Boxing biggest Myth Jeffries ""I could never have whipped Johnson at my best" Never was uttered.

[Benny The Kid]

A myth created from bad Journalism.

Tellingly, Jeffries himself famously admitted he could never have beaten Johnson, even in his prime. “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best,” he said. “I couldn’t have hit him. No, I couldn’t have reached him in a thousand years.”

Fact or fiction? Jim Jeffries says "I could never have whipped Johnson at my best" The wiki source has this comment attributed to Jack Johnson biography. (*17 on fight page)

The following day in the San Francisco July 5th 1910 Jeffries gives a lengthy statement and never mention's these words. Nor does any other of the several dozen newspaper's i looked through

. Again on July 10th he gives some statements about the fight. Again he never mention's anything close to this.

If fact he states the opposite of this saying July 5th 1910 san francisco examiner: "as far as my fight it was the best fight i had in me. Had I meet Johnson when i was in my prime the results would have been different. I would have beaten him. As it was i wore myself down and was beaten as much by the effects of my own exertion as i was by Johnson's blow" is rather sharp contrast to the heresay that is sourced from the the footnote of Johnson's auto biography. This has to be one of boxing's biggest myths because no newspaper recap of the fight can confirm he said anything even remotely close to this myth, as I stated he say's the exact opposite. Jeffries does credit Johnson with being the better man the day they fought.

But he is hardly awestruck by his performance, certainly not with the bravo that a autobiographer would have you believing. I am not interested in a debate of who would win. I am interested in fact or fiction. This statement never came out of his mouth. It’s bad journalism. An autobiography isn’t a proper source. I do Not know which autobiography they specifically referencing but i would guess it was before the advent of being able to do newspaper searches. This is just lazy Journalism. This is propaganda designed to create some hype.

It's as definitely false as the claim that Jack Johnson threw the Willard fight. I'm not sure why Johnson is continually at the center of bad information.

But This.....Tellingly, Jeffries himself famously admitted he could never have beaten Johnson, even in his prime. “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best,” he said. “I couldn’t have hit him. No, I couldn’t have reached him in a thousand years.”

at no point ever came out of Jeffries mouth. He gives a rather lengthy statement on the 5th. Nothing is even close to corresponding with the myth.

It feels like a mega injustice to completely not mention a single word he actually said and replace it with words that he never at any point ever said!!

I searched coast to coast newspaper's all through the month of July 1910, NOTHING in about 40+ different newspaper's has this statement. It's outright FALSE. Even in a direct word search it produces zero results. I spent a better part of 6 hours looking for the comment....it 100% DOES NOT EXIST. What's wrote in an autobiography can easily be fabricated. There's no source for this statement it's Bullcrap. It's bad journalism.

The option you have about who might of won? It's irrelevant. No boxer alive or dead, should be having words attributed to him that he never at any point ever said...regardless of who you like or don't like.

I would upload his entire statement if i knew how to do an attachment. It just seems so slanderous to me to put outright lies out.

[DrDuke]

In reality he said to Johnson after their bout: "I wish I was 50 years younger, and I'd kick your a$$!".

[Caractacus]

I looked into this some time ago.
as far as I could tell,
thE first time that quote is ever mentioned ,is from
the book PAPA JACK by Randy Roberts.
published in 1983 (40 years ago).
It has been re-quoted in many sources since then.
Has Randy Roberts ever bothered to name the reference source for it since then ?
Perhaps he heard Jim J. Jeffries say it it in a dream ?

[Benny The Kid]

I looked into this some time ago.
as far as I could tell,
thE first time that quote is ever mentioned ,is from
the book PAPA JACK by Randy Roberts.
published in 1983 (40 years ago).
It has been re-quoted in many sources since then.
Has Randy Roberts ever bothered to name the reference source for it since then ?
Perhaps he heard Jim J. Jeffries say it it in a dream ?

Thank you very much Caractacus!!
This was exactly my suspicion that it came from a source that pre-dated the internet, that was exactly what i suspected.
I wanted to know the origin of where this appeared first.
Nothing in the statement is actual factual. No 3 word combination of any kind.
Everything about it seems fabricated. Have ANY boxer's of ANY generation after a lost ever stated "there's no chance i would ever had won against him"??

