Why didn’t Denver Ed Martin get a title shot vs Jeffries?

Jeffries stated publicly that he would draw the color line against Martin.

If he had the imagination to come up with some sort of excuse, he would at least have kept us guessing.

As it was he made his reasons clear enough.

 

Martin was a sparring partner for both Fitz and Ruhlin ,those who saw him in action with Ruhlin felt he was as good.Of course he never got the chance to confirm it.

 

It's pretty common to see challenges that didn't materialise if you look through old papers. Like people said probably just the color line

i get the impression during Jeffries reign that there just wasn't very good black challengers though, not ones who are enough to really call his place at the top into question like in some other eras.

 

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19011102.2.119&txq=gus+ruhlin

Speaking of them training.

 

Childs,Martin,McVey,Johnson would probably have been the best,and at least they wouldn't have been coming out of 2 years retirement

 

Yeah but I think there's a big difference between someone that would have been a decent challenger, and someone like Harry Wills who was a stand out challenger and blatantly should have gotten a shot.

It doesn't really matter if someone took on bad challengers, as long as there's no clear threat they are avoiding.

 

I don't see the relevance of the Wills reference.I think what Suze is asking is why weren't fighters like Martin given title shots instead of recycled ,old, coming out of retirement white men? I believe he already knows the answer, as do the rest of us.

 

Because I think that is an example where I'd consider it as a legit question mark over the reign. With Jeffries it just seems like there were some decent challengers he could have taken but didn't. As any champion consistantly fought only the best through a reign of any length?

I mean you could also throw in the likes of Maher, McCoy, Choynski. But the best opponents were clearly the likes of Fitz, Sharkey, and Ruhlin who he beat.

 

But not Corbett. Ruhlin wasn't really the best opponent when Jeffries defended against him, Fitz had half killed him a year earlier.

 

What champions consistantly fought the single best contender?

 

For openers I'm not even sure if Armstrong would be in the top 5 when Martin beat him. I doubt he was.

Martin was not in line to fight Jeffries before Fitz, Sharkey, Corbett or Ruhlin from 1899-1902. So let's move on to see how Ed did in 1903-1904. Martin was just 2-4 from 1903-1904. Not even on the radar..

Armstrong Ko'd Martin in 1903. ( Armstrong also KO'd Martin in 1899 )

 

Martin was quite highly touted, with at least one contemporary newspaper picking him to beat Jeffries.

In hindsight we must conclude that Martin was a potential challenger for a relatively short period, and therefore not a particularly damning omission for Jeffries resume.

As for Jeffries reasons for not fighting Martin, I think he made them fairly clear.

 

Martin was maybe the 4th to 6th best title contender while Jeffries was champion from 1899-1905. It's not like he deserved a title shot.

Judging by how often he was Kod' early to the head or the body, Jeffries finishes him early.

 

He might well have been the second best contender at some point, or even arguably the first.

He would have been an eminently justifiable choice for a title challenger if Jeffries had been willing.

Knowing what we know now, we would have to think that Jeffries would have stopped him with a body shot, probably as easily as he did Ruhlin.