Lennox Lewis Or Jim Jefferies, Who Should Be Remembered As The Greater HW?

[Southpaw16BF]

Well??????????????????

[Spartacus Sully]

Well??????????????????

Jim jeffries

[Sugarj]

This is a difficult one! Decent video footage of Jeffries is sparse, so assessing his true ability is hard. I think I'm right in saying that he only had a small number of fights for a professional at the time (about 20!!!!) and had his best victories over post prime Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzimmons who were much smaller than his 220LB frame (and older!).

His only loss came after a long layoff to a prime Jack Johnson from memory.

Contempory reports indicated that he was a ridiculously fit, strong and durable champion who was known for being a truely dedicated trainer.


But compare this to Lennox Lewis who had a truely decorated amateur career peaking with a super heavyweight gold medal, then following this with a 15 year pro career with 40-50 fights. This with only two losses both revenged by stoppage victory in what three spans as champion.

Come on............Lennox clearly takes this one!

[Spartacus Sully]

This is a difficult one! Decent video footage of Jeffries is sparse, so assessing his true ability is hard. I think I'm right in saying that he only had a small number of fights for a professional at the time (about 20!!!!) and had his best victories over post prime Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzimmons who were much smaller than his 220LB frame (and older!).

what about victories over peter jackson, tom sharkey, bob armstrong, gus ruhlin as well as a 20rd draw with Joe Choynski and Ruhlin as his 5th and 6th pro fight.quality over quantity and id say the opposition he faced and over came was much more then anything lewis had to deal with.

never knocked down (till his johnson fight) and never knocked out. id definitely put him above lewis.

[Sugarj]

Jackson, Choynski and Sharkey particularly are no doubt legends of the game but we have only contemporary accounts as to how skilled these guys were. No video footage of these fights exists that I'm aware of. Plus Choynski was only really a middleweight when they fought.

The fact that he was able to mix with world class boxers in only his 5th fight or so for me lays testiment to how weak the standard of his opposition was back then rather than how good he was. Perhaps I'm biased because I refuse to rate the pre film era (being primarily based on newspaper reports) but his resume doesn't stand up to Lennox's amateur or pro career in a written sense either. I know Pete Rademacher and Leon Spinks fought for the heavyweight title early in their pro careers too............but they had excellent amateur heritage, being gold medal winners. Jeffries didn't have an amateur career from memory. The fact is that there weren't many men who were as big, heavy or well conditioned back around the turn of the century. He won fights on these attributes, often the size and strengh differential prevailed rather than his skills. Hell, how many rounds did it take him to beat a much much smaller Jim Corbett the first time round?

Granted, he was terrifically fit and durable and certainly the best in the world for several years, but Lennox could be argued to be the most dominant heavyweight in the world for the best part of a decade during which he fought and defeated nearly as many men as Jeffries had pro fights.

[Spartacus Sully]

Jackson, Choynski and Sharkey particularly are no doubt legends of the game but we have only contemporary accounts as to how skilled these guys were. No video footage of these fights exists that I'm aware of. Plus Choynski was only really a middleweight when they fought.

The fact that he was able to mix with world class boxers in only his 5th fight or so for me lays testiment to how weak the standard of his opposition was back then rather than how good he was. Perhaps I'm biased because I refuse to rate the pre film era (being primarily based on newspaper reports) but his resume doesn't stand up to Lennox's amateur or pro career in a written sense either. I know Pete Rademacher and Leon Spinks fought for the heavyweight title early in their pro careers too............but they had excellent amateur heritage, being gold medal winners. Jeffries didn't have an amateur career from memory. The fact is that there weren't many men who were as big, heavy or well conditioned back around the turn of the century. He won fights on these attributes, often the size and strengh differential prevailed rather than his skills. Hell, how many rounds did it take him to beat a much much smaller Jim Corbett the first time round?

Granted, he was terrifically fit and durable and certainly the best in the world for several years, but Lennox could be argued to be the most dominant heavyweight in the world for the best part of a decade during which he fought and defeated nearly as many men as Jeffries had pro fights.

You may have won this round but the war is far from over and one day i will show the world the greatness that was jim jeffries!!!!!!!

[The_Demon]

Lennox Lewis

[Sugarj]

Hi Mr Shen, please dont think of me not as one of Jeffries fans. I certainly am, he had terrific attributes and set a conditioning example that would shame many heavyweight champions. He was so brave in defeat to Johnson too and a true sportsman with his comments afterwards.

He is a true idol of the sport, I just think that Lennox should, as the name of the thread suggests be remembered as a greater heavyweight. I'd place Lennox somewhere in my top ten, Jeffries probably top 20-25, which is still terrific.

[EzzardFan]

Weirdly I' have to guess Lewis on this one. Jeffries is too ponderous and didn't have that many fights. He also refused to fight all the top contenders of his time (the black ones).

[Southpaw Stinger]

Definatly Lewis.

Jeffries was a white man. And as a white man myself, I can say with full confidence that we are all ****.