I can't imagine any boxer saying such a thing. It's seems preposterous the very notion that any completive spirit would utter such a statement i would be highly skeptical of such a statement. I searched maybe 1000 newspaper articles with guy's getting there ass kicked way worse than Jeffries and never have i ran across ANYONE saying such a Ludacris thing.

You guy's are the expert's has anyone ever heard of any fighter saying they wouldn't stand a chance against a guy after a loss??

I mean even Stanley Ketchel wanted a rematch & he surely took a bigger beating. The entire premise sound's highly suspect. It's sensationalism journalism from an Era that couldn't be fact checked with no Internet.

[Caractacus]

well perhaps if they had been imbibbing heavely on the olde "John Barley-Corn" after a fight anyway.
who knows ?

[HomicideHenry]

It's certainly the biggest myth or legend surrounding the fight. I always heard he said it immediately after the fight was over. But I think this is kind of like how Jack London was not present in Australia when Jack Johnson beat Tommy Burns and yet Jack London wrote the most scathing article which was the beginning of the Great White Hope nonsense which ended with the famous line:

"Jefferies must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove the golden smile from Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you." And of course it took a few years to convince Jeffries but ultimately he came out of retirement and lost.

My favorite story from the whole ordeal is kind of an apocryphal one but apparently was true in which the night before the fight Jefferies wife was there in the camp and noticed her husband was missing in their bed so she got up to look for him and saw him standing in the doorway or the porch of their cabin with him staring out into the dark.

She asked him what was the matter and he said that he couldn't win. That all his years as an athlete had demonstrated to him in the course of this training camp that he no longer had it. That he looked the part but he didn't feel it. She said call the fight off then and he said he wasn't going to do that because far too many people had come to Reno, and he never had the reputation of being a coward. That he was just going to take his beating like a man and take the money.

One more side note that is rarely ever mentioned is that there was the possibility of a rematch between Johnson and Jefferies, but for one reason or another it never took place. I think if Jefferies was to have had a successful comeback it would have been when Bill Squires showed up at Jefferies house and challenged him to a fight because in the mind of millions Jefferies was still the champion not Marvin Hart or Tommy Burns. Apparently the former champion looked at Squires and laughed in his face. He had zero interest in it.

Ironically Jefferies would be the referee for the Bill Squires versus Tommy Burns bout absolutely dwarfing both men in the ring which is why I think he had no interest in the match because he was that much physically bigger than Squires the champion of Australia. But I think had he took the fight he would have had enough left to have beaten Squires and become the first two-time heavyweight champion in history.

[Caractacus]

it would be interesting to compile a listing of the books that insist on repeating that alleged quote by Mr. Jim Jeffries
ver batim.
here are a few :

SELLING HATE by Dale W. Laackm (2020)

SPORTS JOURNALS: A HISTORY OF GLORY FAME by Patrick Washbourn ( 2020)

THE BOXING KINGS by Paul Beston (2017) page 42

A BEAUTIFUL PAGENT by D. Klasner (2016) page 23

JOE LOUIS-THE LIFE OF A HEAVYWEIGHT (2013)P.46

AN-AFRICAN CHRONOLOGY III by Everett Jenkins sr. ( 2011) p.67

DRIVING WOMEN by Deborah Clark ( published 2007)

UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS by Geofrrey C. Ward ( published 2004)

[Benny The Kid]

It's certainly the biggest myth or legend surrounding the fight. I always heard he said it immediately after the fight was over. But I think this is kind of like how Jack London was not present in Australia when Jack Johnson beat Tommy Burns and yet Jack London wrote the most scathing article which was the beginning of the Great White Hope nonsense which ended with the famous line:

"Jefferies must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove the golden smile from Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you." And of course it took a few years to convince Jeffries but ultimately he came out of retirement and lost.

