Julian Jackson.....

...

 

I hear he hit pretty hard.

 

Jackson was really a pretty competent fighter. As I've said in the past, some of his punching technique is really textbook stuff for a power puncher. Usually fairly well balanced, he turned his body with his big punches or stepped in with them to add leverage and weight to the blows, and in some fights he shows very good fundamentals in areas like punching in combination, attacking the body, even using a jab better than you would expect for a big bomber. He was also pretty ****ing relentless if he thought he had an opponent in trouble, although sometimes he could also get overeager and start to be wild instead of sticking with the somewhat methodical approach he adopted after he was too eager and too wild against McCallum in Jackson's first title fight.

His biggest weaknesses to my mind are his vulnerability to speed, (he usually had his feet planted and looking for the big shot, which makes you always a step behind with someone who moves around the ring) a rather average chin combined with an open defense, he wasn't very good at adapting, and of course, the damage he suffered to his eyes. Jackson suffered a detached retina sometime before 1990, and his famous fight with Graham had to be held outside England because the English boxing board didn't want to license Jackson to fight. By the end of his career he had detached retinas in both eyes, according to what I've heard at least, so he really was reliant purely on bombing his opponents out.

One does wonder what might have been if his eyes hadn't been damaged, or if he had been better managed. I was too young to keep up much with the sport back in Jackson's prime, (much less the politics of it) but I kind of feel like the promoters weren't really sure what to do with him, and were content to keep him as an undercard spectacle against overmatched opponents.

Below are some fights that I think do I good job of showing both Jackson's strengths and weaknesses, even during the better stages of his career.

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He had such remarkable torque on his punches. If you reaslly think about it, the list of fighters that can actually end a fight at any time with one punch on a routine basis is very small. He was one of those few. Like so many other huge punchers though, he tended to neglect his boxing skills because he KNEW it would only take one shot.

 

I'll tell you something he had a pretty good left hook :-o

 

Yeah, and I don't think I've ever seen anybody so consistently have such a chilling effect on his opponents as Jackson. I'm not just talking about knocking guys out cold, but also so many guys who just got totally disconnected from their bodies, flailing around the ring with limbs going in random directions like they just got a bad electric shock or something.

Or the way their whole body would freeze-up as if some emergency off switch had been thrown. Not to mention the tremendous thuds of Jackson's punches landing... it's really pretty amazing and unique. Part of why I think Jackson deserves the large support he gets for the title of hardest p4p puncher.

 

Yeah, big punchers like that have that odd effect of making it seem their opponent is drowning when you look at their facial expression. Shock, discombobulated panic, then dead calm.

 

I remember McCallum saying that Jackson was lightning fast in that he had no tells and delivered his punches before you knew they were coming. That's why, he said, he had to try and get Jackson out of there so soon, cuz he knew he would be gone himself.

 

I used to watch Jackson on Don King's minor PPV network when Jackson was on the way up.

The "Colonel" used to call the fights.

The fight would go 3-4 rds....then Jackson would "pole-axe" the other guy.

 

Sharp as a sword, the impact of a hammer.

 

Could ko all but the highest echelons granite chins. With a chin he would have been almost unbeatable.

 

the period JJ fought in was a remarkable era for punchers in the 160lbs range. Its mind boggling to consider that JJ and Mclellan with their proclivity for one punch knockouts with the foe actually unconscious before he hit the canvas could make other notable punchers of the time like Mugabi,Benn and McCallum seem a full level below! Mind boggling.

 

Good analysis, although I'd add that at times he could disregard his defense in looking for the KO punch, partly because like you say he was looking for that 1 bomb with his feet planted

 

Is that true about Herol's teeth ?