Why is Jack Johnson rated so high...

[Steak]

Maybe he did deserve it or maybe he didn't. But boxrec listed it as a win for Tunney, changed it to a loss and now have it a no contest.

Basically it's not very reliable if you're trying to learn about old timers, some fight results change almost every month.

People could take a look at boxrec, see that Tunney had a win over Loughran and the next month they'll see it listed as a loss.

all Im trying to say is that looking on boxrec and taking what it says for fact is unrealiable, but picking up an old newspaper report and taking what it says as fact is at least just as unreliable.

you have to take what you see on boxrec with a grain of salt, but you have to do that with all the newspaper decisions you see as well. even if you look at all of them in bulk its pretty unreliable, because look at the Leonard-Hagler fight for example. I believe the majority of the newspapers had Leonard winning, and yet I personally had Hagler winning.

to sum it all up, boxrec is not reliable when it comes to old fights. but when you compare it to the few other sources you have about old fights, its not too bad. overall they do a fairly respectable job representing old fights.

weve kind of gone off from the main topic, but this is a fun discussion, right? haha

[Yogi]

but when a fight is changed from a win to a draw to a win again, it shows that the source of information is not all that reliable and shouldn't be taken as the absolute truth (as many do).

I couldn't agree more, Machine.

[Poet682006]

The newspaper accounts are in many cases the ONLY sources we have. Record keeping was non-existent back then. Does it mean we can't glean any knowledge from that era? No. We just need to use a grain of salt when it comes to sources and find as many sources as possible.

Poet

[Steak]

right, so everyone seems to have come to an agreement, no reports are completely reliable.

now, about the whole Johnson-Wills part....

[TheGreatA]

right, so everyone seems to have come to an agreement, no reports are completely reliable.

now, about the whole Johnson-Wills part....

About the only footage we have of Harry Wills is him getting brutally knocked out by Paulino Uzcudun at the end of his career, that might hurt his status as well.

Atleast Jack Johnson and Dempsey have some of their great performances on film in which we can see how skilled they were. Sure Johnson held a lot and Dempsey got too wild in some of his fights but they were pioneers in many ways.

It could be a bit of a stretch but anyway, here's the video:

[Yogi]

all Im trying to say is that looking on boxrec and taking what it says for fact is unrealiable, but picking up an old newspaper report and taking what it says as fact is at least just as unreliable.

My big problem with BoxRec and their newspaper decision listings is that they so often are only listing a single source for their information/verdict, and are often listing a source like that that is very much in the minority, and in some cases likely factuably inaccurate when compared to many other sources covering the same fight.

e.g. Concerning the Langford/Jeannette fight I alluded to earlier (took place in 1908), BoxRec has it listed as a "draw" based on one report from the NY Times, which is also a source that states that Jeannette was knocked down in the 1st and 2nd rounds. But if you look at the other sources out of New York, whether it be the other NY papers (Tribune, Sun, Evening World, etc.) or the wired reports out of New York printed in many different sources (Washington Times & Herald, Trenton Evening News, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, etc.), they are all consistent in saying that Langford got the best of the fight, and most will say by some margin. Oh, and those other reports are also consistant in saying that Langford knocked Jeannette down twice in the first round, and once again in the fifth, which is completely different than what the singular source that BoxRec uses says.

i.e. If I'm like you and read one singular source listed BoxRec I'm thinking that fight was a newspaper draw. Yet, if I expand myself and look through about ten other sources that were covering the fight out of the fight's location, I find that that one singular source was very much in the minority and in fact, quite inaccurate to what every other source was reporting on what happened in that fight.

[JulioCesaChavez]

I didn't realise anyone did rate him highly! This is news to me. I thought he was just widely accepted as a historical figure.

[j]

I didn't realise anyone did rate him highly! This is news to me. I thought he was just widely accepted as a historical figure.

u mean jack???? better not!

anyways.....

jack is rated high because of many thing. dude as known to be so well schooled at boxing that he would toy with his opponent. and he was badass!

i know people read this or that about jack, bit i own unfirgiveable blackness)book and movie), copies of older fights, boxing day(book) etc and even his autobiography.

even ali in his hey-day said he was "a bad man."


so, jack is even uderrated IMO, but the other guy in question - is generally underrated as well. walcott underrated as well.

[Steak]

I didn't realise anyone did rate him highly! This is news to me. I thought he was just widely accepted as a historical figure.

check out the last 2 or so pages of the top 10 heavyweights of all time list on this forum. a lot of people put him at #3 or 4.

theres almost no footage of Wills, but on the other hand theres very little footage of Johnson's best wins. so I guess we just have to go by how they did record-wise, and Wills doesnt seem very far behind Johnson if you ask me.

[TheGreatA]

This Is the Consensus that Hurricane Produced by asking people on this forum :

01. Muhammed Ali
02. Joe Louis
03. Lennox Lewis
04. Larry Holmes
05. Rocky Marciano
06. George Foreman
07. Jack Johnson
08. Mike Tyson
09. Jack Dempsey
10. Joe Frazier
11. Gene Tunney
12. Sonny Liston
13. Evander Holyfield
14. Harry Wills
14. Archie Moore
16. James J. Jeffries
17. Vitali Klitchko
17. Floyd Patterson
19. Wladimir Klitchko

Wills is up there, atleast in this list.

Then again Archie Moore (a great LHW but only a good HW) is up there as well.