Why is Jack Johnson rated so high...

[Ivich]

- - Not even close, but knowing his background he was clearly a higher order intellect that I have grown to respect more than his boxing and women abusing that seems to appeal to the usual cretins.

I don't judge a fighters boxing ability by how he conducts himself outside the ring and neither does anyone with half a brain .
If they did
Johnson
Corbett
Corrales
Chacon
Robinson
Mayweather
Louis
Jeffries

And about 500 others would be considered rubbish.

[QueensburyRules]

I don't judge a fighters boxing ability by how he conducts himself outside the ring and neither does anyone with half a brain .
If they did
Johnson
Corbett
Corrales
Chacon
Robinson
Mayweather
Louis
Jeffries

And about 500 others would be considered rubbish.

- - Never said I evaluated his boxing outside the ring as anyone with a nanogram of a brain knows.

Let's put it this way: While Jeff still active not yet retired, JJ stunk up the ring vs Hart to lose a decision. I believe the record shows before that moment he had come around to the fighting of Johnson to close out his career.

[HOUDINI563]

The ref said it was low. You of all people should remember that. Didn't you make the thread where it was unveiled?

No. YOU don’t complete the research and instead point to a right hand to Sharkeys leg PRIOR TO the key blows and call that the low blow. Complete rubbish. The ref stated that blow did no damage and was unintentional.

The ref Did not indicate that ANY OF THOSE FINAL THREE RIGHT UPPERCUTS TO THE BODY WERE LOW. This is why he did not disqualify Dempsey.

The blows in question were three viscous right uppercuts to the pit of Sharkeys body. This was then followed by the ko blow a left hook to Sharkeys jaw.

A film of the fight was shown the next day.

https://www.gastearsivi.com/en/gazete/new_britain_herald/1927-07-22/1

If you watch the bout you can clearly see the first two right uppercuts land. No where near the groin. Fair blows. No indication the final right uppercut was any different from the first two. Three very quick very short body blows thrown in rapid succession.

[Willie Pep 229]

Going back to the OP here's an answer no one will like.

******* guilt.

Wouldn't suprise me, if one could measure such things, that Jack Johnson, with each passing decade, each civil rights event, each civil rights legislation, got just a touch 'greater.'

Unforgivable Blackness has about as much historical value as Errol Flynn's They Died with their Boots on.

Doesn't anyone ask themselves why in eight years ***** didn't pardon this man, but then a misogynistic creep did?

[edgarg]

How do you rate Jack Johnson then when there only a couple of his fights are filmed?

Obviously by reading about him and the opposition he faced.

Hias reputation, apart from his unbroken string of wins from the early 20th cent. (14 years) is resting quite a bit of Nat Fleischer's opinion, and his Top Heavyweight list. He saw every champion from Jeffries to well into Ali's time and said that Johnson could do everything that Ali did, but a lot better, and much that he couldn't do,

So Fleischer has a lot to do with it. Also his fight against Willard. Giving away enormous size, reach and weight, he beat Willard around the ring for most of the fight, and he'd have won easily if a 20 rounder. He was then 37, fat, badly out of condition and still went 26 rounds under broiling sun. He'd also been living a very dissipated life. This was the first fight he'd lost for14 years.(except 2 very disputed losses close together against McVey DQ,2(1903) and Marvin Hart..pts.(1905).

Willard had 23-3 record including 18 KOs when he fought Johnson.

So I personally think he deserves a high spot on the list.

[edgarg]

being the first black heavyweight champ means NOTHING. John Ruiz is this first hispanic heavyweight champion, that doesnt mean I give him any extra credit as a fighter. and how was Wills ever supposed to be a heavyweight champ when they never let him get a title shot?

and where are you getting this 'more talented fighter' type of thing? Theres almost no footage of Wills to compare him to Johnson, and their best wins are basically the same guys.

There's a hell of a lot more to being the first black champ than the first Latin champ.
NO comparison. Consider the vicous obsessive racial tensions of those days, all of which Johnson flouted as much as possible. He was the most hated man in America by FAR. And to be successful against all the "White Hopes" with whom he toyed, ...Don't you know that when he beat Jeffries so badly, There were riots all over the country, that about 20 Negros were lynched and hundreds wounded and more...

Don't forget the Civil War had ended only 45 years before, and the comparable horrors of "Reconstruction" about 25-30 years before. That very many people were still living and steeped in hatred from then.

{In about 1965 or so on one of my rambles as a kid, I came across a very old woman digging potatoes in her back garden. I stopped to offer help, which she refused. During conversation she brought up Reconstruction and "them damned ******s", frequently. Even old as she was she could not have been more than a child during Reconstruction, but the memories were as vivid as yesterday.}

The rhetoric before, during and after Johnson's fights were so obscene that it makes one cringe to read them. You should read what JJ Corbett was saying beofre and during the fight. He was in the corner. Sickening.

