Your Top 10 HW's Of Jack Johnson's Reign

[Seamus]

1908-1915

Mine

1.Sam Langford
2.Joe Jeannette
3.Sam McVea
4.Gunboat Smith
5.Harry Wills
6.Luther McCarty
7.Jess Willard
8.Carl Morris
9.Jim Coffey
10.Frank Moran

[Ambling Alp]

Interesting topic. (I assume we are not including Johnson himself) That is a pretty good list. Wills was a better fighter than Smith, but was not a real threat until 1914. I would also consider Flynn and O'Brien.

1. Langford
2. Jeannette
3. McVey
4. Wills
4. Smith
6. McCarty
7. Willard
8. Flynn
9. Moran
10. Coffey

Morris and O'Brien just missed.
The top 3 are very close.

[Seamus]

Think I may have to revise my rankings, as I somehow overlooked Battling Levinsky. During Johnson's reign he beat Jim Coffey 3 times, Fireman Jim Flynn twice, Porky Dan Flynn twice, and had a win a draw and a loss against Gunboat Smith.

[Ambling Alp]

Yeah I completely overlooked him as well. I just don't think of him as a heavyweight, but he did have some success against some decent heavyweights. Maybe Jack Dillon as well. Georges Carpentier might be deserving of an honorable mention.

[Seamus]

Jack Dillon also beat the Flynn's and Gunboat Smith, though I wouldn't put him in the top 10 because of it. Quite in achievement for his weight though.

[pound per pound]

I would say

1.Sam Langford
2.Joe Jeannette
3.Sam McVea
4.Gunboat Smith
5.Harry Wills
6.Luther McCarty
7.Jess Willard
8. Jack O'brien
9. Jack Dillion
10.Frank Moran

Johnson's title reign to me is a huge disappointment as he missed on title fights vs. multiple hall of fame boxers.

Upon making the list something dawned on me. Johnson is only 1-1-1 vs. the #7 to #10 man on my list, and was knocked silly in a sparring session by Gunboat Smith in 1909. If I did not put Moran at #10, Johnson would not win a match vs the best ten fighters during his championship reign.

[Seamus]

It is a real indictment of Johnson, that he avoided fighting at least the 5 best fighters of his reign.

[Ambling Alp]

It is. He probably would have beat Langford, Jeanette, and McVey early in his title reign, before he got too old. However, the bottom line is that he didn't. Had he defended the title successfully against those guys, he would deserve to be rated even higher.

The risk vs reward just wan't enough to motivate him to do it. If McCarty would not have died he probably would have fought him.

[donnellon]

Jeff Clarke has to be in there.

[Seamus]

Good catch on Jeff Clark. Think I'll revise my listings.

[pound per pound]

Good catch on Jeff Clark. Think I'll revise my listings.

Aye. Look at who Clark beat.

[Seamus]

BUMP

[Caractacus]

An actual Heavyweight or Heavyweight fighter(fighter who fought heavyweights that is)
What was Joe Choynski's ranking when Johnson defeated Tommy Burns anyway ?

[Caractacus]

I had alsways heard that Al Palzer was pretty good.
and that Johnson was going to fight him at one point sometime over in Europe.
why wasn't he even mentioned here?

[Kalan]

It is a real indictment of Johnson, that he avoided fighting at least the 5 best fighters of his reign.

He beat your top 3 guys 9 times and was never beaten by them except on a foul by Jeanette in a fight he was dominating according to the media... He can't fight everybody all the time...especially when he's a fugitive for most of his reign. Johnson was generally noted as the best Heavyweight of his era and Wills was the 2nd best. Langford had a loss, win, and draw with Dave Holly, a lightweight of the period -- among other poor showings.

It's interesting to see so many Lightweights of that time -- guys like Dave Holly, Jeff Clark, Jack Blackburn, and Joe Gans, fought men much larger then themselves, even big Heavyweights like Harry Wills.. It's difficult to rank fighters when you can't see good footage of them actually fighting.. You have no idea how good their defense or weapons were except from their records and newspaper coverage. That is often like judging -- various people watching the same action and seeing different outcomes... If I were to rank them from available data it'd be something like:

1 Johnson.. 2 Wills.. 3 Langford.. 4 Jeanette.. 5 McVey.. 6 Childs.. 7 Martin.. 8 Moran.. 9 Coffey.. 10 Jim Johnson

[Kalan]

I had alsways heard that Al Palzer was pretty good.
and that Johnson was going to fight him at one point sometime over in Europe.
why wasn't he even mentioned here?

Because he had the look of a fat and uncoordinated farm boy like Willard -- but even more so... McCarty knocked him kicking and so did several others -- leading to his early exit from the profession after losing 6 of his final 7 fights -- including a 1-round KO loss to one Andre Anderson, who was 0-3 at the time.

[Caractacus]

How do you think Carl Morris would have done against Jack Johnson if he was allowed to use his 'dirty" tatics ?

