BoxRec

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James J. Jeffries, then

2. John L. Sullivan
3. Jack Johnson
4. Sam Langford
5. Peter Jackson
6. Bob Fitzsimmons
7. Sam McVey
8. Tom Sharkey
9. Jim Corbett
10. Jim Jeannette

I am not too terribly hung up on the order of the last six.

Are you going back to the bareknuckle era?

1) Jack Johnson

2) Jim Jefferies

3) Sam Langford

4) Peter Jackson

5) John L Sullivan

6) Jim Corbett

7) Joe Jeannette

8) Bob Fitzimmons

9) Sam McVey

10) Tom Sharkey

dempseyfire wrote:Are you going back to the bareknuckle era?

1) Jack Johnson

2) Jim Jefferies

3) Sam Langford

4) Peter Jackson

5) John L Sullivan

6) Jim Corbett

7) Joe Jeannette

8) Bob Fitzimmons

9) Sam McVey

10) Tom Sharkey

No. Marquess of Queensberry rules.

Jeffries is the best Heavyweight, Langford & Fitzsimmons, the best fighters to compete at the weight.

IMO, there wasn't a clear-cut, hands-down superior HW to Jeffries until Louis. Good cases can absolutely be made for both Dempsey & Tunney --- & many would include Johnson there --- but I wouldn't be strongly confident of him losing at his best until Louis' inception.

Assuming that "pre-Dempsey" excludes, besides Dempsey himself, Wills, Fulton, Gibbons, Greb, Miske, Norfolk, Dillon, Levinsky, and Morris, I make it like this:

1-Jack Johnson
2-Jim Jeffries
3-Sam Langford
4-Joe Jeannette
5-Sam McVey
6-Jess Willard
7-Bob Fitzsimmons
8-Jim Corbett
9-Peter Jackson
10-John L. Sullivan
11-Tom Sharkey
12-Tommy Burns

Jeffries is untouchable against the men of his era; one must think that had he not retired, its quite plausible he would have easily beaten the likes of Hart, Burns, Squires and other top notch heavies of the era.

I agree Jeffries would have given Johnson all he could handle if he was in his prime. Out something like 5 years, losing nearly 100 pounds? He was not nearly the same fighter. Not to take away from Johnson though, as he was one of the best. Since he was black and people wanted so bad for a white guy to beat him, they lured Jeffries out to fight him.