BoxRec

With boxing fans bemoaning the state of the heavyweight division, it's worth remembering that things weren't much better a hundred years ago.

James J. Jeffries relinquished the heavyweight crown when he retired in 1905. Later that year, Marvin Hart beat Jack Root for the vacant throne. Hart, in turn, lost to the lightly-regarded 5-foot-7 Tommy Burns. As 1908 began, Burns was heavyweight champion of the world.

Jeffries was a great fighter. He'd been undefeated when he gave up his title and suffered the only loss of his career in an ill-advised comeback fight against Jack Johnson in 1910. He's largely forgotten today, except as an appendage to Papa Jack, and that's a shame.

In the spirit of remembrance, here is a trio of insights from Jeffries:

On the family life of a professional fighter:" Marriage and boxing don't go together."

Explaining why he was retiring in 1905: "I've got all the money I want. There's nobody to fight me. To hell with this business and the championship too. What's the championship? A lot of yaps run after me to pound me on the back. They don't give a damn about me. I'm nobody; they're yelling for the champ. Well, I'm sick of it."

More....

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing ... id=3177464

Well as a kid in the 1980s I was always reading accounts of how bad the HW division was... How the fighters should be ashamed of themselves (and so some of them should have been, seeings as many of them were fat boys). i read endlessly about the great era of the 1970s... Then my uncle gives me a load of old boxing mags and I read about how the 1970s HWs are so bad that an old man (Ali: fighters tended to finish earlier in those days) was champion of the world.

When I came to boxrec many were moaning about today's HWs and saying how the 80s guys really weren't that bad...

I've got this superstition that's absolute nonsense but it helps me sleep at night... 70's good; 80's poor; 90's good; 00's poor; 10's GOOD!

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:With boxing fans bemoaning the state of the heavyweight division, it's worth remembering that things weren't much better a hundred years ago.

James J. Jeffries relinquished the heavyweight crown when he retired in 1905. Later that year, Marvin Hart beat Jack Root for the vacant throne. Hart, in turn, lost to the lightly-regarded 5-foot-7 Tommy Burns. As 1908 began, Burns was heavyweight champion of the world.

Jeffries was a great fighter. He'd been undefeated when he gave up his title and suffered the only loss of his career in an ill-advised comeback fight against Jack Johnson in 1910. He's largely forgotten today, except as an appendage to Papa Jack, and that's a shame.

In the spirit of remembrance, here is a trio of insights from Jeffries:

On the family life of a professional fighter:" Marriage and boxing don't go together."

Explaining why he was retiring in 1905: "I've got all the money I want. There's nobody to fight me. To hell with this business and the championship too. What's the championship? A lot of yaps run after me to pound me on the back. They don't give a damn about me. I'm nobody; they're yelling for the champ. Well, I'm sick of it."

More....

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing ... id=3177464

Technically, Hauser's correct. On January 3, 1908 - 100 years before Hauser wrote the article you quote - heavyweight boxing was in the dole-drums. You had a heavyweight champion who wasn't very popular in the midst of his version of a "Bum-of-the-Month Club" world tour.

But just a few years before, boxing was in the midst of what some historians have called the "Golden Age" of heavyweight boxing, when men like Jeffries, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Sharkey, et al. were in their primes and/or height of popularity and plying their trades. Two years later, one of the biggest fights in history took place (Jeffries-Johnson), and just 11 years later Dempsey inaugurated the era of the Million Dollar Gate.

I hope his point is that "things will get better. Boxing has been through the dole-drums before." Otherwise, his historical reference to 100 years ago makes no sense.

None of these guys were FAT HW's!

Wow! Would love a copy of that book. The cover itself looks great...

...and the price reasonable

The HW division was pretty lackluster after Rocky Marciano retired. Patterson, Ingemar Johansson, Eddie Machen, Cleveland Williams, Zora Folley. Not much until Sonny Liston and Ali.

Like all divisions, heavyweight has had high spells and low spells.

Right now we're in a low spell. A very, very loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww spell.