[Caractacus]

where is Fred Fulton ?
he sounded kind of good,in the beginning anyway ?
I think you guys are holding too many of the "loses"
that some of the White Hopes had had especialy early on
in their careers when they were just getting some ring expirence under their belts.

[Seamus]

Fulton had shown promise by the end of 1915 but hadn't peaked yet.

[Kalan]

where is Fred Fulton ?
he sounded kind of good,in the beginning anyway ?
I think you guys are holding too many of the "loses"
that some of the White Hopes had had especialy early on
in their careers when they were just getting some ring expirence under their belts.

A peak Dempsey blew Fulton away in 19 seconds... Then Fulton won his next 20 fights in a row, beating big names like Sam Langford, Frank Moran, John Lester Johnson, Gunboat Smith, and Willie Meehan among others ... only to get knocked out quickly by Harry Wills in his next fight... He was a tall southpaw with a long reach, a boxing style, and a KO punch. I met Fulton when I was about 25 and he was about 80.

[pound per pound]

If I were to rank them from available data it'd be something like:

1 Johnson.. 2 Wills.. 3 Langford.. 4 Jeanette.. 5 McVey.. 6 Childs.. 7 Martin.. 8 Moran.. 9 Coffey.. 10 Jim Johnson

Hey flat earth guy, does it bother you that Johnson only beat one man on your list as champion from 1908-1915? He also has a draw vs Jim Johnson. The fight was scored by one judge for Jim, the other two judges had it a draw.

If a champion is to be defended by whom he defeated, Johnson beat no one.

Imagine if Ali avoided Liston, Frazier, Norton, Foreman, Lyle, Shavers, Young, and the rest of the top ten in his time, and only had a win over Quarry and a draw with Bob Foster to show for it?

[Kalan]

If I were to rank them from available data it'd be something like:

1 Johnson.. 2 Wills.. 3 Langford.. 4 Jeanette.. 5 McVey.. 6 Childs.. 7 Martin.. 8 Moran.. 9 Coffey.. 10 Jim Johnson

Hey flat earth guy, does it bother you that Johnson only beat one man on your list as champion from 1908-1915? He also has a draw vs Jim Johnson. The fight was scored by one judge for Jim, the other two judges had it a draw.

If a champion is to be defended by whom he defeated, Johnson beat no one.

Imagine if Ali avoided Liston, Frazier, Norton, Foreman, Lyle, Shavers, Young, and the rest of the top ten in his time, and only had a win over Quarry and a draw with Bob Foster to show for it?

Look dummy, Johnson beat guys on that list 11 times and Langford, Jennette and McVey 8 times.. No need to beat the same guys over and over again..

[Seamus]

No need to risk your title against guys who got much better than when you beat them. Langford was 156 the only time Johnson fought him and McVea was only 19 the last time they fought.

[Kalan]

I had no idea McVey got such an early start -- a regular Mike Tyson... Too bad McVey couldn't sustain that and wipe out a few ranked Heavyweights...

Sam Langford certainly did well.. Too bad he had losses to little Gunboat Smith and Lightweight Jeff Clark during Johnson's reign or he probably would have gotten a Title Fight... Harry Wills didn't really get started until 2011. The Panther didn't get his skills going until 2015. He was too early for Johnson -- kind of like Joshua nearly missing his great fight with Klitschko because of their 14-year age gap and massive experience gap.

Jeanette certainly could have gotten a Title Fight... But Multiple losses to Sam Langford didn't help him any... He also lost to Jim Johnson, Jeff Clark, the debuting Jack Thompson, and Sam McVey during Johnson's reign... All those losses didn't help his situation.

[pound per pound]

I had no idea McVey got such an early start -- a regular Mike Tyson... Too bad McVey couldn't sustain that and wipe out a few ranked Heavyweights...

Sam Langford certainly did well.. Too bad he had losses to little Gunboat Smith and Lightweight Jeff Clark during Johnson's reign or he probably would have gotten a Title Fight... Harry Wills didn't really get started until 2011. The Panther didn't get his skills going until 2015. He was too early for Johnson -- kind of like Joshua nearly missing his great fight with Klitschko because of their 14-year age gap and massive experience gap.

Jeanette certainly could have gotten a Title Fight... But Multiple losses to Sam Langford didn't help him any... He also lost to Jim Johnson, Jeff Clark, the debuting Jack Thompson, and Sam McVey during Johnson's reign... All those losses didn't help his situation.

Sam McVea a Mike Tyson? Pretty laughable. At least your learning. Lesson number two is watch he film on McVea. He's nothing close to Mike Tyson. So Johnson beat McVea when he was a teenager, and rather in-experienced and Sam Langford as the other poster said when he was 156 pounds.

GunBoat Smith, who defeated good competition famously knocked Johnson down in a sparring contest. For a while he was worthy of a title shot, far better than the likes of Flynn and Moran.

I agree Wills was too young, but he wasn't quite as young as McVea was.