Jack Johnson vs other great heavyweights

YOu are one hell of a tough marker! Beat every single champion or challenger available, until he was chased out of the US by authorities and even then still held the title for 7 years until losing it to the best challenger available, a modern sized superheavyweight, with youth on his side - in a 60 rounder! then went another 10 or so years again without losing a fight.

IN fact, as far as pure names goes, (leaving aside age), i think that Johnson definititely has the greatest resume of all time. Who has beat a list of fighters that includes fighters the caliber of the following:
Fitzsimmons (World Champ- ATG), Jeffries (World Champ -ATG), Burns (World Champ), Langford (World Coloured Champ), McVey (Coloured Champ), Jeanette (Coloured Champ), Martin (coloured Champ), Ketchell (ATG- World Middleweight Champ), GArnder (light heavy champ), Obrien (Recognised World champ/light heavy champ) and a string of top contenders who ended up being simply not in his class.

 

For what it's worth-
The consensus of boxing writers in the Ring Magazine in the early1940s,
including Nat Fleischer, called Jack Johnson, the best heavyweight up to that time...He was like a cat playing with a mouse...Never tried to extend
himself...
to think, I as a youngster,with my dad, shook hands with Jack Johnson
at Huberts Flea Circus, a year or two before he was killed in a car crash
driving to see the second Louis/Conn fight !!!

 

Johnson is the only champion who it took 26 rounds of fighting against a guy twice his size and half his age to beat. At his best he is equal to anyone. My revealing look at Johnson in color will demonstrate that:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndqOzDUUYsI[/ame]

youtube.com/eslubin

 

Seamus back on track with his miserable rants it seems.

 

You show me a heavyweight with a record as spotty as Johnson's who gets the same praise and I'll put it to rest.

 

Larry Holmes.

 

Jess Willard was 3 1/2 years younger. So I guess that means Johnson was 7 when they fought.

 

Was Holmes sparked cold by a lightheavy? Was he beaten by a Kentucky cruiser, who in turn was beaten by a pear-shaped Canadian middle? Did Holmes get outhustled to a draw by a pasty Irish lightheavy who couldn't break an egg with his punch? Did Holmes get kd'd by a middleweight? Did Holmes enjoy a robbery draw against a sparring partner type in which he was roundly booed? Is Holmes biggest claim to fame beating a bunch untrained toughman types with .500 records and then laying out on old champ who had no business in the ring? (Granted he did do that latter bit of business, but you get the point)...

 

Well, Holmes barely got by young novices with harldy over 10 fighs and old men, got beaten twice by a lhw and fought mostly a bunch untrained toughman types with .500 records and then laying out on old champ who had no business in the ring. So, yes they are very comparable. :good

 

A former lightheavyweight in Spinks did beat him the first time.

 

When he was how old?

I'm not trying to discredit the man. It's just his record doesn't precipitate the embarrassing fawning of modern critics so desperate to build a superman out of the past. Time gives us context. And when put into context, Johnson is revealed to be pivotal figure in the development of the sport, a fine practitioner in many aspects (defense, infighting, strength) but hardly the well-rounded, consistent beast he is made out to be. His record is spotty. His opponents largely did not resemble the modern, well schooled and groomed fighters who were to come in another decade or two. He helped extinguish to a large degree the era that preceded him and opened doors for the ones to come.

 

That´s the problem of your kind. You take fighters of another era and judge them by modern standards. That´s not the way it works. You have to judge a fighter by the standards of his own era not by the ones of another era.

 

I usually do until someone asks the question of Fighter A versus other great heavyweights, which presumably exist in other era's.

You need to read the questions at hand. That's the problem with your kind.

 

I'm looking forward to this.