More impressive legacy: Jack Johnson or Muhammad Ali?

This is why I respect Jack Johnson more than almost any boxer. His talent, his skills, could not be denied.

Top ten heavy in my opinion. He absolutely dominated his era.

 

Johnson must be in every credible top 3 heavyweight list.

 

Just the fact that he stuffed a sock in his crotch when around whites should probably elevate him to GOAT.:yep Man, Freud should have followed Johnson around like a feeder fish. The money he would have made out of white men with impotency problems...

 

Too right,and it's an absolute mismatch.

 

Johnson for sure

 

Ali via landslide.

 

Theyre the same person! Clearly Ali's legacy as a person and achievements in the ring are superior. But he had alot more freedom to do his thing. And his thing was emulating Johnson. The clinching, the mocking, the smiling, even the crazy eye thing Ali used to do he took from Johnson.

 

True. Ali wanted to be Johnson. Tyson wanted to be Dempsey. Vitali is Willard.

 

To keep it very simple and succinct, Ali.

 

Resume wise they are a lot closer than the modern fan might think.

If Johnson had rematched Langford, McVea nad Jeanette he could have taken the honours.

 

I would go for Ali ,because he opened up the big money to boxers, and changed the state of play forever.

 

Firstly, in terms of volume of elite opposition they are prety close.

Best scalp a middleweight or a teenager?

Depends on the middleweight/teenager.

Even so you have corectly identified the deciding factor. Namely that Johnson failed to match the best contenders of his era in their prime, and did not have a challenger of the calibre of a Frazier or Foreman.

I submit that his chance to rectify this would have been to beat either a prime Jeffries (not his choice) or a prime Langford.

What he could have done is match two or more of the black dynamite crew while he was champion and that would have gone a long way towards closing the deal, prehaps even if he had split a series.

 

This would really make it interesting. How much do you think the loss to Hart damages him in this context?