Jack Johnson's legacy?

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Does anybody truly know how good JJ was?

Can he be honestly ranked in the upper echelons of the heavyweight division without certainty?

Having read about him, he is a bit of a hero to me. Anybody that can stick 2 fingers up to racist early 1900's America like he did & constantly fear for his life without appearing to care is all good in my book!!!!!

The question is, could anybody really say he was better than Ali or Holmes or Liston etc?

The films from that period are often grainy & not in real time, so you can't even gauge how quick or powerful he was.

I appreciate he was a supremely gifted boxer, but just how good was Johnson????

[Ezzard]

I think it's a question that we all ask ourselves regarding the champions from those days.

My belief is that we probably underrate these guys more than overrate them mainly due to the poor quality film available and the fact that so few fights were filmed.

We have to rely on reports of the times, but then again most of history is such and we have to accept the Roman Empire despite no centurions being on film, so maybe this isn't altogether such a bad thing.

What is obvious from film and reports is that Johnson is so much better than his contemporaries. There are drawbacks to his career but that's the same with any of the greats.

I rate Johnson as one of the elite HWs along with Ali, Louis and Holmes

[JC]

Here's a link to some good footage of Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrVyrSimXYs

I have him ranked 4th all time behind Louis, Ali and Holmes. I agree he is one of the harder HWs to rank due to the lack of film.

[dr_devious]

Good film footage - do these have sound cos my computer hasnt got a sound card?
I couldnt tell who he was fighting - the muscly guy who got stopped at the end was presumable Jeffries, the guy bigger than him Willard, and was the smaller guy with the bloody face Burns?
The one thing I noted that most of the guys were much smaller than Johnson, they didnt stand a chance

[JC]

There is music but obviously no commentary. I think the footage is of Jefferies, Willard, Burns and Jack O'Brien and Jim Flynn , it's a shame there's no availible footage (to my knowledge) of Johnson vs the other great black fighters of his era like McVea and Jeanette over whom he did not have such a large hight and weight advantage.