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Originally Posted by highthief
I think you are correct to give Johnson credit for his defensive skills but understand the context - he was an innovator, among the first to successfully adopt certain techniques of defense. This made him, in his day, a great fighter.
But the person to do it first is not neccessarily the best - in fact, he is almost always NOT the best and is inevitably succeeded by people who do it better.
It's like the first few times a team played 4-4-2 - a complete shock to the system, and no one knew how to handle such an approach. Now, it's old hat.
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I think that that is a very good point, but I take a different angle.
Gentleman Jim Corbett was the first fighter (or first champion anyway) to really concentrate on defence, but Johnson was a master counter puncher and really was the perfect defensive fighter imo.
Now, in terms of pure technique and stance, did Johnson have a better defense than, say, Sugar Ray Leonard? Absolutely not... but I think that the person who breaks the paradigm, which is what Johnson did deserves more credit than people who follow.
And in argument between era's... you have to look at the context of what people achieve. Johnson was so skillful, such a clever fighter, so mentally strong - I think in any era he would excel. If he was fighting today he would have the benefit of far better training, far better tactics and styles developed over decades... and I think he would be as unhittable today as he was in his prime.
And in terms of context - I dont want to over stress it, but Johnson entered the ring with the very real possibility of being lynched and killed every time he fought a white fighter.
Different styles make fights... my personal opinion is that raw sluggers like Louis, Dempsey, Marciano - who were all awesome sluggers - would have just been picked apart by a defensive master like Johnson.
A quicker fighter like Ali or Tyson would have given Johnson a lot more problems.