Jack Johnson’s strength

He looked very strong for his time but it's hard to say.

Foreman might be a struggle though I would think Foreman would get the better of it but idk clinching isn't just about pre strength.

 

He was a performing strongman who trained regularly with catch wrestlers. He'd technically have a clinch and grappling edge over any boxer of the last 50 years.

Clinch fighting has become a lost art with boxers just waiting for the ref to break them free.

 

Wlad would like to enter the conversation.

 

I think that he would overperform for his body weight in any era, but beyond that I wouldn't like to say.

 

Marciano would probably be too much, nevermind Frazier, Foreman, and Liston

 

In terms of pure strength?

 

Why would he? Wlad's clinch was good from a tactical perspective - so he didn't get KTFOd - but from a technical perspective, it was incredibly basic. He liked his double underhooks, pulled his man in close and held him until the referee broke them. That's not a skilled clinch, it's just a strong one.

 

It was effective. Please don't start with Johnson's scientific, bicep pinching clinching. The guy was not some master of lost arts. He was a guy who liked to coast rounds, take his foot off the gas pedal, burn time against his more crude opponents.

 

You've literally just described Wlad.

I'm not denying it was effective, I'm denying that it was skilled. As for Johnson's 'scientific clinch', I couldn't care less - but a man who has trained wrestling should have a great, technical clinch, and Wlad clearly did not.

 

Effective equals good. Who was breaking prime Wlad's clinch? Who wasn't getting tired from his tactics? I'm not into figure skating. I'll leave the technical blow-your-hair-back moments to that endeavor.

 

Who did Wlad fight who was good at breaking the clinch? You can leave the technical work to me if you'd like, but the fact remains, Wlad didn't fight anyone who could/did use the techniques needed to break a basic, but strong clinch.

Someone like Usyk, who has the skill to strip away the clinch and deny the underhooks, would probably do better than anyone expects up close.

 

Don't know, man. Usyk was training in wresting, Judo and Sambo before he started boxing, and part of his success is that even the giants he fights can't muscle him around. There were a couple of times in the first fight where Fury tried and was just subtley thrown off and hit. Probably explains a lot about why he didn't try in the second and just stayed behind the jab.

 

He fought real sized men for one, not Tommy Burns or Stanley Ketchel or Jack O'Brien or Bob Fitzsimmons or a welterweight Sam Langford. Wlad had to contain guys like Pulev, Povetkin, Wach, Peter... underhooks or no. This is far beyond giving points on technique but recognizing results against far more dangerous foes.

 

Effective against people who don't have the technical ability to overcome the strength difference. I don't care about your modern vs past heavyweight debate, if you don't want to talk about technique - despite using Wlad as a counter to a post about technique, that's fine.