Great article about an interview with the legend. Rare that you get to have the exact words to ponder.
How Jack figured out Jeff’s plans.
“I had figured that I would win without much trouble, but I had figured, too, that I should have to size him up properly and get him tired a bit before I could risk cutting loose on him. You may say that the fight went just as I figured it would. I guessed it would go about fifteen rounds, and I guessed, too, that he would try to haul and push me around a lot at first.
“How did I figure that out? Well, what else did he have Farmer Burns and Frank Gotch with him for? (2) They couldn’t teach him anything in the sparring game, and he could only have fixed up with them so as to work up some tricks with his arms and wrists in the clinch, which would help him to tire me out. I suppose he figured because be would be 20lb. or so heavier than me, that a scuffling battle would be the game which would suit him best. There was all that dope about his strength and his being a grizzly bear, too, but when Burns and Gotch joined his camp it looked a sure thing.
“That idea appealed to me. I wasn’t worrying much as to what style Mr. Jeffries might like to pick as a winner, because any style would have suited me. The long-range style would have suited me as well as the short one, because I reckon that I am a much better boxer than Jeffries ever was, but I hoped that he would play the close game, which has always been my strong suit. I don’t think there is a man in the world who can shove me around the ring, and you can let that go for Gotch, too.
“But I wasn’t going to take any chances. If Jeffries was practising up tricks in this department – well, I would keep busy at it. So I made all my sparring partners, young, strong, husky fellows, you remember, haul me about all they could. I told them to do as much as they could of it, and to use every trick they had ever seen or heard about. It was good practice, and I enjoyed it all the time.
The rest can be found here:
http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/the-jac ... ears-on/2/