James Jeffries, was he that good?

[Ambling Alp II]

The overall level of ability in boxing (as well as other major sports for that matter) improves in the first few decades. That is to be expected. People were still learning better strategies, techniques. Than after awhile, the improvement is at a lower rate and it eventually stops. In boxing overall it's been about the same for a long, long time. Specific weight classes go up and down. (i.e the hw division has sucked for quite a while now. But there is ability in lower weight classes.)

How good was the hw division when Jeffries fought? Better than in the 1880s? Probably. Better than the 1920s? Probably not.

Of course a guy can be a head of his time. i.e. You could argue that Jeffries era was not as good as the the early 1930s, but Jeffries himself was better than any hw of the early 1930s.

[Cojimar 1946]

I think Schmeling and Baer would be favored over Jeffries possibly also other guys from that time period. Film we have of Jeffries certainly doesn't seem to indicate he would be favored over someone like Schmeling at least not over a 15 round fight. Combination punching and footwork had advanced.

[Ambling Alp II]

Baer has little footwork, and Schmeling not much more. He telegraphed his punches and still was able to hit Schmeling often. Schmeling froze when he got hurt (did the same when he fought Louis the 2nd time.)
Jeffries was a higher level than those guys.

[Ezzard]

All sports advance. It's not really the point of comparisons. It's like saying Einstein wasn't that intelligent because he couldn't use an iPhone.

Racing cars have got faster and more sophisticated. It doesn't mean drivers from the past couldn't learn how to drive one.

[Ambling Alp II]

Machines get better. People can improve the machines from what is already there. At a certain point in a sport's history athletes as a whole don't. Yes, depending on the sport, they may be able to PDF drugs or something, that is better or than the past or wasn't available in the past. But not naturally.

It's not you could take the 10 best boxers of today (or basketball players or whatever) and plop them in their sport from 50 years ago and they would all be in the top 10.

[Cojimar 1946]

Schmeling at his best likely beats anyone Jeffries beat and between the two he seemingly has by far the best win. His losses don't necessarily help Jeffries case because Schmeling had far more fights than Jeffries and when you are more active there is more opportunities for slip ups. Jeffries also was able to hide behind the color line and avoid black challengers like McVey and Johnson.

I don't think the Louis rematch is of much relevance given Jeffries is nowhere near the puncher Louis is in addition to lacking Louis overall skillset.

[margaret thatcher]

what's the best footage of jeffries i can see? anyone got a vid

[Ambling Alp II]

Schmeling at his best likely beats anyone Jeffries beat and between the two he seemingly has by far the best win. His losses don't necessarily help Jeffries case because Schmeling had far more fights than Jeffries and when you are more active there is more opportunities for slip ups. Jeffries also was able to hide behind the color line and avoid black challengers like McVey and Johnson.

I don't think the Louis rematch is of much relevance given Jeffries is nowhere near the puncher Louis is in addition to lacking Louis overall skillset.

You can't just by Schmeling's win over Louis. If you do,. then you could make an argument that Schmeling would have beaten literally anyone.
You have to factor in all of his fights near his prime. Most of the Max Baer fight is on Youtube. Watch it. Jeffries would have stopped him in with kind of performance. Schmeling also lost to Steve Hamas.
Jeffries had several good wins over most of the best guys of his era. In fact I would argue that Jeffries had more big wins than Schmeling or Baer.

Would have been nice if he had fought Johnson in say 1904. However, hiding behind the color line is pushing it. McVey was not a top contender yet when Jeffries retired in 1904. Johnson really had not been for that long. Jeffries did fight black fighters on his way up before he fought for the title.

[HomicideHenry]

what's the best footage of jeffries i can see? anyone got a vid

Unfortunately the best footage of Jeffries is when he was 6 years inactive and had to lose 110 pounds and get in shape for a 45 round contest against a prime Jack Johnson.

Because of the ridiculous law that was passed about boxing films being transported across state lines, so much archival footage was either destroyed or lost or fell into disrepair and was unable to be restored.

Another aggravating aspect was that much of the films that were available once upon a time was spliced into tiny fragments, and complete fight films were lost on the cutting room floor.

When you only have a few seconds available of a 25 round fight that Jeffries had with Tom Sharkey, for example, and that is the extent of his prime career left to be seen it is quite an injustice to boxing history.

Most of the footage that exists of Jeffries is either him training for Jack Johnson or him training when he was younger or when he was a much older man talking about his boxing career. Quite a sad state of affairs.

We can only gauge how good he might have been from the best available footage of when he was well passed his prime. The fact that he basically took an ass whipping for nearly a full 15 rounds against one of the best boxers of all time, with dozens of cuts all over his face before falling to the canvas for the first time in his entire career, gives every indication that in his prime he had to have been something pretty special.

[oogiebe]

what's the best footage of jeffries i can see? anyone got a vid

LOL! I'm going to read a bunch of articles from 100 years ago and peruse boxrec records and establish that fighter A can box in other eras. Rinse, repeat.