My favorite story from the whole ordeal is kind of an apocryphal one but apparently was true in which the night before the fight Jefferies wife was there in the camp and noticed her husband was missing in their bed so she got up to look for him and saw him standing in the doorway or the porch of their cabin with him staring out into the dark.

She asked him what was the matter and he said that he couldn't win. That all his years as an athlete had demonstrated to him in the course of this training camp that he no longer had it. That he looked the part but he didn't feel it. She said call the fight off then and he said he wasn't going to do that because far too many people had come to Reno, and he never had the reputation of being a coward. That he was just going to take his beating like a man and take the money.

One more side note that is rarely ever mentioned is that there was the possibility of a rematch between Johnson and Jefferies, but for one reason or another it never took place. I think if Jefferies was to have had a successful comeback it would have been when Bill Squires showed up at Jefferies house and challenged him to a fight because in the mind of millions Jefferies was still the champion not Marvin Hart or Tommy Burns. Apparently the former champion looked at Squires and laughed in his face. He had zero interest in it.

Ironically Jefferies would be the referee for the Bill Squires versus Tommy Burns bout absolutely dwarfing both men in the ring which is why I think he had no interest in the match because he was that much physically bigger than Squires the champion of Australia. But I think had he took the fight he would have had enough left to have beaten Squires and become the first two-time heavyweight champion in history.

I found an article saying a week before the fight Jeffries wished to call it off. He was complaining of double vision (missing corbett by feet in sparring) and had numerous side effects from the weight loss on his organs. But Tickets sales were such that the fight getting postponed seemed almost impossible at that point. Not too mention the fight is taking place in 110 degree heat which is doing his body no favor's of any kind.

His trouble's he was having is pretty extensively documented prior to the actual fight--Not in highsight.

additionally Even Jim Barry getting his assed kicked repeatedly wanted rematches with people that were kicking his ass.

The fact that an completely undefeated boxer previously is stating he had no chance at ever beating him seem's completely suspect in of itself. Particularly when he is trying to cancel the fight because of health concern's. So obviusly he isn't feeling 100% which would lend to the fact that he wouldn't say something like "I stand no chance, I would never beat him"

[HomicideHenry]

Yellow journalism (it's technical name) was quite commonplace back then with men like William Randolph Hearst at the helm of sensational journalism which basically was the driving force of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.

I think the mindset or attitude back then was it didn't matter whether the quotes were genuine or the facts were genuine as long as you were upholding some measure of the truth, which of course is nonsense because a lie is still a lie.

And.... I would say that Jefferies was not only a victim of propaganda but was a victim of a complete and total ignorance of sports science and sports medicine.... these people were under the delusion that somebody could lose a hundred and ten pounds and then get in shape for a 45 round contest without any ill effects.

And not only that but under this delusion that somebody going through all that could have absolutely no tune-ups and fight for the world championship against the best heavyweight in years. In retrospect they would have been better off to have gotten him back into shape, with a long recovery period, then get him into a proper training camp and have him face off against journeymen and trial horses and gate keepers behind closed doors to accurately assess the man.

From what I have read of the actual training camp they were having him spar old men like Corbett and Choyinski in preparation for Jack Johnson. It seems to me everybody lost their minds not thinking clearly at all getting caught up in the hoopla. I think the only person who had any sense in the buildup of the fight was Bob Fitzsimmons trainer who said something to the effect to the press that no man could be gone for more than 3 years and win the title.

[Benny The Kid]

" I always heard he said it immediately after the fight was over"

This was what I thought was accurate also. There's quite a few newspapers on July 5th saying bit's & Piece's from Jeffries statement. But the San Francisco examiner on 7/5/1910 was the only newspaper i seen that had the entire letter contained. It's on a 2 page spread I have it clipped. That's where my quote is from. He say's the complete opposite "Had I meet Johnson when i was in my prime the results would have been different. I would have beaten him."

He again talks about it on July 10th the following week. He doubles down again & say's if he had his youth the outcome would be different.

Just for good measure I searched up until his death with perhaps a statement that came far after the fact but nothing comes up with those keywords in multiple decade searches.

