Jack Johnson .Vs. John L. Sullivan

I am going to say that the four basic styles of boxer, have always been the same, even if variables like stance and guard have changed.

 

I think at some point, though, you're talking about "swarmers" / "boxers" / "punchers" in a different striking art, and it becomes a very loose analogy.

For example, are we considering Mendoza to be on the spectrum of these styles?

 

I provisionally confine my observation to gloved boxing.

I am not sure how practical it would be to be a swarmer, in an LPR fight for example.

Once it comes down to three minute rounds, and anything from four to forty five of them, the four basic styles start to assert themselves.

 

How do you view someone like Joe Gans? Do you also think that he's too different from modern style to consider him a boxer puncher?

 

I would describe him as such.

 

Or would it be unfair to call battling Nelson a swarmer?

 

He's more similar to modern boxing than Johnson is. It's a spectrum, but somebody like Johnson is way on the "early" end of that spectrum, IMO.

Gans / McGovern still doesn't look like a modern fight.

 

No,I don't think so.

 

Counter argument to that is the fact that Johnson haf very unique, self made style that wasn't representative for boxers of his era.

That's probably because it was a fix

 

It was typical of boxers of that era -- from what I can tell -- to assemble oddball styles with some combination of the generic style of Sullivan's time mixed with stuff they picked up on the road. None of the heavyweights of Johnson's cohort or earlier looks normal.

EDIT: Put another way, the *problem* I see with Jack-Jitsu comes from the fact that unlike modern boxing, which is time tested, Johnson's style is a Frankenstein's monster assembled by a single very smart man from stuff he picked up near the dawn of boxing.

I only vaguely remember knowing that at one time. Anyway. Feel free to pick whatever fight you consider most representative of his style, then.

 

Without weighing in too heavily, there is certainly credible evidence.

You would do better to watch one of Gans's longer fights.

 

Dempsey didn't go by any rules. Jack Sharkey brings to mine. JJ would play with the Great J.L.Sullivan.

 

Sullivan

 

Johnson