Did Gunboat Smith deserve a title shot?

In the real world there were a few month he would have deserved a shot. Perhaps he deserved it more than some of the guys Johnson fought but not more than Langford, Jeanette and McVey.

 

GROUND HOG DAY RETURNS!
Lets look at some of these opponents.
Smith fought Levinsky ONCE in that time scale and LOST.
Smith did NOT fight Weinert in that period.
Smith fought a 10 fight Weinert in 1915, and some say he won ,the NY Times said he lost,they fought twice more ,and Weinert won both of them.

Blackburn [not Blackbrun] was a lightweight.
That's three out of the way.
Pelkey ,who wasn't very good to start with, was emotionally distraught after his tragic previous fight with McCarty, he was only fighting because he was bankrupt from legal fees , incurred whilst trying to stay out of jail for manslaughter.

Pelkey had a further 25 fights winning 5 and was kod in 13 of them ,no big deal stopping him.
That's another dealt with.

Johnson could not KO Ross? He didn't try reports say he won every round and allowed Ross to stay the distance.I wont bother to put them up ,unless you persist in this.


Johnson Victorious

World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson faces an Italian-American boxer named Antonio Rossiliano, or "Tony Ross," in Pittsburgh. Although Johnson knocks Ross down in the first round, breaking the fighter's nose in the process, he allows the bout to continue for a full six rounds in order to give patrons an exciting show. Ross deliberately falls to the mat in the last round in order to avoid a punch, sealing yet another victory for Johnson.



Johnson kod Flynn way back in 1907 when Flynn was 28, and beat the snot out of him in their second fight, before the law jumped into the ring and stopped it, declaring it had become a slaughter.
Smith stopped a 35 years old Flynn.Big difference.

Moran, whom you repeatedly state was very moderate ,had not beaten anyone of note when he faced Smith ,but a respectable win.

Likewise Willard .a decent win over a Willard who had not beaten a contender at that stage.

The Morris win was via dsq ,hardly conclusive.

What are we to make of the Langford fight? There are widely differing interpretations of it,some suggest Sam was robbed ,others that he had the cuffs on, surely their subsequent bout ,11months later,[ a 3rd ko win for Langford ],indicates it was not entirely kosher.

Box rec's take on the Langford fight.

Smith relied almost totally on a stiff left jab, but Langford seemed unfazed by it and bided his time, working to the body. Late in the fight he began a serious assault and had Smith bleeding freely. When referee Fleming raised Smith's arm in victory, many ringsiders were surprised. (This "mixed bout" had previously been banned by the state of New York.)





To sum up, Smith had a purple patch from 27th dec 1912 until his bubble was burst by lightheavyweight Carpentier on the 16th of July 1914.
In 1912 Smith lost 3 fights two of them to non entities the other to trial horse Porky Flynn, he also drew with middleweight Jack Sullivan, he was not a contender that year ,his only notable win came on the 27th of December, the very tail end of the year. I am not going into the 4rds sparring match yet again as it has been comprehensively addressed several times, and no one agreed with you.
NEXT!

 

A few things here.

1) reports suggest langford beat smith in reality since smith had very little punch variety barring an ineffective jab that langford continually slipped to get inside and work the body.

2) smith was arguably the best "white" heavyweight and considering the era that's tantamount to being a title holder today so a unification made sense.

3) the coloured champ was langford and the next two ranked coloured fighters were mcvey and jeanette both of whom were more deserving than smith.

I conclude that these 4 would have been the ideal fights for johnson after he battered jeffries. In today's world it's equivalent to unifying and beating your leading contenders.

 

Sure, as did many others during the early 1910's era. I'm not going to say that Johnson fighting Gunboat Smith would have been a match of monumental proportions for reasons already given by mcvey.

Decent fighter who walked on the thin line of being either a contender or just a pretender. Had a fair run where everything came to place for him, including some generous decision wins, but it all quickly fell apart for him by 1914. The same reason why we only give Marciano minor criticism for not facing Valdes, not actually lowering his standing for it.

 

In terms of legacy johnson had sealed his place by beating jeffries. All meaningful heavyweights had been defeated by him at that point.

Let's say johnson did spend the next 5 years of his reign defeating langford, jeanette, mcvey and smith. We have 3 guys he'd already thrashed and 1 never was. I genuinely believe his legacy wouldn't improve a great deal. I have him at number 3. Them 4 victories don't put him above ali nor louis for me.

 

It seems Smith was not in any hurry to challenge Johnson,whilst in London ,Smith was interviewed regarding his chances with the champion . Smith did not respond when the question was asked the first two times ,but at the third persistent inquiry he snapped,"Oh Johnson will wait,and the longer he waits the better".

It would appear that Mendoza's transparent attempt to further blacken Jack Johnson's name has met with disaster yet again.

 

You're right and it's similar to the mcvey situation in that 2 of his best challengers weren't overly challenging him but still it would be ideal for him to have cleaned out the top 5 again.

 

Yes, no doubt Langford had improved since 1906, but so had Johnson. Johnson faced Jeannette so many times, he owned him and, should have put him on his mantle piece.
McVey was clearly outclassed in their three fights and though he was young he was a contender and its telling that in their last one he was beaten senseless.
Smith had a narrow window in which he would have been a respectable challenger for Johnson ,but he was never the standout challenger,simply the most favourably complexioned one.I don't know who else you refer to[5]?

 

It was himself:

Johnson
Langford
Jeanette
Mcvey
Smith

To have beaten all whilst champ would have been a nice way to finish his career but nothing more imo.

As I say, he's number 3 on my list so to move higher he'd have probably needed to beat the next string of contenders in willard, fulton, dempsey and wills (being the daddy from 05 to 18 would eclipse all other champs imo)

I'm not really a fan of johnson, nor anyone not named frank, i'm just a person with a quest of understand the individuals.

My understanding of jack is he was the best on the planet from 05 to 10 completely clearing out the best of the era. He has one of the greatest resume's in history and after watching all the footage I could find i'm convinced with a higher workrate he's a top ten h2h fighter.

His biggest 3 criticism's are he didn't defend against a man he'd already trounced. For me that says it all really.

 

I do think Johnson extended his reign for five years without actually fighting the top men. When I was younger I was impressed with his longevity. Now, I am not so sure. His last really impressive win was in 1910. Flynn and Moran were so-so contenders.

It is sort of like Marciano defending against second-tier men once in 1957 and once in 1959 before retiring in 1960 and thus having an eight year reign. But nothing after Moore would really mean anything.

I suppose one could argue the difference is Johnson had victories over these contenders before they were contenders. Still, his resume would be much more impressive if he had beaten Langford, Jeannette, McVea, and Smith after 1911.

 

Stupid of me.

 

Completely agree.

 

Flynn was a so so contender no doubt but ,he had won his last 11 fights,so not disgraceful.Johnson defended his title 9 times, including his defeat to Willard, was Flynn worse than Jack Munroe 8-3-2 or Jack Finnegan who had won 4 of his 11 fights?

 

:nono

Play fair mcvey.