I be very curious to hear of any other Fighter's who claimed they would never be able to beat someone after a loss.
The Newspapers lived for shocking journalism back then. If those words were said it would be found in numerous Newspapers splattered across the headline...rather easy to find.

[Caractacus]

-Stop the Presses-

I think I have found the primary source" for that "Open Citation"
( at least for all the books from 1983 Randy Roberts book to up to all the recently published books containing the alleged quote..

It is from an old article in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED magazine

BLACK HAMLET OF THE HEAVYWEIGHTS
by Finis Farr
in
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED June.15.1959.


https://vault.si.com/1959/06/15/black-h ... avyweights


the quote is about little over half-way down into the article.
BTW IMOP This article looks like it is filled with fabricated quotes of Jack Johnson by the article's author.
( because I've never heard any of them anywhere else )
such as

'A hundred to one he don't black my eye !" (1908) Tommy Burns fight

" I devoutly hope I didn't happen to hurt you, Jeff !" ( 1910) in the middle of Jeffries fight

"My sincere congratutalions ,Frank " ( middle of the fight with Frank Moran,when Moran lands a rare"Mary-Ann" on him.

[Caractacus]

UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS by Geoffrey Ward also cites Farr 1959 as the source for that quote.
which means they did not have the primary source available to them to confirm it.
Farr reports that Jim Jeffries had said that to one of the reporters at the train station in Reno the day after the fight while boarding a train with his wife Freida.
you should probably double-check the book
BLACK CHAMPION by Finis Farr
published in 1964.
as Magazine articles are not usually required to give their sources,
but quotes in books usually are required.
if the quote is not in his book, then what does that tell you ?

[giacomino]

The one I always questioned about Jeffries (and it's on his wiki page bio) is the common citation that "To train for the bout Jeffries' daily training included a 14-mile (23 km) run." In that era people ran in leather shoes that would cause blisters on even the most calloused feet. As someone who has run long distance for more than 40 years in modern gear, I am skeptical in that era that anyone ran 14 miles every day, particularly a heavyweight. He was supposedly a super athlete and my guess is he ran that distance on occasion, but "every day" is an exaggeration

[HomicideHenry]

The one I always questioned about Jeffries (and it's on his wiki page bio) is the common citation that "To train for the bout Jeffries' daily training included a 14-mile (23 km) run." In that era people ran in leather shoes that would cause blisters on even the most calloused feet. As someone who has run long distance for more than 40 years in modern gear, I am skeptical in that era that anyone ran 14 miles every day, particularly a heavyweight. He was supposedly a super athlete and my guess is he ran that distance on occasion, but "every day" is an exaggeration

I don't know Rocky Marciano they said ran 10 miles every day even on Christmas. I imagine quite frankly people had tougher feet back then. Probably pretty calloused.

[Caractacus]

I remember reading ( somewhere)
that some scientist were studying the bones of ancient peoples.
before the invention of the wheel and even before the domestication of the horse ( about 7,000 yrs ago)
that the average person use to walk 20 to 25 miles a day.

[HomicideHenry]

I remember reading ( somewhere)
that some scientist were studying the bones of ancient peoples.
before the invention of the wheel and even before the domestication of the horse ( about 7,000 yrs ago)
that the average person use to walk 20 to 25 miles a day.

I believe that to be accurate because there is a lot of videos floating out on YouTube about people wearing essentially skin tight moccasins on their feet instead of shoes and the feet physically change shape in a year's time to handle walking longer distances.

[Benny The Kid]

-Stop the Presses-

I think I have found the primary source" for that "Open Citation"
( at least for all the books from 1983 Randy Roberts book to up to all the recently published books containing the alleged quote..

It is from an old article in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED magazine

BLACK HAMLET OF THE HEAVYWEIGHTS
by Finis Farr
in
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED June.15.1959.


https://vault.si.com/1959/06/15/black-h ... avyweights


the quote is about little over half-way down into the article.
BTW IMOP This article looks like it is filled with fabricated quotes of Jack Johnson by the article's author.
( because I've never heard any of them anywhere else )
such as

'A hundred to one he don't black my eye !" (1908) Tommy Burns fight

" I devoutly hope I didn't happen to hurt you, Jeff !" ( 1910) in the middle of Jeffries fight

"My sincere congratutalions ,Frank " ( middle of the fight with Frank Moran,when Moran lands a rare"Mary-Ann" on him.

