So, after reading Jack Johnson's biography (not the one written by himself that is mostly fictional) I watched some hours of old-timer boxing action. Some thoughts from the guys mentioned above Jeffries His technique looks plain stupid, crouching down and holding his left hand extented. Considering that he had long fights and that he scored several KOs against good opposition, it seems that he was physically a very strong man (sort of mini-sized George Foreman) and he took punches very well, but technically he was even worse than I remembered. Impossible to see him doing well against any champion after Johnson. Johnson According to Australian boxing experts of his day, Johnson did things wrong as he kept his weight on his front foot instead of leaning back. He seems to have pretty fleet feet. His stance was a weird one as he stood nearly squared to his opponents and kept his hands by his sides. However, since punching back then meant either looping shots from outside or 5-inch quick punches inside, from his long distance he blocked punches seemingly well. At close, he wrestled very much and muscled his opponents inside. Two thing that Johnson did extremely well considering his era: he was able to make room for himself inside and fire quick short uppercuts effectively. That technique would still look good today, though it must be noted that nobody had an idea of how to defend it. Also, Johnson threw a well-schooled jab, unlike any of his opponents I saw (Burns, Flynn, Ketchel, Jeffries, Moran). A straight punch such as that was revolutionary I guess, as he landed it every time. He didn't have much behind it, but with those thin gloves it must have been hurtful Johnson followed his opponents around but hardly ever lead, instead he waited for the opponent to attack and mostly wrestled instead of punching. He would be booed out of most fights these days Dempsey Dempsey renewed inside punching technique some, but I am not sure how he would have done with Johnson. Dempsey came in quickly and had some kind of crouch, but he was easy to hit even in his day. The big deal was that he had an idea to try to slip punches on his way in but he did it rather poorly. Much of his fights consisted on him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his opponent and exchanging short hooks. They had more impact than the 5-inch shots of the generation before him, but with such style Dempsey would be easy meat again for Ingemar Johanson or anyone better than him. Dempsey had pretty quick moves and some of his punches seem to carry great power, such as the one which he clipped Sharkey with. Then again he landed plenty against the dwarf Tommy Gibbons and didn't do any harm. Charles His fights were on the same DVDs even though he is in different class to the others. He seems very quick and sharp even by today's standards, he kept a good pace in his fights and seemed to have power. Biggest differences to the best of later fighters are that he looped with his punches much more than guys now and he seemed pretty easy to hit. Also, Charles looked pretty small for a modern lt-heavy (understandably so)
Good post. It's cliche of course but their crude styles were just products of the level the sport was at when they competed in it. Johnson's biggest weapons imo that set him apart were his straight jab and quick feet. You also bring up a great point about his use of uppercuts on the inside which I had never really thought about. Dempsey was just a little ball of fire. I think most people see him as a crude fighter that wouldn't last with any of the more competent heavyweight champions that came after him, and while I do think Dempsey is overrated to this day, I would like to give him some benefit of the doubt if he had been brought up in a different era that he could have adapted his style a bit and made some noise. Which Ezzard Charles fights were on your DVD?
Agreed with your overall take. Almost all of the footage of Charles is of him well over the hill, unfortunately. If you watch the first Wallcott fight he hardly takes a clean shot.....5 years later he's eating a bunch and you can see that his balance and coordination have slid quite allot.athetic: Re: looping punches, it's worth paying attention to when they're thrown. Allot of the time it's the wide right to the body for instance, thrown to close off a man moving to his left & timed when a counter left hook less of a threat. A 'cut off shot'. Foreman threw it allot. Often other looping shots like the loaded up left hooks are thrown when a man was caught off balance moving back, or in a pronounced lean. Ray Robinson & Gavilan worked very similarly.....it looks wild initially but it's calculated.
The DVD I had included clips from several Charles fights but you are correct they probably don't show him at his best. There were some of his most famous fights and also fights against Brion, Maxim, Wallace etc. You do have a point about the looping shots but what I noted was that he hardly ever threw a non-looping hook in the fights I saw, even from close quarters. Perhaps these opponents were not good at countering at all, but most times Charles fires his hooks from lower than boxer's today, they seem to travel a longer distance
Yeah it's a fair point. Allot of it comes from the stance and weight distribution again - a modern short left hook transfers weight from the front to back foot, a hook off the back foot relies on opening up the hips wider to rotate. But it's a fair observation to say he wasn't as good as switching onto the front foot to throw shorter hooks inside as guys like Louis, Robinson, Toney, Duran.
True. Dempsey and Johnson make me laugh at loud. They were bums. Charles was good. Even guys like Rocky Marciano wouldn't last a round to a prime LEWIS OR TYSON. Hell even Wald Pussy der uBER Twink wins a ud over Rocky with ease.
I thought The artist winning an Oscar would bring back Ramonza but if this thread won't nothing will.
I think it is interesting that even though boxing in principal is a very simple sport, different times have different innovations and also different requirements for fighters. Jeffries only had little skill, but he had the physical abilities that made him too much for all his (white) timers
A lot of folks consider Charles as the best light heavyweight ever, but for my money the best was Bob Foster.
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ENjJBizFnb4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe> The first fight is unwatchable, quality wise, but watch from 2:15 onwards. Really great highlights.
