The "reach" measurement is very deceptive. Much more reliable than wingspan measurements (which also vary from source to source), is the good old ....... naked eye. Johnson's reach, 74" or not, was excellent.
Johnson's,reach was shorter than 5' 7'' Tommy Burns,74 '' is ok ,nothing special .I'm 5 8 1/2 my reach is 71 1/2'' .For his weight Johnson's chest measurement was pretty poor 40'' I'm a fat 180lbs, when I was fit my chest was 41''.Marciano was similarly small in the chest.Guys like Baer were huge for their weight and now you have men with 47 '' chests,without fat on them,that is seriously big.Johnson looks so big in photos ,but as has been pointed out ,folks were generally smaller then ,so he appears a giant.I'm inclined to think the weight for Johnson's fight with Willard is incorrect ,though it is given in several books, his condition looks nothing like as good as for the Ketchel fight.
I´d like to see a montage of Johnson next to a Klitschko or Lewis, Ali, Liston and so on. Would help a bit.
Johnson montage would not look as good as the other names you mentioned. Johnson's best weight was about 205-210 pounds.
:huh I just like want to see a "photo" where those guys are listed next to each other. something like every hw champ in a line. Would give you a clue about the size differences.
A poster here tried that a few years ago. It's very hard to make a comparison. This was what he came up with, it looks nice, but it's very deceptive outside of height, which i think was the main goal: This content is protected
Johnson was big enough 205 lean pounds if a lot if you can fight. I dont go much on the listed heights and measurements of various heavyweights. Those aren't always correct. And the weights reported back in Johnson's time are suspect sometimes. Him and Burns are listed as 192 v. 168 but I believe both were bigger. Johnson is listed as 6', 6'1 1/4 and 6'2 is different books. And usually fighters look around the same size in the ring unless there's a massive height difference. Dempsey doesn't look much smaller than Firpo, for instance, but Firpo is 6'3 and 216, whereas some here say Dempsey was "small". and against a man like Willard 6'6" Dempsey DOES look small. Tyson looked small against some of the guys who were not even heavier than him - because of height difference. Same with Frazier, who almost matched Foreman for weight but was 4 inches shorter. And Billy Conn was outweighed by 30 pounds against Joe Louis but doesn't look MUCH smaller - because he was tall. Anyway, none of it really matters. Johnson did look the part when he was in shape though.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who made those fantasy posters, that can do a better job. I forgot who made it, perhaps the person still posts here. I like how Liston's feet aren't on it, asif he's standing in the fog, as metaphor for his enigma. Then again, it was probably done for some practicle reason.
Jack Johnson as he was would have been a good sized heavyweight in any heavyweight era before weight lifting became commonplace.
Notice the pec flab and gut against Willard ... quite different than against Burns and Ketchel ... http://cgi.ebay.com/452a-Photo-Jess...ptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116