Similarities .. Jack Johnson and Jersey Joe ..

Very little in common really.

Walcott was a “showboat” type fighter dancing, giving angles, countering and generally stayed away from dangerous punchers.

Johnson stood in the pocket generally with inside fighters allowing them to get in close. Here he would control their actions via tapping their arms/elbows as they tried to hit him causing punches to lose their power/leverage and block punches to the head. All along countering with left and right uppercuts. To get in close opponents had to eat Johnson’s great jab. When he wanted to get you out of there Johnson was a very good combination puncher and he would hit, sidestep and spin opponents at the same time. (See Burns). A marvelous heavyweight to watch in action.

 

Would you mind explaining these similarities?

 

As in duck? He fought the two biggest Punchers of the eras he frequentled.
And he stood in the pocket and traded with both. In fact he dropped them a combined 4 times

 

I haven't really noticed it, but I have seen Walcott called a throwback before.

It makes sense to me a style learned while he couldn't train of rest properly for his fights, would be similar to those used in much longer ones.

It's funny that a lot of comments talk of his admiration for the original Walcott, I saw in an interview (IIRC it was pretty early in his career), where he said he didn't think much about it, he just used that name.

I often think Jack Sharkey likely picked those names largely for the vagye similarity to his real name (Joseph Zukauskas), rather than his amazing love of Dempsey and Tom Sharkey.

 

I don't see it myself.

 

His walk aways, stance switching and punching are very throwback.

 

Yeah, that pull away is something you seen in a lot of old fights.

You see Carpentier doing it a fair bit

This content is protected

 

Walcott was a mover. A dancer. Johnson welcomed the puncher in close and beat them up with a better inside game or he could box cleverly at distance. You need to watch more of Johnson. He was a very unique talent and very different in style from Walcott.

 

Johnson fought with his left foot out and his right foot at a right angle to it.
Walcott pivoted quite a bit on the balls of his feet, rotated from his hips ,used shoulder feints and the cake walk ,walk away.Johnson did none of this

 

Dempsey too

This content is protected

 

I actually thought the same when I watched Walcott against Layne yesterday. Jersey Joe relied a lot on catching punches in similar way to Johnson and he was very strong in the clinch. I don't understand why people say that Johnson parrying and catching punches wouldn't work in the 1950s, Walcott did just fine.

As for people who say that Jack couldn't move, watch him in some fights. He was very quick on his feet, he just had stationary style. Jersey Joe is known for his dancing but he also fought a lot without moving too much.

 

It wasn't that Jack couldn't move,it was that his anticipation was so good he could block and divert punches before they landed so he didn't have to jump around..