Pretty funny that they published this just a matter of 5 years after Jeffries died, so he couldn't sue them for slander.
Or say it's load of horsecrap, himself.
The story has him again saying it the next day...which is an obvious lie.
I'll do some searches on the original article & see what it produces. Or the author's name Finnis Farr.
This was obviously published so far past the point of the fight, people forgot and they had no way of fact checking anything that got said.
The guy just say's he said it to a reporter...giving a vague structure in place to support his lie, since fact check doesn't exist in 1959. I'll see if I can turn up something more on this..

Great Homework Caractacus!!
an A+ on the assignment.

[Caractacus]

Jim J. Jeffries had had a severe stroke sometime back in the 1940's
and wasn't able to leave his house or even his bed there from what I understand.

[AngryGoon38]

A myth created from bad Journalism.

Tellingly, Jeffries himself famously admitted he could never have beaten Johnson, even in his prime. “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best,” he said. “I couldn’t have hit him. No, I couldn’t have reached him in a thousand years.”

Fact or fiction? Jim Jeffries says "I could never have whipped Johnson at my best" The wiki source has this comment attributed to Jack Johnson biography. (*17 on fight page)

The following day in the San Francisco July 5th 1910 Jeffries gives a lengthy statement and never mention's these words. Nor does any other of the several dozen newspaper's i looked through

. Again on July 10th he gives some statements about the fight. Again he never mention's anything close to this.

If fact he states the opposite of this saying July 5th 1910 san francisco examiner: "as far as my fight it was the best fight i had in me. Had I meet Johnson when i was in my prime the results would have been different. I would have beaten him. As it was i wore myself down and was beaten as much by the effects of my own exertion as i was by Johnson's blow" is rather sharp contrast to the heresay that is sourced from the the footnote of Johnson's auto biography. This has to be one of boxing's biggest myths because no newspaper recap of the fight can confirm he said anything even remotely close to this myth, as I stated he say's the exact opposite. Jeffries does credit Johnson with being the better man the day they fought.

But he is hardly awestruck by his performance, certainly not with the bravo that a autobiographer would have you believing. I am not interested in a debate of who would win. I am interested in fact or fiction. This statement never came out of his mouth. It’s bad journalism. An autobiography isn’t a proper source. I do Not know which autobiography they specifically referencing but i would guess it was before the advent of being able to do newspaper searches. This is just lazy Journalism. This is propaganda designed to create some hype.

It's as definitely false as the claim that Jack Johnson threw the Willard fight. I'm not sure why Johnson is continually at the center of bad information.

But This.....Tellingly, Jeffries himself famously admitted he could never have beaten Johnson, even in his prime. “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best,” he said. “I couldn’t have hit him. No, I couldn’t have reached him in a thousand years.”

at no point ever came out of Jeffries mouth. He gives a rather lengthy statement on the 5th. Nothing is even close to corresponding with the myth.

It feels like a mega injustice to completely not mention a single word he actually said and replace it with words that he never at any point ever said!!

I searched coast to coast newspaper's all through the month of July 1910, NOTHING in about 40+ different newspaper's has this statement. It's outright FALSE. Even in a direct word search it produces zero results. I spent a better part of 6 hours looking for the comment....it 100% DOES NOT EXIST. What's wrote in an autobiography can easily be fabricated. There's no source for this statement it's Bullcrap. It's bad journalism.

The option you have about who might of won? It's irrelevant. No boxer alive or dead, should be having words attributed to him that he never at any point ever said...regardless of who you like or don't like.

I would upload his entire statement if i knew how to do an attachment. It just seems so slanderous to me to put outright lies out.

