This is mis-captioned it is actually, Jeffries and Bob Armstrong. This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
You wonder what he was thinking ,sparring with a fat Sam Berger ,an ancient Choynski, and an equally ancient Corbett. Armstrong appears to have been his only real sparring partner of quality. Corbett pleaded with him to spar more but he refused.:huh
For a GOOD REASON. He was OLD,after a SIX year layoff, losing close to 80-100 pounds and no tune-up fight, A sure recipe for disaster...
Sure most of the stuff I've heard is that old Jeff was having serious problems with confidence - really bad - to the point where he was virtually on the point of puling out of the fight altogether - apparently any young sparring partner of any note he was put in with whipped him soundly so they were trying to give him false hope by putting him in with loads of oldies to make him look better (there was even some story - whether true I don't know - of Sam Langford coming into his camp as a cheerleader and giving him a real whipping in sparring) - so instead his friends like Corbett and Berger went in with him and let him have his way a bit so he didn't completely lose it and drop out of the fight altogether
Wasn't Ketchel so appalled at Jeffries' form that he wanted to knock him out before the fight and save the soft, gooey sensibilities of the white race? I give Johnson full credit for beating Jeffries, and actually a lot more credit in a bigger sense of the danger for him to do so, but I'm not sure how much the victory really proved. Not his fault at all, just Jeffries wasn't much.
haha is that true?? wow actually what a fight that would've been at that stage - maybe they should've got it on for real in an eliminator - Jeffries could've used it as a semblance of a warm up match (with the plus angle that he could've geniunely been able to assert his physical bulk and dominate while blowing off at least some of the cobwebs in a match against a middleweight instead of a heavyweight who could match him physically) and Ketchel could've used it as a second chance and an opportunity to guage himself again against a big strong heavyweight (and on the plus side for him) just without the youth speed and skill of a Johnson - taking into account Jeff's age and severe rust and also Ketchel's middleweight frame and massive physical disadvantages who do you think would've win at that particular time of the day in a real match - not a phony pretend affair like the Johnson-Ketchel farce??
