A heavyweight boxer also known as the "boilermaker" who fought consistently from 1895 until 1904 beating such legends as Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Corbett, Peter
Jackson and Tom Sharkey and retired undefeated. He was like many at the
time, a staunch racist, and when the legendary
black champion Jack
Johnson won the heavyweight title, he foolishly agreed to "put that
N*gger in his place" despite the fact that at this point he was morbidly obese and retired over 6 years. After extensive training in fitness and sparring (and many more insults to
Johnson), the bout was deemed the fight of the century, and the vast majority of white people bet on Jeffries despite the major fore-mentioned disadvantages. As expected, Jeffries lost in humiliating fashion while Johnson grinned and toyed with him for 15 rounds before knocking him out. Many white people were so butthurt they began killing random black people and even each other. Jeffries undefeated record was now destroyed, but he took the loss with humility and admitted he couldn't land a hit on Johnson and lost fair and
square. He stayed retired afterwards, and remained a public figure until his
death in 1953.
