The Marvin Hart, Jack Johnson and James Jeffries Triangle

If this makes you feel good.

 

Excellent right to the point post.

 

That's because you have none to match the inconvenient fact I have laid out for you! Every notice how you throw out the junk first in these type of threads? It's hardly ever me. At times vitriol is all you've got.

 

Are you saying private fights, pushing a shoving at a meeting, name calling and such have not lead to ring matches?

They most certainly have.

My point if Jeffries was ready to fight Johnson on the spot. Johnson balked. While Johnson likely gets canned, he could distort the facts like Jack Munroe did, leading to a ring fight. It has happened before ya know.

Back in the 1900's, men fought in bars and such far more than today. I'm heard you seen your grandfather or old timer say, back in my day....

 

No chance a leading contender for the hwt championship fights the hwt champion in an unofficial bout. Ridiculous.

 

Jeffries was embarrassed about this challenge.
In fact he admits that johnson was the better man for refusing the challenge.

Interestingly though is the point he makes that Johnson at the time was simply not at the same stage of his development and it was wrong for him to take advantage of a young fighter like that. I think this is correct. Johnson was developing fast and was better than anyone knew, but he had not yet reached Jeffries level. Jeffries beats him anytime up to about the burns fight. From this point, Jeffries was too far gone and Johnson's confidence too high.

If Jeffries doesnt retire, he beats Johnson. Once he retires, Johnson beats him.

If jeffries were to win the first fight and continue fighting, a trilogy would be very interesting. You would have to think that eventually Jack gets the better of him by the end of the series.

 

After koing Jeffries brother Jack, Johnson walked over to the ropes and said to Jeffries," I can do the same to you".
Jeffries would not entertain Johnson as a title challenger,he only came back to," redeem the honour of the white race".

 

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Johnson seems to have been confident he could beat Jeffries by1906.Whom one would pick probably depends on what interpretation you put on the Hart fight.I tend to think Johnson deserved the verdict but under the stipulations that the promoter/referee laid down, he should have ensured the fight was his by making certain he took some of the latter rounds. Johnson toyed with Burns who handily whipped Hart Whether he had beaten Hart or not, Johnson would not have received title shot ,that much is certain. After the Reno fight Johnson said ,"I always knew I would beat Jeffries if given the chance" .

 

A 137 year old Johnson would be confident of beating Wilder or Fury of Klitschko. I don't think we should take Johnson's confidence as a fair measure of reality. Nor do I think Johnson so easily manhandles a prime Jeffries. But it's all speculation, and if we err to Johnson's side, Jeffries only had himself to blame for not making the fight.

 

Any sane man would expect a different fight between a prime Jeffries and Johnson,for my part I would not expect a different result.

 

jeffries says it pretty clearly in one of the newspaper biographies he wrote. I dont have time to find the links, but they will be in one of the threads on this forum.

Jeffries was arrogant and dissmissive at the time of the challenge. He admits to that.
And to his credit he also admits that he was wrong to act like this to a young fighter who had not yet reached his peak and was stil developing.

 

i dont think this was the series i was referring to, but it was along similar lines.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/a...g life johnson jeffries cellar&searchLimits=

 

I read that too.Pity he wasn't ashamed of calling black challengers skunks when he was champion.

 

fighters say anything to hype a fight. Much like when Tyson wanted to eat lennox' children. Jeffries explanation on his views of negroes was that he preferred whites to blacks in the same way that he preferred Americans to Englishman. He was white so he naturally wanted whites to win. But in reality it meant nothing whether or not you are black and white (or american or english). Some good natured jibing (Yes i admit it sometimes sounds like it goes too far by todays standards, but then again i feel pretty certain that there will come a time where todays politically correct standards will have us all considered a bunch of weak minded poofters but that is another story.

The point is that Jeffries knew that Blacks and whites were equal. In fact, dont forget he idolised Peter Jackson. like all fighters of a time, this was as a person as much as a sportsman. A couple of inflammatorry quotes, half of which were probably made up shouldnt change that. In fact, contrary to popular opinionI think that Boxers as a general rule were so much less racist than the rest of society at the time it is not funny.

Even the colour line was nothing more than a marketing gimmick designed to allow a fighter to duck good fighters. John L sullivan pretty much admitted as much and he invented the colour line.