Would jack johnson style work today

The comparison to Ruiz is a good one. Jack's style may work but I don't think it would be the best choice and in todays era I don't think it would be Jacks choice. Champions from all eras and sports have "it". It helps them to win when on paper all the "experts" think they should lose. Call it heart or whatever, it's intangible. I have a hard time with comparing an athelete from a hundred years ago with todays. Cries of " They were so much smaller back then" etc... crop up. I feel if you are gonna compare them to todays atheletes you need to account for all advances both technical and evolutionary and apply those variables to said athelete. If on average a heavyweight is lets say 4 inches taller and 30 lbs heavier I feel you must apply those to Johnson. Someone posted earlier saying Johnson was 6'0" and 200 lbs. Okay now he's 6'4 and 230 lbs with a true fighters heart. ( btw I don't know what the averages are, it's just an example ) Suddenly he's starting to compare pretty well I think. Match that up with todays advanced training methods and you've got a winning combo. So maybe Jacks style works ugly today, maybe not, but if Jack were boxing today he'd be a champ.

 

The comparison to Ruiz is terribly faulty. Ruiz held so his opponents could not hit him to then cause the ref to break them. Holding was illegal also in Johnsons day but refs never warned him because his opponents were free to punch. Johnson would block with great skill those punches thrown to his head.

 

I always thought Ruiz held because it gave him his best chance at winning. After the Tua fight I believe is when it started. He'd punch and hold and punch and hold and just when you thought he was gonna punch and hold again he'd punch and punch. Shook up an aging Holyfield with that trick. I guess you're right in that him and Johnson were pretty different but I still think Ruiz style is the most similar to Johnsons of the current heavies.

 

No other fighter I have ever seen fought like Johnson. Ruiz was a low skilled hwt...Johnson one of hwt boxings most highly skilled.

 

I didn't get the chance to see Johnson fight live, I only have 100 year old youtube footage to judge by and from that footage he doesn't look to me like the most physically gifted heavyweight to ever lace em up. Don't get me wrong, when the topic of Johnson comes up the first thing that comes to mind isn't " yeah Ruiz is just like him ".

 

Your right Houdini, and he has done it repeatedly with your postings too I've seen. You, Bert, and several others I have boxing respect for, you guys really know our stuff. This guy though just makes fake stuff up as he goes along.

 

After weeks of waiting for this guy to answer his way off statements, after posting his posting numbers so he can go back and read what he said, its just not going to happen, so he's to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

He is still posting within the forum....just not in this thread anymore....for good reason.