How good was Jack Johnson's chin?

[scorpio83]

Please that anyone tell me by the evidence in the video and description of his earlier fights from "In the Ring with Jack Johnson: Part I the Rise", how good was Johnson's chin? Grade Johnson's chin from C+ to A+. Choynski told Johnson after teaching him from jail that he wouldn't take a punch. From post-Choynski fight to the Jess Willard fight, Johnson didn't took many punches to his chin except he survived the knockdown from Stanley Ketchel in their 1909 heavyweight title defense before Johnson knocked him down for the count in 12 rounds. What is your opinion?

[Kalan]

He didn't "survive" the knockdown from Stanley Ketchel.. He wasn't hurt in the slightest.. Upon regaining his feet, he deftly avoided a wild-assed Ketchel swing and planted a short uppercut on Ketchel's mouth.. The punch sheered several of Ketchel's teeth out and iced him for the count.

Both camps knew Ketchel didn't belong in the ring with a big Heavyweight... Johnson was a big Heavyweight for that turn-of-the-century period.. The teams made an agreement that the fight would go the distance with no effort by either to to knock the other out -- so there wasn't an enormous risk to Ketchel.. That way, both fighters could make a ton of money because they were 2 of the biggest names in Boxing.

The Ketchel team devised a dubious plan.. They knew Johnson should win easily and had promised not to KO Ketchel.. They knew he liked to hold conversations with ringsiders while he was boxing.. With little danger posed to him from a Middleweight, Johnson would grow unwary as the fight rolled on in his favor.. At some point where Johnson was particularly distracted and wide open -- Ketchel would apply a KO punch and rule Boxing.. The key to this cutthroat strategy was Ketchel's firepower -- he could punch harder with a right hand than any Middleweight ever.

But all Ketchel succeeded in doing was making Johnson angry as Hell... As Johnson regained his feet completely unhurt -- he knew instantly that Ketchel was out to double-cross him.. He knew Ketchel would charge in looking for the finish as the delirious crowd roared for the kill.. Johnson ripped the Middleweight King with a savage right uppercut that iced him and dropped him like a rock..

As Ketchel fell dead, 2 savage follow punches from Johnson sailed over his unconscious head.. The momentum from the swings carried Johnson into Ketchel. He tripped over the Middleweight and fell .. As he was getting up Johnson noticed a mess of teeth and mouth matter all over his right glove.. As the referee counts Ketchel out, you can see Johnson brush this material off of his glove and casually listen to the count.

I rate Johnson's chin A plus.. In his early days he wasn't a boxing master and survived fights with Langford, Jeanette, McVey, Frank Childs, Ed Martin, Hank Griffin, and other top Heavyweights of the period.. He wrote in his autobio that he seemed to be able to take almost unlimited punishment -- and that the Choynski fight was stopped by the police, and wasn't really a KO loss as it appears on his record. The Willard KO loss was an obvious fraud as newspaper accounts from the day after clearly say nobody saw a KO punch land and the KO seemed doubtful.

[keithmoonhangover]

An A+ chin is someone that's never been knocked down dummy.

[Kalan]

No stupid... Marciano had an A plus chin... He was knocked down by a Light Heavyweight... Dempsey had an A-plus chin... Tunney decked him... Jim Jeffries had an A-plus chin Jack Johnson not only put him down but stopped him.. James Toney was decked by Reggie Johnson and Roy Jones.

If you're grading on an A, B, C, D, F scale...using Plus, Blank, and Minus for each letter... That's only 15 different ratings.. An A-plus chin would put you in the top 6.7% -- so it actually wouldn't be that outstanding.. A more accurate rating system would rank fighters to the 99th percentile.

[Caractacus]

Jack Johnson was a defensive fighter,so he didn't just expose his chin to anyone to take a shot at.
You don't hear too many accounts of him being "rocked" in the ring.
Only one other I can think of was when he had a sparring session with Gunboat Smith.

[Kalan]

True... But he didn't start his career being a defensive genius -- it took him a while to get there... He wrote that none of his fights were as tough as the Hank Griffin fights -- and the greatest punishment he ever took in the prize ring came at the hands of Griffin... He didn't have much craft.

[Caractacus]

I think he may have also later credited Joe Choynski for teaching him "Everything that he knew"
when the two were in the klink together shortly after their fight there in Gavelstone Texas (Johnson's home town).

