Wlad Klitschko vs Jack Johnson

His stamina is much better, but his control of pace is excellent. He's a guy who got to KO happy as a youngster blowing guys out with power and volume. Purrity was a tough nut and outlasted him, sending him on a spiral and making him reassess his approach. That "reassessment" took a lot of time, some missteps, and finally Manny to save him. The result is what we have today, for better or worse, an immaculately effective, safety first guy who uses a great jab and only unleashes his wicked power once his opponent is softened up.

 

Wlad would win, but if he was born in the 1880s, grew up in a family of 10 and not benefitting from 3 square meals, didn't have sports nutrition, didn't have Emanuel Steward, didn't have steroids/supplements. He would have been a lesser boxer, be shorter, weaker and not technically as good. You can only be the best in your own time

 

Come on man, you can't talk about Johnson and Jeffries fighting at a slow pace and simultaneously try and boost Wlad. As we all know Wlad has a superb workrate right?

 

No but McVea or Willard might have done.

 

Some contemporary sources suggest thaqt Johnson participated in a fight with Hank Griffin that lasted 65 rounds.

If this is the case then I think we have to give him a big edge over Wlad in stamina.

 

No but,
Klondike
Langford
McVey
Childs
Martin
Battling Johnson
Butler.
May have punched harder than Purrity.

 

Do you think Ketchell and Choynski punched harder than Purity?

 

I think Choynski probably did.
Jeffries Fitz,Corbett ,and Johnson said he was the hardest puncher they met, thats a pretty good set of endorsements.

 

Given that Wlad has fought very adept defensive heavyweights (Byrd, Chambers, Brock to a degree) and that they won a grand total of zero rounds against him, I don't see Johnson troubling him much at all. On the other hand, Johnson never beat a skilled heavyweight with Wlad's power and size. Under the ruleset of 12 or 15 rounds, 8 oz gloves that is. It's a bit weird comparing them head-to-head, since they basically participated in different sports.

 

Denver Ed Martin, McVey and Jeffries were a lot closer to Wlad's size than Byrd, Chambers and Brock were to Johnson's defensive skill level.

 

You can't throw a fighter from 100 years ago and expect him to win if he doesn't have a significant style advantage, or at least attribute advantage. And considering this is a 12 round fight Johnson has little to no real chance unless he lands and is able to hurt Wlad, and then has the fire to go for the kill. Two big IFS, even if Johnson could seriously dent Wlad. After that, Wlad has no real way of losing by jabbing at Johnson with his steel-hammer jab from afar.

 

Johnson had great defense against the cro-mags of his day. They had no such thing as an amateur program, full time coaching, were veterans of battle royales and smokers. Sure, they were tough. But the film does not lie, they look pretty bad skillwise in regards to modern boxers under modern rules. Johnson finds these crude swingers easy to defend against (tho a number of these still beat him)... that doesn't mean he would be a defensive genius today.