I kind of figured that even if Jefferies had said "I couldn't have beaten Johnson even in my prime", it just meant he was basically just Being polite, and respectfull, and indifferent about the situation, and making it clear that whatever people want to think of him didn't matter anymore to him. Jefferies after all Had fully accliminated himself to being A Farmer, and A very content one after initially announcing his retirement in 1905, a few months after a title defense bout/win in 1904.
Jefferies obviously Really never wanted to have a comeback from retirement bout. He was being consistently nagged and peer pressured basically. I sensed that after the Johnson bout/loss, Jefferies felt a great sense of relief. He knew at that point that everyone would finally just leave him alone, on his farm, where he felt peace and contentment.

[Caractacus]

well if he did say it, it would have been in a newspaper somewhere the day after the fight
( July.4.1910 )

[AngryGoon38]

Yellow journalism (it's technical name) was quite commonplace back then with men like William Randolph Hearst at the helm of sensational journalism which basically was the driving force of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.

I think the mindset or attitude back then was it didn't matter whether the quotes were genuine or the facts were genuine as long as you were upholding some measure of the truth, which of course is nonsense because a lie is still a lie.

And.... I would say that Jefferies was not only a victim of propaganda but was a victim of a complete and total ignorance of sports science and sports medicine.... these people were under the delusion that somebody could lose a hundred and ten pounds and then get in shape for a 45 round contest without any ill effects.

And not only that but under this delusion that somebody going through all that could have absolutely no tune-ups and fight for the world championship against the best heavyweight in years. In retrospect they would have been better off to have gotten him back into shape, with a long recovery period, then get him into a proper training camp and have him face off against journeymen and trial horses and gate keepers behind closed doors to accurately assess the man.

From what I have read of the actual training camp they were having him spar old men like Corbett and Choyinski in preparation for Jack Johnson. It seems to me everybody lost their minds not thinking clearly at all getting caught up in the hoopla. I think the only person who had any sense in the buildup of the fight was Bob Fitzsimmons trainer who said something to the effect to the press that no man could be gone for more than 3 years and win the title.

Good post. I just remembered something that I watched recently pertaining to Johnson-Jefferies.
I heard in this one particular documentary video that Stanley Ketchel was profoundly against Jefferies fighting Johnson.
Apparently he saw Jefferies training and didn't like what he saw. He was actually planning to sucker-punch Jefferies before the bout started. And then be the Fill-In opponent. Maybe the source that I watched in this peculiar particular video was getting things/details confused though. Maybe it was Johnson-Burns that he was actually referring to....

[AngryGoon38]

Yeah, it was the Johnson-Jefferies bout for sure, that Ketchel was planning to sabotage, with a pre-bout Sucker Punch onto Jefferies. I wasn't 100% certain because I was thinking to myself, was Ketchel still even alive at that time..?!, and yes he was. Ketchel was shot dead 3 months after the July 1910 Johnson-Jefferies bout.
Also according to what I researched within the video on YouTube, Ketchel was apparently ratted out by someone and therefore Ketchel was promptly removed, by local authorities, from the town/city(Reno,Nevada) where the bout was being held at.

[HomicideHenry]

Yeah, it was the Johnson-Jefferies bout for sure, that Ketchel was planning to sabotage, with a pre-bout Sucker Punch onto Jefferies. I wasn't 100% certain because I was thinking to myself, was Ketchel still even alive at that time..?!, and yes he was. Ketchel was shot dead 3 months after the July 1910 Johnson-Jefferies bout.
Also according to what I researched within the video on YouTube, Ketchel was apparently ratted out by someone and therefore Ketchel was promptly removed, by local authorities, from the town/city(Reno,Nevada) where the bout was being held at.

I've never heard of the story but as beloved as Stanley was I can only think that he would become the biggest villain in the entire business if he tried to do that. Secondly though he was a hard-hitting man himself I don't think a sucker punch to Jim Jefferies would have done much to a man who basically had Tex Cobb type abilities to soak up punishment.

Lastly even if he was successful in pulling off the sucker punch and the fight continued on as planned all it would have done is set up a rematch with Jack Johnson because people would have blamed Stanley for the piss poor result with Johnson only causing greater divide in the country.

