Interesting Jack Johnson article by Monte Cox

Maybe I missed something but where did he say that Johnson was lousy? Article was spot on in my opinion; can't believe thus stuff is still so controversial.

 

Johnson did phenomenal in his time you can't really ask anymore than that from him and you can never take that away from him. Whether he could've been as good today will forever be unanswered. Plenty of people can make strong arguments for and against him. One thing I do know is that he had the heart of a champion and would've done anything to make it to the top. No matter what era he might be in.

 

True....
Monte Cox's opinion about Johnson seems to have changed a lot ..... See this older article:

http://coxscorner.tripod.com/johnson.html

 

It comes down to this.

Even if we accept that there have been changes in boxing technique since Johnson’s time, which would render his style ineffective today, it still would not reduce his historical standing one iota.

Fighters are not graded based on how they would have done in other eras.

Furthermore since you could never actually prove it, you would be trading the assumption of what would happen if he fought today, against the historical certainty of what he did in his own time.

On the subject of the available film footage, people try to infer far too much about Johnson and his opposition based on it.

He had over a hundred known fights, against every size shape and style of opponent imaginable, and we only have a handful of filmed fights.

Who is to say what his opponents did or didn’t throw at him, or what he was or wasn’t able to deal with?

 

How could you have your ego tied up in a fighter,and one who died 70 years ago to boot?:huh Outside of Adam Pollack who has written two wonderful volumes of biography on Johnson ,how would one have a financial incentive to boost Johnson?:huh

 

The best Johnson footage available is Johnson-Willard in 60FPS HD. Even then, you can't even see the KO punch landed on Johnson.

Compare this to a 20 second super slow mo of a Klitschko straight right. This difference does tremendous things to peoples perception when viewing footage. If you can't take that into account while watching old film, your perception will be distorted.

Almost every fighter will look silly and outdated if filmed with a 1910 camera.

 

Id like to see these two monte coxs fight it out because they are clearly two people. Lol. Its almost comical how passages of his later article are almost mirror image refutations of his earlier article. Its as if he suddenly stumbled upon a cache of johnson films that had never been seen and decided he sucked. I mean what exactly in our knowledge of Johnson has changed so dramatically in the last few yrs to warrant such a flip flop, and if you are that unfamiliar with the subject in the first place why write about it... Kinda does a disservice to the subject.

 

As one can imagine, Adam J. Pollack wasn't convinced either. Cox says that watching film and reading Fleischer convinced him that Johnson would be ill-prepared for a more nuanced aggressor. And that seems to be the crux of his position. I'm not a Johnson expert by any means, but a near consensus seems to be that he was an expert defender. If, as seems to be the case, this was an innate ability, I struggle to see how he couldn't adjust. I'm not sure the Roy Jones Jr. comparison is spot on, either.

 

It's not just Johnson; it's the entire narrative of the inherent superiority of the old timers. This board is more than sufficient proof for the phenomenon. Just this week, there were some contending that Tommy Gibbons, who had really no significant wins at heavyweight, would give George Foreman, likely the strongest and most powerful heavyweight champion, a run for his money. What does this sort of contention imply? If suddenly the world acknowledges that the Tommy Burns of yesteryear wouldn't have stood a chance against even the Tony Tuckers (or James Broads?) of modern times, all that research and reading might suddenly seem less significant.

Let it be noted that as a fan of the arcane, I think all research is valuable.

Adam's books are marvelous. I paid top dollar for almost the entire collection.. and will probably buy them all before this year is out. Steve also has an excellent book. Moyle has two of them. And I find all the above to be invaluable contributors to our little discussion, way over the regular level of interaction. And while I doubt any have made their fortune on their boxing works, that comment was pointed to the aspiring writer/researcher who thinks there might be a mint in this type of endeavor. If the narrative is deflated a bit, so is the worth, at least in some minds.

 

Fleischer had nothing but the highest of praise for Johnson rating him the "brainiest" of all hwt champions with the best defense and best at feinting. The only criticism Fleischer had of Johnson was he did not have the ko wallop of a Jeffries or Dempsey.

 

Precisely!

A fighter should be judged on what he did in his OWN time. If you are the best of your era... how can we ask for more than that?

But if that is your position, why are you so adamant in your attempt to "prove", that the oldtimers were superior to today's boxers? And I don't mean just you... lots of other serious historians come on here with the strangest old vs new predictions. Some are so absurd, that I sometimes wonder, if people actually are serious - or if they are simply trolling!

I love reading about the oldtimers, and have done so for more than 50 years... and I've always found it strange, why we can't just honour them for what they accomplished in their own time, and for paving the way for the next generations. Why isn't that enough?

 

Excellent point.

 

:deal
Tey do so because they enjoy feeling like there is something unique and magical about boxing, compared to virtually every other athletic endeavor known to man. The idea that the ancient greats had superior skills and manliness, no matter what our senses tell us when we watch their fights and consider their physical attributes, introduces an element of faith and fairy tale to boxing fanhood, sort of like a religion.

 

I absolutely agree with this.

 

I saw two posters quote this and focus on the first part

But I bolded something that I really agree with. We cant pretend to know all of his fighters fought like those classic bareknucklers posing and waiting to strike throwing ones and twos

Im sure on his way up he had plenty of guys come after him