Which of these fighters does Jack Johnson have the best chance to beat

Exaggeration, obviously

Marciano was strong though, so was Johnson. Top percentage of strength in boxing methinks

 

Sure, but I guess I wondered what was supposedly so extraordinary about his strength and how it manifested itself.

I don’t really have an opinion, and I think that the importance of “strength” gets overrated in a lot of these discussions, but I’m just curious.

 

Norton and Tunney he beats . Loses to the rest .

 

I agree that the importance of strength is overvalued in boxing, but in this fight specifically there'd be more grappling than usual so it comes to importance

Marciano has been described as surprisingly strong by multiple of his opponents. Marciano was also a talented wrestler and they usually tend to be strong due to the weight training and grappling they do

 

Its very possible,we just don't know how era's styles will translate when plucked out of their own time ,do we.

 

A prime Johnson would most likely beat everybody on the list if they were fighting under the rules of his day.

 

That's exactly it !
Way I look at it is , let's say AJ was of this time still but Ruiz Jr was around in the 1980s or 70s . Now people talking about matching up AJ from guys from the past , someone mention s Andy Ruiz ,how would he do against Joshua . Most people s thought s would be to laugh ,ahh AJ would destroy the fat short ass !
But of course as we know ,AJs style , skill set etc did nothing for him whatsoever .
And it's same with putting guys from different era s together ,on paper one might look so much better than the other but actually face to face ?Who know s ?

 

I think he would be favoured over Dempsey and Tunney, underdog v Marciano and Louis, and a 50/50 v Norton.

 

Rocky didn’t fight teenagers as a pro. Johnson’s win over an 18 or19 year old Mcvey needs to be put into context.

Skill wise Rocky was well ahead of Mcvey

Johnson didn’t hit hard enough here nor did he have the chin. Ross who didn’t deserve a title shot hurt Johnson with the only solid blow he landed. Ketchel landed two good ones. One left a mark, the other floored and hurt Johnson.

How is Johnson taking Rocky’s punch? IMO not well and the two above fights show crude men could land and hurt Johnson.

 

Has McVea's age ever actually been verified?

If he was that young, he must've matured fast, and he had a good win over Denver Ed Martin

 

Johnson might have beaten all of them thats how great he was....i think he beats marciano, tunney, and Norton but not louis or dempsey

 

From 1901 (Choynski) to 1915 (Willard) he was knocked out zero times.He fought almost 70 times in that span. Either he had great chin, or was untouchable in his prime. It's not like he didn't face good hitters either.

 

Very good post....yes nobody is koing johnson save maybe louis or dempsey

 

I can't reconcile him having a weak chin with surviving without being ko'd for all those years either, that's 14 years!
I also take issue that he didn't hit hard enough,to be sure he wasn't a Louis/Dempsey type puncher,but he hit pretty hard imo.
Hard enough top stop McVey in15rds and floor him several times in their other two fights.
Hard enough to floor Jeannette multiple times in their series.Hard enough to floor Gardner,Ross,Langford,Butler,Lang,Flynn,Burns,Martin Klondyke,and ko Ketchel for several minutes.
As we know Johnson rarely went for the ko, but to suggest he was deficient in hitting power is, I think wide of the mark.
I'm not convinced Marciano was more skilled than McVey either.Reports of one of the Langford v McVey fights state McVey jabbed Langford at will,did Rocky ever show skill with the jab? We can't be too dogmatic on these dream matches, it's hard enough predicting how a heavyweight fight will turn out between to current guys, let alone two across many decades!

 

I honestly don’t think he can beat any of them, but i think his best chances are against Louis and Tunney, his blocking with his hands style of defense could mess with Tunney and he figured out joe Louis weakness without fighting him, those two imo he has a chance against, the swarmers Dempsey and Rocky would be to busy and hit to hard for him and Norton is to big and strong and has proven himself to be very good against “pure boxers” assuming of course that Johnson falls into that category . All decent fights but I honestly don’t think Johnson is beating too many heavyweight champions or challengers post his own era , this of course, could be my own bias as I’ve stated repeatedly on this forum that I feel Johnson is wildly overrated