[edgarg]

historical significance does not automatically make a fighter great. Tyson was the youngest heavyweight champ and very significant because of his popularity, but that doesnt make him one of the best fighters ever.

Johnson winning the title may have been important, but only in terms of him pushing the race barrier. in boxing terms, do you really think that him winning the title from Burns was very impressive?

I think when it comes to people rating Johnson, they tend to credit his personal accomplishments with his boxing career. which is something I dont think should be done.
at the end of the day, Johnson beat McVea, Jeanette, Langford, etc. and thats all he should be judged by, his in the ring accomplishments.

and for the millionth time, I DONT expect Wills to be rated higher than Johnson. I DO expect Johnson and Wills to be rated close together though, since he beat pretty much all the high class people that Johnson beat.

Tommy Burns, before he lost to Johnson, had won 13 defences, 11 by KO. Yet, Johnson just played around with him. Talking to "Mr. Tommy", and chatting with ringsiders etc.

To me, there is no doubt but that he was far superior to any other boxer at that period. It wasn't just that he beat them , it was the easy way he did it, could mess around and then lower to hammer at will. He was basically a cautious, defensive-minded fighter with natural, enormous strength. ALL the historians and writers, mention his strength.

he himself credits his strength as coming from his father, who was "the strongest man I ever knew"..

[edgarg]

BTW, you do know that those 20 rounds may not have been 20 3 minute rounds? At that time Marquis de Queensberry rules weren't always universal and the old London Prize Fight rules were used. Under those a round lasted until someone made contact with the ropes or was knocked down which ever came first. So round could conceivably last 10 minutes.....or 10 seconds.

Poet

Not the ropes. This is not correct. And Queensberry Rules were universal at that time.

[edgarg]

** Except that he left out that Mike was never a clincher with his original team at the top of his game.

He was instead, pure boxer/puncher/swarmer.

He was in fact fairly mediocre at the clinch and grapple, even when he employed it to rest in the final 15 yr 3 ring circus act part of his career.

Johnson was a HOFer, but take away Jeffries where he made a fortune and could afford to coast, and he'd be forced to defend against prime versions of McVey, Wills, Jeannette, and most importantly, Langford......ouch!

Yeah, take away Jeffries, and Johnson would be a trivia footnote, the first black champ quickly forgotten.

Johnson is falling in history no matter how many docs are produced. The only question is how far since as a "brand name" in modern parlance, Jack Johnson has a very high public recognition, at least for now.

Do you know that during WW1 a very large explosive shell, was named a "Jack Johnson". You can read up about it. Perfectly true. Very commonly used.

[edgarg]

I looked at boxrec, and i didn't see anything that says he beat better fighters than Ali did. He was a great fighter and was one of the most underrated of any era, but by no means does he beat the opposition that Ali beat.




His won over Gans was a great one, but explain to me how that one win surpasses everyone that Ali beat? Ali only had about 15 fights when he beat Moore and even though Archie was clearly past his prime, he got his first shot at the light heavyweight title( his first title shot) at the age of 39, so he peaked late and he was on a winning streak(coming off of wins such as Pastrano, Rinaldi ect) at the time of his loss to Ali. In his 17th fight he beat the experienced Doug Jones, who consider one of the most underrated contenders of that era and was coming off of wins of Folley and Foster. It was a good win over an experienced veteran. Also, who is to say that Gans wasn't as prime his prime as Moore was? He had 135 fights and had been in some hard fights.

It took Ali up to post exile to finally lose, and that was to an unbeaten Frazier, and many heavyweights would have loss to that version as well, and not only did Ali avenge it but he did it two times and with the last one being by stoppage. That's something that Langford couldn't claim, because as great as he is even in his prime he had quite a few losses and stoppage ones at that. Ali was never stopped in his entire career, even when he was 200 years old fighting a prime Holmes. It was more of a corner retirement thing.

Another thing is that if you include the win that Langford had over Gans, then you might as well talk about the win that Johnson had over Sam because Langford was 35-4-16 at the time had had already beaten experienced fighters and was on his way up.




You have an agenda against both of them, and you don't hide it very well. Its a shame how you boost up Calderon and others without mentioning Ali and Johnson, who i both rank in my top 5 greatest heavyweights. As i said, Langford is one of the greatest fighters of all time and probably the second greatest puncher, but he did not beat the kind of fighters that Ali beat or the way that he beat them.

Gans was well used up when he fought Langford. It was his 165th fight. He already was infected with TB, although he had many good wins after. The travesties he was forced into by Battling Nelson, finished him, dying within months .