Barbados Joe Walcott punching power

A couple of very good articles about him here which talk about his prowess as a puncher. Also while a lot of old timers look like stick men Joe was ripped!

I think considering he was only 5ft 2" and weighed around 140 pounds while fighting bigger men he was almost certainly P4P a very hard puncher, probably equivalent to Jimmy Wilde. The fact bigger men feared him probably tells you all you need to know. Both Fitz and Shavers were heavier so I doubt he punched as hard as either but for his size he packed a wallop!

https://coxscorner.tripod.com/walcott.html

https://www.thefightcity.com/the-barbados-demon/

 

Probably as hard a puncher as has ever existed at that weight.

 

Jack Johnson and Sam Langford both named him as one of the hardest punchers they ever faced.

These men fought a lot of heavyweights, and not small heavyweights either.

 

Wait did not everyone in that era fight overwhelmingly what we consider small HWs?
With a few exceptions, but the best were not usually the best-like Tate, who was small only in bulk/muscle compared to modern men.

 

As others state, I cannot imagine anyone at WW or below-let alone not even day before weigh in/rehydrated-hit as hard as any of the hardest punching HWs.

Even Fitz in all likelihood did not hit as hard as Shavers.
Shavers MAY have hit at least as hard as anyone-or may not-since there are documentably diminishing returns after a certain size.

 

Which HW did Wilde KO?

 

No in a word.

Johnson and Langford were fighting big heavyweights, compared to anybody before the chemical era.

They were getting smacked by big hard punching men.

There is no Rocky Marciano question with either of them.

 

But the question was did they not overwhelmingly fight "what we consider" small HWs.
The answer as far as I can tell is yes.
Although many of them were not enhanced by PEDs.

Let us take what was considered a big HW before 'roids & HGH were at all common.
Not even very big: Ali, Foreman, Norton, Lyle...@ 6'3" & 220 lbs. LEAN.
Ali never even lifted weights, Lyle was famous for endless pushups in prison...
If we check again the size of those they fought-& discount blubbery guys-will not they overwhelmingly, in fact almost entirely, have fought men smaller than these guys?

 

@Greg Price99
I should say I got into Barbados Joe Walcott through Greg's informative posts, he has posted a few times on Walcott and gives a clear idea of why Joe was special and his power.

 

I appreciate the shout out Blofeld, though it would be remiss of me to not mention that there are multiple posters on here here more knowledge on BJW than I.

As for the question, in a literal sense, no, I can't see the 5ft 1ins 135-147lbs BJW's power being comparable with Shavers or even Fitz. In a p4p sense, though, people more knowledgeable than me have argued him as a contender for the hardest puncher in history.

He begun as LW and grew into a small WW, yet he KO'd former Commonwealth HW champion Dan Creedon in 1 round and dropped the 16lbs heavier HW contender Joe Choyinski 5 times on the way to stopping him in 7 rounds. Almost exactly a year to the day later, Choyinski KO'd a green Jack Johnson inside of 3 rounds.

A 5ft 1ins LW/WW KO'ing much bigger fighters who had success at HW suggests he hit pretty damn hard relative to his size.

 

Thanks for the excellent post and I will keep researching Joe on this forum!

Sounds like Joe was a handful for anyone, even if he didn't hit as hard it must have been disconcerting as a heavyweight to have a 5ft 1" ball of fury slugging at you!