Jack Johnson verses Jess Willard

[Sand Man]

Johnson, on that day, could not touch Willard and he got hit by a big right hand from a 245 pound man after 26 rounds in the Caribbean sun. Game over for Johnson. Doubtful that Johnson would have gotten hit by that punch in his prime. Not so different than James Jeffries running out of gas and essentially collapsing from exhaustion on the "Great White Hope" fight some 5 years earlier. Jeffries took much worse beatings in his prime from the likes of Fitz and Sharkey and bulled his way to victories due to his massive strength and conditioning. For the Johnson fight, JJJ was a shell of his former self with no warm up fights. Big surprise that the fight ended like it did. Johnson was like Jeffries at the end - past their prime, out of fighting trim, and lost to age, essentially.

[beenKOed]

Johnson, on that day, could not touch Willard and he got hit by a big right hand from a 245 pound man after 26 rounds in the Caribbean sun. Game over for Johnson. Doubtful that Johnson would have gotten hit by that punch in his prime. Not so different than James Jeffries running out of gas and essentially collapsing from exhaustion on the "Great White Hope" fight some 5 years earlier. Jeffries took much worse beatings in his prime from the likes of Fitz and Sharkey and bulled his way to victories due to his massive strength and conditioning. For the Johnson fight, JJJ was a shell of his former self with no warm up fights. Big surprise that the fight ended like it did. Johnson was like Jeffries at the end - past their prime, out of fighting trim, and lost to age, essentially.

We all do, eventually. The supreme equalizer and the ultimate slap in the face, old age.

[Beanflicker]

I don't buy that "shielding his eyes" shit for one second. Even with the old footage, you could see Willard land that huge right FLUSH on the chin, and I've seen a TON of guys go down over the years who instinctively held their arms over their head due to being completely disoriented and going on pure instinct, even on the ground. He got knocked out, plain and simple.

And I don't get why he would brag about that, anyhow. I guess it was different and taking a dive was more accepted back then? But if a world champ got knocked out now and said "well I wasn't really knocked out I just threw the fight"... that would just make that fighter look 10x worse.