I'm not sure I believe the story. It sounds like one of those apocryphal tales that came well after the fact. I do know for a fact that the Jefferies camp was not as good as they wanted the public to believe. There was also a lot of infighting where James Corbett refused to allow John L Sullivan into the training camp, etc.

I do know that Stanley Ketchel was good friends with Jack Johnson and that Jim Jefferies had him thrown out of his training camp because he saw Stanley as basically up to no good spying for Jack Johnson. So who knows, it could very well be that Stanley wanted revenge for being kicked out of the training camp.

I reckon this is a question I could ask my friend Adam Pollack since he wrote a book about Jim Jefferies and whether he knows anything about it.

[giacomino]

The one I always questioned about Jeffries (and it's on his wiki page bio) is the common citation that "To train for the bout Jeffries' daily training included a 14-mile (23 km) run." In that era people ran in leather shoes that would cause blisters on even the most calloused feet. As someone who has run long distance for more than 40 years in modern gear, I am skeptical in that era that anyone ran 14 miles every day, particularly a heavyweight. He was supposedly a super athlete and my guess is he ran that distance on occasion, but "every day" is an exaggeration

I don't know Rocky Marciano they said ran 10 miles every day even on Christmas. I imagine quite frankly people had tougher feet back then. Probably pretty calloused.

Meh, I think it’s BS. Also, a big difference between 10 and 14 miles per day if your know running, but I don’t believe it either in the case of Rocky. IMO there are probably a lot of myths about the training/toughness of the old-timers because there was no way to check whether it was true or not. Nobody ran 10 miles a day in Rocky’s time. 5-6 miles a day maybe, which is no small feat considering the wear and tear on your legs/knees/feet/hips, etc. … and Rocky was as dedicated in training as any of them in that era

[HomicideHenry]

The one I always questioned about Jeffries (and it's on his wiki page bio) is the common citation that "To train for the bout Jeffries' daily training included a 14-mile (23 km) run." In that era people ran in leather shoes that would cause blisters on even the most calloused feet. As someone who has run long distance for more than 40 years in modern gear, I am skeptical in that era that anyone ran 14 miles every day, particularly a heavyweight. He was supposedly a super athlete and my guess is he ran that distance on occasion, but "every day" is an exaggeration

I don't know Rocky Marciano they said ran 10 miles every day even on Christmas. I imagine quite frankly people had tougher feet back then. Probably pretty calloused.

Meh, I think it’s BS. Also, a big difference between 10 and 14 miles per day if your know running, but I don’t believe it either in the case of Rocky. IMO there are probably a lot of myths about the training/toughness of the old-timers because there was no way to check whether it was true or not. Nobody ran 10 miles a day in Rocky’s time. 5-6 miles a day maybe, which is no small feat considering the wear and tear on your legs/knees/feet/hips, etc. … and Rocky was as dedicated in training as any of them in that era

The way I understand it Rocky Marciano knew that he was so undersized that the only way that he could really overcome his physical limitations and lack of skills was to be the most conditioned boxer possible.

If he wasn't running 10 miles a day he certainly was walking up to 20 or 30 miles in a day because there was a lot of hills in around Brockton Massachusetts and going uphill worked his legs quite a lot.

If I recall right when Marciano first started out boxing he had read an article that claimed Joe Louis did 30 rounds of sparring per day or something to that effect and it left such an impression on Marciano that he said he would have to double whatever Joe Louis was doing.

So if that story is indeed true you have to figure if a regular boxer was doing four or six miles a day running then Marciano was doing 8 to 12 miles a day. The only people who would know for sure would have been his brothers, Charlie Goldman, and Lou Duva. I know Duva always insisted that Rocky Marciano was the most conditioned fighter he had ever known other than Evander Holyfield.

But I do know that this sport is one prone to exaggerations because I am reminded of stories told about Jim Jefferies, like him being on a hunting trip and killing a deer and throwing the deer over his shoulders and walking nine miles to camp without a stop. I'm not exactly sure I believe that one since I've tried to carry a dead deer before and it felt like the heaviest thing in the world but maybe he gutted it before carrying it.