[Caractacus]

True... But he didn't start his career being a defensive genius -- it took him a while to get there... He wrote that none of his fights were as tough as the Hank Griffin fights -- and the greatest punishment he ever took in the prize ring came at the hands of Griffin... He didn't have much craft.

what source is that ?
I remember over at the cyber-boxing zone about 5 years ago,
there was a link to a series of newspaper articles from the ealy 1930's if I remember correctly of another little known Jack Johnson autobiography
it only appeared in the Saskatoon Canada newspapers,and was obviously ghost written as it had none of the flavour of Jack Johnson's
earlier autobiographies. It sounded more like a newsreporter just wrote down the facts that Johnson gave him him and left out the flavour
when he wrote the series.

[keithmoonhangover]

No stupid... Marciano had an A plus chin... He was knocked down by a Light Heavyweight... Dempsey had an A-plus chin... Tunney decked him... Jim Jeffries had an A-plus chin Jack Johnson not only put him down but stopped him.. James Toney was decked by Reggie Johnson and Roy Jones.

If you're grading on an A, B, C, D, F scale...using Plus, Blank, and Minus for each letter... That's only 15 different ratings.. An A-plus chin would put you in the top 6.7% -- so it actually wouldn't be that outstanding.. A more accurate rating system would rank fighters to the 99th percentile.

So there are exactly 6.7% of boxers in each of your 15 dumb arse categories? Wow, what a coincidence.

[Kalan]

No stupid... Marciano had an A plus chin... He was knocked down by a Light Heavyweight... Dempsey had an A-plus chin... Tunney decked him... Jim Jeffries had an A-plus chin Jack Johnson not only put him down but stopped him.. James Toney was decked by Reggie Johnson and Roy Jones.

If you're grading on an A, B, C, D, F scale...using Plus, Blank, and Minus for each letter... That's only 15 different ratings.. An A-plus chin would put you in the top 6.7% -- so it actually wouldn't be that outstanding.. A more accurate rating system would rank fighters to the 99th percentile.

So there are exactly 6.7% of boxers in each of your 15 dumb arse categories? Wow, what a coincidence.

No. You get an F for that dumb assed post -- the category for dumb assed remarks... A-plus is for the elite -- and the F series for dumb asses

[keithmoonhangover]

No stupid... Marciano had an A plus chin... He was knocked down by a Light Heavyweight... Dempsey had an A-plus chin... Tunney decked him... Jim Jeffries had an A-plus chin Jack Johnson not only put him down but stopped him.. James Toney was decked by Reggie Johnson and Roy Jones.

If you're grading on an A, B, C, D, F scale...using Plus, Blank, and Minus for each letter... That's only 15 different ratings.. An A-plus chin would put you in the top 6.7% -- so it actually wouldn't be that outstanding.. A more accurate rating system would rank fighters to the 99th percentile.

So there are exactly 6.7% of boxers in each of your 15 dumb arse categories? Wow, what a coincidence.

No. You get an F for that dumb assed post -- the category for dumb assed remarks... A-plus is for the elite -- and the F series for dumb asses

No, I understand how the alphabet works. You say an A+ chin puts you in the top 6.7 percent. Which is 100/15. So are you saying all the other categories have 6.7% of boxers in them?

[Kalan]

Only theoretically... You would try to grade the fighters on that basis but human error gets involved.. You're going to get 8% in one category and 5% in another... With grade inflation many more students end up having A's than D's, just because A's are so much more pleasing to parents and nobody complains about getting them "unfairly." ... If you hand out too many D's and C's you won't be a teacher at that school for long.

[scorpio83]

Here we go with that argument over the differences of the rated chin.

[keithmoonhangover]

Only theoretically... You would try to grade the fighters on that basis but human error gets involved.. You're going to get 8% in one category and 5% in another... With grade inflation many more students end up having A's than D's, just because A's are so much more pleasing to parents and nobody complains about getting them "unfairly." ... If you hand out too many D's and C's you won't be a teacher at that school for long.

I'm confused. You said Jack Johnson was among the top 6.7% in terms of chins. Now you're saying you plucked that number out of the sky. Shame on you Kalan.

Either way you're wrong. The highest rated boxer's chins are boxer that have never been down, followed by boxers who have never been knocked down. Johnson was down and out on occasion. He is one of my favorite boxers, but he isn't in the A+ category, no way.

[Taansend]

I don't get involved in P4P stuff but Johnson was as good as any Heavy. He was throwing combos at a time when most fighters were throwing swinging caveman punches.

And people applaud Ali for putting up with out of the ring politics but Johnsons was Ali x 1,000,000.

An incredible man in & out of the ring.

[Taansend]

Only theoretically... You would try to grade the fighters on that basis but human error gets involved.. You're going to get 8% in one category and 5% in another... With grade inflation many more students end up having A's than D's, just because A's are so much more pleasing to parents and nobody complains about getting them "unfairly." ... If you hand out too many D's and C's you won't be a teacher at that school for long.

