Jeffries in the key area of tough fights. Marciano fought three heavyweight champions. So did Jeffries, but Marciano beat all three of his. Marciano also fought a fourth champion in Moore. I judge the two men as having pretty close to an equal amount of tough fights. Whatever you say about Marciano's set-ups on the way up, he swept the top men when he fought them, something Jeffries didn't do.

 

The quote is from Goddard, so I don't know what exactly he meant.

My own take after reading the newspapers is that Jeff wasn't able to hit Choynski cleanly very often. Here are quotes:

W. W. Naughton of the SF Examiner (12-1-1897):

Describes fight as a "battle of lefts" with neither doing much work with the right.

"Choynski settled on the straight left as a steady thing, and possibly in a contest to the finish he might have won out with it. Jeffries has the stamina of a young draft colt and although he bled freely, his stamina was not diminished."

SF Call (12-1-1897)

"Time and again Jeffries had Choynski at his mercy near the ropes, but the artful Joe, by clever footwork would invariably slide out of harm's way and come up like a jack-in-the-box, ready to resume the attack at long range."

My notes on the SF Call's description of the fight:

"Seeing that Jeffries intended to remain on the defensive" . . . "Choynski relied on his straight left to the nose."
Jeffries "showed marked improvement in his footwork" and in "stopping blows with his gloves" since his fight with Gus Ruhlin.
"His generalship, however, was very poor, missing Choynski repeatedly when he had him trapped on the ropes."

 

Good post presenting the other side of the argument.
If you want to include Jeffries training clips ,which as you point out were designed to showcase his skill,then you would also have to factor in Johnson's .which can also be seen on you tube ,sparing with dumbells in each hand ect.

But this thread is not a Johnson v Jeffries thread so lets stay on topic.
I think Jeffries hit hard, hard enough to stop Charles,my reservations are that I doubt he would manage to hit him often enough to acheive this over 15 to 20 rds.

Let me ask you, in all truth, does Jeffries look significantly better in those clips with Ruhlin than Ruhlin does?
I think Ruhlin looks more mobile and fleeter afoot, please dont misconstrue me Jeffries twice proved he was superior to Ruhlin ,I am only speaking of what I have seen.
Charles was proven against big men ,which Jeffries was not.
Charles stopped guys like 210 lbs Joe Baksi,and Rex Layne.
I beleive Jeffries could have stopped big men ,but he never proved it ,the biggest man he beat was 200lbs Ruhlin, whose corner threw in the towel.
The best fighter Charles met was Marciano [I'm talking prime here] ,so inevitably we go back to how Ezzard fared against Rocky ,and try to draw a conclusion from that as to how he would do against Jeffries.
I beleive Marciano hit harder than Jeffries ,applied more consistant pressure, and was at least as good defensively ,given that Charles ,slightly past his best gave Marciano a hell of a fight over 15rds ,I think he beats Jeffries over the same distance.
I have no problem with anyone picking Jeffries,just not my pick.:good

The crucial criteria, here is what rules and distance are we fighting under, do you agree?

 

By the way, Cross-trainer. A criticism made of Jeff was that he pretty much a one-handed fighter, rarely using his right. He does seem to rely on the left almost exclusively against Ruhlin. I do notice that he has sort of a straight, or underhand, dig with the right to the body. I have to rewatch the film of the sparring, but I have never seen Jeff throw an overhand right in a fight, even against Johnson who had been floored with that punch by Ketchel.

This is the old time boxing writer Hype Igoe on his debates with Rickard on Jeff and Dempsey:

"It was a never-ending debate with us. I always insisted that Jack Dempsey, with his two great, punishing hands, could have whipped Jeff at his best, but you couldn't convince Tex of that. When I challenged Tex with the remark that no one-handed heavyweight ever lived who could whip the Manassa Mauler, Tex would shoot back:
'Hype, you're crazy. You didn't know the Jeffries I knew. You only think you did. Say, that feller was the man-killer of the modern heavyweights. The strongest, greatest puncher in the game. You never see'd an athlete in all the world like Jeffries. Boy, what I would have given to see the real Jeffries tackle Jack Johnson.'"

 

I agree--the rules are the clinching factor here (pun unintentional).

Looking at the Ruhlin clip, it's notable that Ruhlin doesn't manage to get Jeffries off of him. There's a lot of subtlety that we're probably missing from the film quality (feints, most likely), but Jeffries consistently gets his left hook to the body and head in by skipping/lunging in from a long distance. His feet are usually positioned just at the right point to generate leverage when he lands. He's pretty decent at getting Ruhlin into corners or onto the ropes, and at one point he uses his strength and wrestling ability to drag him there. Around the 1:50 mark, he doesn't cut Ruhlin off but instead outpaces him, closes the gap, and lands the hook.

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Notice also that, despite being a croucher, he has at least as long a reach as Ruhlin, so can counter with his extended left hook whenever Ruhlin slows down and engages. Charles would face a similar problem with Jeff--a situation he didn't worry about with Marciano.