Tommy Burns' Top Heavies List

He says since Jeffries, so it doesn't include Sullivan by the criteria. Sharkey is an interesting omission, he's not the only one it rank Jack O'Brien.

Here's Jack Johnson's
(He also excluded himself)

1 Bob Fitzsimmons
2 James J. Jeffries
3 Peter Jackson
4 James J Corbett
5 Sam Langford
6 Sam McVey
7 Joe Jennette
8 John L Sulivan
9 Philidelphia Jack O' Brien
10 Tom Sharkey
11 Gene Tunney
12 Jack Dempsey

I also think it's funny he included Jack O' Brien, but didn't even include Tommy Burns.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=SCE0ypLQHGcC&dat=19290427&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

 

Interesting neither contain Wills either.

 

Yeah, if you read it he doesn't like a lot of the fighters after him.

He compliment's Greb here, but still puts him below Walcott, McCoy and Fitz.
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/johnson-rated-walcott-the-greatest-fighter-of-all.560118/

Corbett's stock must have dropped more than nearly anyone else, along with Sullivan anyway. Putting McVey above Jeannette isn't outrageous, and makes sense when you think McVey was probably a lot better when they actually fought.

 

He claimed he dived against Willard, AFAIK he never stopped claiming that.

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115734275

Bob Fitzsimmons says Jeffries was the best "fighter", George Dixon was the best feather and bantamweight, and Mysterious Billy Smith was the best Welterweight, when on his game.

 

What ex-champ does? Boxing is a very nostalgic sport. Not many boxers in history acknowledged that the current champs were as good as the fighters in their day.

Johnson excludes himself but by his reckoning he beat six of the top ten heavies of all time!

 

Immediately after the fight he said he had," been beaten fairly and squarely",he said the same thing the next morning when he went to collect his money from Jack Curley.
On arising from the ko Johnson did not quite know where he was and was disorientated,he asked his chief second
Sam McVey what had happened ? He was out!

 

Our own reluctance to rank active fighters highly, might be suggestive.

That aside, I am not aware that Johnson had anything against Dempsey, but he seems to have undervalued offensive specialists generally.

His take on Henry Armstrong was "how much energy does that boy waste?"

 

Though he rated Walcott the greatest P4P of all time.

 

Walcott was a personal friend.

When Johnson was a down on his luck fighter, he sold his services to various top fighters as a sparring partner, and most of them treated him very badly.

Walcott eventually hired him, and treated him well.

They remained firm friends afterwards, and socialized together when Johnson was champion.