[margaret thatcher]

what's the best footage of jeffries i can see? anyone got a vid

LOL! I'm going to read a bunch of articles from 100 years ago and peruse boxrec records and establish that fighter A can box in other eras. Rinse, repeat.

[Ambling Alp II]

Yeah, that would require a little bit of actual thinking.

Much easier to go by important things like the time period that a guy fought in. As a fan, we should always remember if a guy fought in the era when you were a fan, he is automatically better than a guy who fought in an earlier era.

Other crucial factors: The amount of title defenses. (The quality of competition doesn't matter.) Of course this is to be disregarded if the guy fought a long time ago.

Weight -Always crucial when ranking heavyweights. Except if a big guy fought a long time ago. It should be disregarded in those cases.

[oogiebe]

Yeah, that would require a little bit of actual thinking.

Much easier to go by important things like the time period that a guy fought in. As a fan, we should always remember if a guy fought in the era when you were a fan, he is automatically better than a guy who fought in an earlier era.

Other crucial factors: The amount of title defenses. (The quality of competition doesn't matter.) Of course this is to be disregarded if the guy fought a long time ago.

Weight -Always crucial when ranking heavyweights. Except if a big guy fought a long time ago. It should be disregarded in those cases.

Gee I never saw the man fight, but I know exactly how he'd do! LMFAO!

[Ambling Alp II]

There is no known footage of Harry Greb. There are several great fighters that he beat that there is footage of. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that he had to have been great.

Just because you never saw a guy fight, doesn't mean that you can't have a good no idea of how good he was.

[margaret thatcher]

who is the best jeffries victim we have some good footage of

[HomicideHenry]

who is the best jeffries victim we have some good footage of

Corbett or Fitzsimmons.

[margaret thatcher]

cool, fitzy, the 156 pounder. could make welter with day ahead weigh ins

[HomicideHenry]

cool, fitzy, the 156 pounder

Fitzsimmons, I think, fought somewhere between 168-175 pounds for the most part. However his skills combined with tremendous hitting power for his size made him deadly dangerous against men who were physically superior to him. The fact that he was boxing's first triple crown champion goes to show that he was something special for his time and could have competed in much later times.

[margaret thatcher]

on the topic of fitz.....

fitz won the mw title at 150, beating a 147 pound opponent
fitz won the lhw title weighing 168 vs a 168 pound opponent
fitz won the hw title weighing 167 vs a 184 pound opponent
fitz weighed in the 150s-160s regularly throughout his career, from start to finish

all of these were same day weigh ins too, so he wasnt artificially light. the biggest guy he beat in his triple crown run was about the size of smws with day before weigh ins. fitz is a great, but needs context. rating him as a cross era hw great, or rating someone as such for beating him, is pretty silly

[oogiebe]

on the topic of fitz.....

fitz won the mw title at 150, beating a 147 pound opponent
fitz won the lhw title weighing 168 vs a 168 pound opponent
fitz won the hw title weighing 167 vs a 184 pound opponent

all of these were same day weigh ins too. the biggest guy he beat in his triple crown run was about the size of smws with day before weigh ins. fitz is a great, but needs context. rating him as a cross era hw great, or rating someone as such for beating him, is pretty silly

Maddening.

[oogiebe]

There is no known footage of Harry Greb. There are several great fighters that he beat that there is footage of. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that he had to have been great.

Just because you never saw a guy fight, doesn't mean that you can't have a good no idea of how good he was.

Just because you never tasted something doesn't mean you can't have a good idea of how good it is. LMFAO!

Do you even read what you're saying bruh? Don't bring Greb into this either, we're speaking about Jeffries.

[HomicideHenry]

It seems Fitzsimmons career high was 175 when he fought Joe Choynski to a draw. He did fight above 170 on quite a few occasions. Yes, he was small but that does not diminish he skills or abilities and punching power. The man is often described as having the power of a super heavyweight despite his size.

[oogiebe]

It seems Fitzsimmons career high was 175 when he fought Joe Choynski to a draw. He did fight above 170 on quite a few occasions. Yes, he was small but that does not diminish he skills or abilities and punching power. The man is often described as having the power of a super heavyweight despite his size.

For that time.

[HomicideHenry]

It seems Fitzsimmons career high was 175 when he fought Joe Choynski to a draw. He did fight above 170 on quite a few occasions. Yes, he was small but that does not diminish he skills or abilities and punching power. The man is often described as having the power of a super heavyweight despite his size.

For that time.

Nah. Fitzsimmons was a blacksmith before becoming a boxer and throughout his boxing career still incorporated hard manual labor of blacksmithing in his training camps. The man possessed tremendous hitting power that would have carried over into our modern era without any issues or problems.

[margaret thatcher]

the man was about the size of today's middleweights, although even later in his career had some fights below that. he won the hw title vs someone not much bigger

for many many decades no one talks about middleweights coming straight up and ktfoing heavies, nor do we ever see it. i wonder why

is blacksmithing the key to developing punching power? maybe you've hit on the secret