Lets discuss Jack Johnson...

Legends aside, Jack Johnson is a misunderstood fighter. He had great defense for his era, but it was not the type of defense we see today. Johnson was a master clincher who could control the action vs opponents near his size or smaller, and whack them with punches in a clinch when the time was right. Johnson was something of a magician in there, a twist here and slight of hand there then BOOM, the uppercut lands. Johnson could block punches with an open glove, but his true defensive genius was his ability to anticipate punches, and read his opponents body language. This can not be taught in boxing. Either you have it or you don’t. Johnson was often a step ahead of his opponent and thanks to quick reflexes he could make a man miss despite several flaws in his defense.

These flaws in Johnson’s defense were a low guard, a somewhat stationary target, and little head movement. He never slipped many punches either, at least in his filmed fights. A skilled boxer could land on Johnson. Willard and Moran were not that skilled, or fast, yet they landed on the outside. If they could do it others could do it too.

If Johnson were around today, I do believe he was a good enough athlete to learn modern defensive techniques, however he could not clinch as much as he used to so one can only speculate if he would be better off defensively or not. I tend to believe his defense today for a heavyweight would be good, but not great.

 

When Al Kaufman challenged Jack Johnson for the heavyweight title he was considered to be the best white prospect of unseating him at the time. In the course of ten rounds he only managed to land two meaningfull punches on Johnson.

Now even if Kaufman was an extremely limited fighter technicaly this is an astounding performence for a heavyweight. It is a Mayweather Gatti type shut out.

Sadly with the quality of film of the period most of the subtlties of Johnsons defensive genius are probably lost forever.

 

Johnson was actualy prety nimble on his feet though he used footwork sparringly. Against the much smaller Tommy Burns he was able to easily outmanouver him using footwork.

I think he also used more head movment than the film suggests going by the testimony of oponents.

 

Johnson,evaluated Dempsey as a great 4 round fighter,butsaid that after that he became just another hooker,maybe a bit harsh but ,his point was ,if you could weather his initial rush you could defuse him.

 

Johnson is a great heavyweight in terms of accomplishments, but if i asked "what heavyweights would you give odds over him, if any", i would say many.

Reason being that boxing in his day was completely different from what it was the 90 years following his time. He was a master in-fighter, wrestling, pushing his opponents around etc, but he showed very little outside fighting, jabbing, throwing 1-2's, keeping a distance and more important, he didn't have to deal with defending against it much either. Watch any of his fights and you'll notice that they are apart... one throws a punch, they fall in a clinch, they he pushes his opponent around, unleashes some uppercuts, they separate.... and start the process all over again. Holds his hands low and uses little to no combination punching: product of still present bareknuckle boxing/wrestling style and the lack of evolving into gloved boxing.


Under his own rules he'd be very hard to beat, but i think the majority of the champs post 20's would beat him from the outside rather easily because he's not adapted to that kind of game.

 

I suspect that the sample of footage we have dose not tell the whole story. His fights with Denver Ed Martin for example seem to have been outside afairs.

 

Of course he did. It was a tremendous feat that he overcame the trials of facing a 5'7" 168 pound monster.

 

Yes but the one advantage that we would expect the smaller Burns to have is speed. Johnson was faster.

 

Since there are only a few fight films left on Johnson, it is possible he moved around a bit more than the films show. I agree with the poster who said the old films do not show the grace and subtlety of movements. This is true without a doubt. The thing is Johnson was no Ali in terms of footwork, but shared the same stylistic flaws that Ali had. Unlike Ali, Johnson was rather short for a heavyweight. Johnson was a shade over 6 feet tall, and not gifted with long arms either.

My point here is if Ali who was judged to be the fastest overall heavyweight in the 1960’s by some of the men familiar with the Johnson’s and Tunney’s of boxing could get walloped every now and then, then Johnson would get walloped too.

Unless of course Johnson changed his defensive guard, developed the ability to slip and duck punches, and implemented lateral movement. Unlike Ali or Tunney, Johnson did not have a rock of Gibraltar for a chin, so he would need these if's or projections to defeat a the better fighters in the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's.

 

Johnson was also a master of understanding and utilizing the longer distances of fights in those days. He knew that with his cat-like reflexes, he could merely sit back, block, parry, and generally wait out a lot of more aggressive-minded fighters and then take charge once they tired. Made for pretty tepid watching, but there's no denying he was a real craftsman.