Rocky Marciano or Jack Johnson who was the greater fighter?

Yeah, it was not only the amateurs but his 1st boxing match ever. One of which he was completely unfocused and out of shape in. He learned his lesson though. I'm going to remind you of pulling this up when you defend something ten times more ludicrous than this statement.

 

Not in the Ring. Johnson beat an ill Burns, who was ill and well below his normal weight of 168 pounds to win the crown. Burns wanted to postpone the fight.

As Champion there was no mandatory those days. Johnson competition as champion was perhaps the worst of any long tenured champion.

So in my eyes, Johnson had an easy both to win the title, and because he picked the opponents, had an easier time keeping the title.

Rocky as Champion did what a champion is supposed to do. That is fight ranked contenders year after year.

 

Grebfan9,

I don't have the report. I did read it though as it was posted here a while back. Jeanette had a big first round over Johnson and hurt him. Johnson, who was the colored champion at the time went low in round two un-purpose and lost via DQ, but somehow kept his title.

Jeanette's famous quote on Johnson was this. After Jack won the title ( Burns fight ) he forgot about his old friends and drew the color line against this own people.

 

Head to head Johnson wins easy decision.

 

Same.

 

I'm currently reading Clay Moyle's 'Sam Langford: Boxing's Greatest Uncrowned Champion'. One thing that seems notable in Sam's set to with Johnson was the disparity of strength between the two at that time. There were occaisions when Sam hurt Johnson, but he couldn't follow through because Johnson would tie him up; where as, when Johnson hurt Langford, Sam couldn't tie Johnson up and was compelled to fight through the bad moments.

I tend to rate Marciano a little over Johnson, but I can't claim to have any convincing arguments that I'm right.

 

Johnson head to head, might beat Marciano, but no way is he going to have a easy time with it.

This is not middleweights Burns and Ketchel in the ring. And Ketchel had Johnson down.

 

Johnson

 

A. D. Philips Nat Fleischers father in law saw the Johnson ,Langford fight and stated that JOHNSON FLOORED LANGFORD A COUPLE OF TIMES ,BROKE HIS NOSE AND CUT HIS EYE,AND WAS NEVER IN ANY DANGER,of course Langford was only 156 lbs to Johnsons 185lbs, no doubt in later years the fight would have been much more competitive.

 

I am sure you mean well below his normal weight of around 180-183 lbs.
Burns had recently recovered from influenza ,according to three papers I read, NOT YELLOW FEVER OR JAUNDICE AS YOU STATED IN EARLIER POSTS.
Burns and the promoter of the fight Hugh D Mcintosh were the best of friends so if Burns was not fit to fight I beleive Mcintosh would have postponed the fight.

 

Johnson steered clear of Jeanette?
While there is no doubt he did not defend his world title against him he fought him 5 more times after being dsqd against him,and lost NONE OF THEM, the best Jeannete could manage was a draw in one fight.

 

I admire Rocky's consistency. But I think multiple wins over Joe Jeannette, Sam Langford, and Tommy Burns should place Johnson above Rocky.

 

The others ok, I buy that, but Johnson and Burns only fought one time.


I put more stock in Marciano crushing Archie Moore over a win over Burns imo.

 

For me this is the bottomline.

I can forgive Johnson missing a challenger or so, but he missed 4 well deserving contenders in Langford, Mcvey, Jeannette and Gunboat Smith. Sorry, beating them when they are teenagers/super welterweights doesn't amount to much. Lewis beating Bowe in the amateurs doesn't mean he beat a prime Bowe, either.

 

I love Rocky, my point was to illustrate how you can display the facts differently than they should and how Johnson fought in a much, much tougher environment and under very different circumstances which should be taken into account.

Just like how Rocky's display in that fight shouldn't be held against him as he was doing his training by smoking and eating