I would be interested to see what people think. How would you rank Jeffries top five opponents at the time that he fought them? If he fought sombody twice just take the better version.
Not a million miles from how I have it. I would take the Fitzsimmons of the second fight as being the better version. I am kind of thinking Sharkey at #3, though Sahrkey is a fighter whose star has risen in retrospect. During much of his career Gus Ruhlin was more highly regarded. I think that Ruhlin is in the argument somwhere.
It certainly is a good list of opponents. Johnson, Fitzsimmons, Corbett, Sharkey, Griffin (just two a few months away from beating Jack Johnson), Goddard, Ruhlin, Armstrong, choynski, Van Buskirk (actually seems like he might have had a far better record than what he is usually remembered), Jackson (nothing like prime but still not as bad a win as people seem to suggest).
It is interesting that no one (even today) seems to rate the black fighters that he fought, yet so many scream blue murder that he didnt fight Johnson earlier.
Do you think Armstrong really gets a sniff here? Johnson is, after all, going to be almost universally ranked at #1. I think Johnnson retired in time that he can't be overly-criticised for not meeting him. I also think he beats him in 04.
I think Armstrong was probably better than Choynski, but then again, i think Choynski might have been a little overated.
Armstrong is hard to rate because contemporary opinion was divided. A lot of people said that he was a second rater, but you got the odd voice of disent saying that he was a possible future champion. I think most people would have agreed that Choynski was better though. Choynski was a guy who nobody really wanted to fight if they didn't have to.
The Pollack book stresses that he was not in Jeffries class. This was not the case with Choynski. Then again, Jeffries stock rose in the interim.
