Ultimate tough guy

When Jim Jeffries won the heavyweight title in 1899, boxers were the most celebrated athletes in America. Icons John L. Sullivan and Gentleman Jim Corbett had preceded him, but Jeffries seemed to be of a different breed--big, strong, and almost freakishly athletic, with the ruggedness of the grizzly bears he hunted on his trips into the wilderness. Big Jim was a brand new kind of American hero, and the heavyweight era he dominated was loaded with a group of great fighters that most boxing historians rank as being unmatched until the "Golden Era" of Ali-Frazier-Foreman in the 1970's. Tearing…