Jack Johnson ....

Do you mean how he would of done in today's division? Very well I assume given the fact he's one of the best counter punchers of all time in the heavyweight division and a superb fighter.

 

I'm gaining more and more of an appreciation of how tough and vicious those old timers were. Was recently reading a bit of an article from Fritzie Zivic, ("You gotta fight dirty!")...Zivic's manager stated that Johnson was the best he had seen...from the beating him put on Moran in Paris. Extremely skillful at picking off blows, firing short punches down and uppercuts with a slashing effect, squeezing Moran's arms and biceps in clinches...all the while taunting him into coming straight at him again and again...Sounds like one heckuva fighter! Zivic contended that the greatest fighters of all time were Jack Dempsey, Harry Greb, and Jack Johnson.

 

There is no doubt that Jack Johnson is a great fighter, but i find it hard to determine where to rate him among other champions for 3 reasons:


1. Boxing was a completely different sport when Johnson competed compared to the 1930's up to today. Back then it was a mix of boxing, wrestling and marathon running (which is how and why he lost the title eventually) ... plus they came from ages of bareknuckle boxing tradition in which combinations were much less used, little jabbing or staying on the outside (which is where the wrestling comes in) and the small gloves made glove blocking and a high guard not viable to deploy. For these reasons, i think many fighters, even less great ones would beat him under modern rules, and vice versa, they would drown under his ruleset.


2. He had a significant size advantage over almost all his opponents. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but mostly it's true. How would Lennox Lewis look if he spent 90% of his career fighting the Hopkins', Michalczewski's, Mayfields, etc?


3. His work before winning the world heavyweight championship is impressive, but his reign is **** poor... and that's putting it nicely. He blatantly avoided or didn't fight the four best challengers out there, in Langford, Jeannette, Mcvey and Smith. You might say that he already beat them, but they were very inexperienced and young when he did. The fact that they were black doesn't matter either: he had no problem fighting Jim Johnson, a black journeyman. Not fighting the four best opponents out there during such a long reign to me is disgraceful and he should've been stripped of the title because someone avoiding the best fighters in the world to such a blatant degree is not championship worthy. How many other champions in history have avoided the four best challengers over such an extended period? The one that comes closest probably is Dempsey (Wills for 6+ years), but that's just one challenger that missed his shot; not four.

 

What does that accomplish?

 

Hey Russell. I'm not a big expert on this by any means, but some of the things it would do...
In a clinch, if someone were to lock your arms up and squeeze hard to the biceps or triceps it would be very uncomfortable to say the least. he would wear the arms out by pulling on them as well. These tactics hurt and they fatigue the arms of an opponent. Marciano was pretty good at pulling arms in the clinch...Saddler problably dislocated Pep's shoulder in the forth fight that way. Johnson problably employed some of the tactics of the old time grapplers by also squeezing the flanks of opponents with his strong hands through those small gloves. This is extremely painful...there are alot of nerves down there by the 'love handles'...Hurts like hell.
Tactics like this would wear an opponent's arms out bringing down defenses, and limiting his offensive capabilities after a while...and it would serve as a deterent to Johnson's opponent to come inside, and would keep him on the outside where Johnson would have operated the best.

 

He is a verry devisive fighter who stirs up a lot of debate here today. Something which I am sure would not displease him.

We have respected posters who consider him the greatest heavyweight of all time head to head 90 years on.

We have others who consider him to be the most over rated of the all time greats and question how he would fare today.

 

Another favourite trick of Johnsons was to throw a punch over the top of his oponents punch to strike the bicep.

After he had done this a couple of times they would not feel so enthusiastic about throwing punches.

 

This is rubish.

Johnson fought a lot of men bigger than himself.

Perhaps more world class fighters over 200 lbs than any champion prior to the 70s.

 

Please indulge Pontius. How many did he fight, who were they and how good were they when he fought them?

 

Johnson fought a whole heap of fighters of every size and style from super midleweight to super heavyweight. Before I count the notable fighters over 200 lbs that Johnson fought I will say a bit on some of his key career fights. Specificaly the ones that led to demands for Jeffries to face him.

Denver Ed Martin
When Johnson fought for the coloured heavyweight title against Dener Ed Martin it was one of the most important fights of his career, meaning more than a fight for the WBC title today. Some sections of the press were calling for Jim Jeffries to give Denver Ed Marin a shot at the oficial title.

Johnson gave up 20 lbs and 7" reach to martin who was a rangy mobile defensive fighter and on paper a bad style match for Johnson.

The first fight was a chess match wiith Johnson getting the better of it and knocking Martin down four times in the 11th round to win the decision. The fight was criticised in the press for being boring so in the rematch Johnson fought agresivley knocking Martin out in the second round.

Sam McVea
Many people point to McVeas inexperience when this fight is brought up and he was certainly not at his peak. The press however were hailing McVea alongside Johnson as the two outstanding challengers to Jeffries title. This should give you some idea of the importance of this fight. McVea had at least two fights not recorded on boxrec prior to the fight listed as his pro debut and one of them was in Australia suggesting that he had a number of fights before this. McVea at this stage could be considered equal in relative terms to the version of tim Witherspoon that Larry Holmes beat.

McVea was only 5' 1'' but he weighed 212lbs in lean condition and had a 78" reach.

Johnson dominated McVea in not once but three times!

Sandy Ferguson
Ferguson was the Oleg Maskaev of his era. He was talented, and was hailed as the heir aparent to Jeffries throne early on. Ferguson had serious debts and was forced to take multiple fights with the black dynamite crew wihich damaged his standing not only because he lost many of them but also because he was shunned for his willingness to fight black contenders.

While Ferguson came off worst against the black dynamite crew he ocasionaly beat them except Johnson who dominated him five times. This would be like Jeff Lacey taking five fights against Joe Calzaghe if he did no better on the fifth atempt than the first.

Ferguson was 6' 3'' and 230 lbs. About the same size as Hasim Ramhan.

 

Chris Pontious makes some very good points regarding Johnson and the boxing style(s) employed at the time. In all the videos I've seen of Johnson which were during his championship reign, the jab is almost nonexistent both from him and his opponents. Combination punching was pretty rare also. I've always wondered if Johnson would be able to cope with a big HW who employed more modern boxing tactics like Ali or Holmes, men who threw hard fast jabs and quick combinations and were big and fast as well. Johnson's wins over Burns and Ketchel aren't impressive since both were middleweights. Jeffries was way over the hill and Moran fought like and old lady. It's too bad that there aren't any films of Johnson's earlier fights against real HW's like Ed Martin et al. That would be a better indicator of how Johnson would fare against a big modern HW, assuming of course that those men weren't stiffs either and could actually box also. I'm not being sarcastic but it is difficult to rate many of these old time HW's in the overall scope of things due to to lack of reliable footage from that time period. Based on the footage we do have of Johnson I would say that he would have to adopt a more modern style of fighting to contend with an Ali or Holmes or Holyfield or Klitschko or Lewis, big men who can box. His bare knuckle influenced style of fighting wouldn't cut it against these men who are light years removed from Burns, Ketchel, Moran or Jeffries either in size or technique. If Johnson could adopt a more modern style of fighting then I think he would do very well given his natural ability, strength and reflexes. He was a physical marvel. But if he doesn't then he stands little chance in my opinion.

 

I have a very high oppinion of him and he´s one of my favourite hws. I think you have to look at every fighter in relation to the time they lived in - that´s why i don´t knock Jeffries for not fighting black contenders as an example. He´s the number 6 on my list.