Why is Jack Johnson a top ten heavyweight?

[Verstyle]

seriously, makes no sense. Ive seen people put him in the top 10 best heavyweights list, but for what? the guy was fighting guys that weighed 160 naturally, which would pretty much be the equivilant of Welterweights nowadays. Johnson fought maybe 2 or 3 guys that weighed 200lbs+ in his title defences, one of them being a loss.

and the guys style? it was basically a better version of John Ruiz, and Im not joking at all. I know the fights were longer and everything, but mostly he did that sort of thing because he 220lbs and he could just lean on guys that weighed about 50 or 60 pounds less than him. I dont mean to put him down, but if someone like Tyson would have knocked out Roy Jones no one wouldve given him any credit, despite the fact that Jones is one of the greatest p4p fighters and middleweight/light heavyweights of all time...If you wouldnt give Tyson credit for that, why would you give credit to Johnson for knocking out lesser middleweights?

I dont mean to put him down so badly, but I have a hard time believing that there arent 10 heavyweights that have done more than Jack Johnson has.
so why would someone ever rate Jack Johnson in the top 10 best heavies?

Those are what we call followers my friend. I bet a lot of those ppl that do it haven't even seen 3 of his fights.

[The Hammer]

It's a different era though. Some of the fights Peter Jackson had weren't really the type of boxing contests we have today, they were brutal wars.

Jackson's fight against Gentleman Jim Corbett lasted 61 rounds, the fight was stopped when neither man was able to continue.

That may be true, but the "old" argument is used too much. Ezzard Charles was old at 33, Chris Eubank was old at 31, etc. People use it as an easy way to discredit the wins of a fighter they don't like.

[Gareth Ivanovic]

It's hard to compare certain fighters from different era's especially Jack Johnson when his reign was such a long time ago about 100 yrs. He was ahead of his times in a lot of ways especially his defense. The guy had to deal with so much racially. **** against Jim Jeffries the ref gave Jim so many chances to win that he even let Abe Attell pick him up after he got knocked down so he could fight more. I would put him in my top 10 because he beat many of the good black fighters many times before he got a chance for the world title. Then when he got the world title he beat all the best white fighters that were put in front of him. Because they were looking for the Great White Hope.

He definitely wasn't a perfect person, but the thing was is that he was himself. Should he have acted a certain way because of the ignorance of whites during that time. Was Joe Louis really every truely himself or did have to fit an image so white america would accept him. Jack was himself, did it piss people off, of course, but what was really the problem that blacks after Johnson didn't get HW title shots. Jack or the ignorance of the people of that time?

[joseph5620]

[QUOTE=Jim Jeffries;4125076]He was trying to say Jeffries ducked all black fighters, even though with only 22 fights in his whole career, he still managed to fight two very good ones. That dude can rag on Jackson all he wants,



Yet you have come up with nothing that disputes that Jackson was finished as a fighter. If you're trying to use Tunneys overly simplistic ****** question as leverage that speaks for itself

[Silencers]

I got here a little late, but you said it well Silencers. Johnson was an innovator in boxing and if you read his autobio you know that he had a very sharp mind for the sport. He dominated the division for years under adverse conditions. He deserves to be among the top 10 heavyweights, although it is difficult to get a realistic perspective of someone who fought so long before all of us were even born.

Yeah, most of the stuff we know about Johnson is from second even third hand accounts, but one thing is for sure, he had to overcome a lot of adversity to be champion and stay champion.

[Frankie_Boyle]

It's difficult to compare fighters of that era against modern day fighters.

I mean, How would Someone like Tucan McGinty have fared against The likes of Barrera and Morales?

[flodistheshizle]

I feel bad for the descrimination against Jack Johnson, but he did nothing to help the black community, and probebly even made them look bad.

and all that has nothing to do with how he compares to the other top heavyweights in history, when it gets down to it.

Jack Johnson reason for going out with all them white chicks was to get back at whites.

[Gareth Ivanovic]

He was trying to say Jeffries ducked all black fighters, even though with only 22 fights in his whole career, he still managed to fight two very good ones. That dude can rag on Jackson all he wants, but he was still a tough challenge for a guy with 7 fights.

As far as the thread goes, you look how accepted blacks were in boxing after Joe Louis. Johson could have done that if he wanted, but he was too much of a greedy scumbag.

Why was Jack a scumbag? Because he didn't follow the line that whites thought blacks should follow at that time. What do you call all the people that treated him like a second class citizen most of his life? **** when he first wanted to become a fighter he took a train from Galveston to Chicago and met a guy that said could get him fights. Well he sends him to a club and there he is blindfolded with a group of other blacks and they fight while blindfolded in front of whites. I know Jack didn't make good decisions and was abrasive, but if Jack's a scumbag those people are far worse.

[joseph5620]

That may be true, but the "old" argument is used too much. Ezzard Charles was old at 33, Chris Eubank was old at 31, etc. People use it as an easy way to discredit the wins of a fighter they don't like.

Fighters age differently. It's like comparing a 2005 car with only 5000 miles to a 2007 car with 80,000 miles. Which car do you think is going to be in better shape? And please don't ever ask me that ****** ass question again about whether Vitali Klitschko is going to credit for a fight that hasn't even happened yet. If he wins he is going to credit from me and any other reasonable boxing fan and I already told you that. Joe Calzaghe has always gotten credit from me and he's one of my favorite fighters.. But you constantly bringing it up in an unrelated thread is annoying. How that's related to this topic is beyond me.

[TheGreatA]

Here's some decent footage of Jack Dempsey:






Dempsey loses to Tunney after a three year layoff. Tunney was probably the most 'modern' of the early 1900's boxers.