I'm confused. You said Jack Johnson was among the top 6.7% in terms of chins. Now you're saying you plucked that number out of the sky. Shame on you Kalan.

Either way you're wrong. The highest rated boxer's chins are boxer that have never been down, followed by boxers who have never been knocked down. Johnson was down and out on occasion. He is one of my favorite boxers, but he isn't in the A+ category, no way.

There's no right or wrong, Chaps. Just different opinions.

[Kalan]

Only theoretically... You would try to grade the fighters on that basis but human error gets involved.. You're going to get 8% in one category and 5% in another... With grade inflation many more students end up having A's than D's, just because A's are so much more pleasing to parents and nobody complains about getting them "unfairly." ... If you hand out too many D's and C's you won't be a teacher at that school for long.

I'm confused. You said Jack Johnson was among the top 6.7% in terms of chins. Now you're saying you plucked that number out of the sky. Shame on you Kalan.

Either way you're wrong. The highest rated boxer's chins are boxer that have never been down, followed by boxers who have never been knocked down. Johnson was down and out on occasion. He is one of my favorite boxers, but he isn't in the A+ category, no way.

You're always confused. If You're rating fighters on an A, B, C, D, and F basis that splits them into five categories. The top 20% being the A category for good strong chins, and the bottom 20% being the F Category for defective chins. If you want to further break that down into A+ A and A- their would be approximately 6.7% in each category. Since fewer than 1% of boxers who have 40 or more fights never get knocked down, rating their chins A-plus is an understatement for somebody that tough.

If you rate a girl a "10" in beauty that wouldn't mean she's super sizzling hot. But if you say "She's got T&A that doesn't quit. On a scale of 10 she's a 15" that creates a picture of a smoking hot babe that most guys would probably agree to date if they trust you're not exaggerating. For a category as inclusive as A-plus, Johnson easily fits. If you said he had one of the strongest chins ever, that may not be accurate. Although I don't believe Willard hurt him in the slightest, and I'm not on board with the Choynski KO either. That fight was stopped by the police so I doubt a 10-count was issued.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I don't get involved in P4P stuff but Johnson was as good as any Heavy. He was throwing combos at a time when most fighters were throwing swinging caveman punches.

And people applaud Ali for putting up with out of the ring politics but Johnsons was Ali x 1,000,000.

An incredible man in & out of the ring.

Great fighter, shit man.

[Taansend]

I don't get involved in P4P stuff but Johnson was as good as any Heavy. He was throwing combos at a time when most fighters were throwing swinging caveman punches.

And people applaud Ali for putting up with out of the ring politics but Johnsons was Ali x 1,000,000.

An incredible man in & out of the ring.

Great fighter, poo man.

I thinks his life was a bit more complex than that mate

[Caractacus]

True... But he didn't start his career being a defensive genius -- it took him a while to get there... He wrote that none of his fights were as tough as the Hank Griffin fights -- and the greatest punishment he ever took in the prize ring came at the hands of Griffin... He didn't have much craft.

I just remembered the source of that.
page 47 of Jack Johnson's 1927 autobiography IN THE RING AND OUT.
(I can not recall the quote,but Johnson said those fights with him were his most"severest".

Hank Griffin was known as "the Mummy",because he had a "skeletal build" at 6'4 inches all,
and the claim that you could't see him when he turned sideways
Like Johnson he was a skilled defensive fighter(although somewhat laid-back) whose best punch was a short jolting right uppercut.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I don't get involved in P4P stuff but Johnson was as good as any Heavy. He was throwing combos at a time when most fighters were throwing swinging caveman punches.

And people applaud Ali for putting up with out of the ring politics but Johnsons was Ali x 1,000,000.

An incredible man in & out of the ring.

Great fighter, poo man.

I thinks his life was a bit more complex than that mate

He was a massive asshole

[Taansend]

Great fighter, poo man.

I thinks his life was a bit more complex than that mate

He was a massive asshole

What about his heroics during the Galveston Hurricane in 1900?

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I thinks his life was a bit more complex than that mate

He was a massive asshole

What about his heroics during the Galveston Hurricane in 1900?

What about them?

[Taansend]

He was a massive asshole

What about his heroics during the Galveston Hurricane in 1900?

What about them?

So you admit he's a hero then

[cfang]

I rarely disagree with saad but I think Johnson was a great man and legendary fighter. His chin is at least an a. Seeing Flynn head butt him repeatedly shows he had an iron chin. I think he was like a heavy turn of the century mayweather as a fighter. He’s my number 3 all time heavy.