FROM THE BOOKS
Nobody knew just how good Jack Johnson really was, including Jack Johnson himself. Never bothering to combine delusions of grandeur with delusions of honesty, Johnson lived as he fought: unpredictably. A clever, scientific boxer the size of all Galveston, Johnson could move around the ring as gracefully as a cat, catching punches with his elbows, his hands, and upper portions of his arms, or time his blocks and parries to set up his opponent for alternate right or left thrusts to the head, all done with the ease of a featherweight. Like a bullet, each one of his gloves had someone's name written on it. Unfortunately, he would rarely pull the trigger, fighting each fight as if he were merely cruising on his batteries, using little or no energy, all the while smiling his sweet smiles of inscrutability. To assess Jack Johnson's place in boxing history is as difficult as attempting to categorize Shakespeare's Othello merely as a Moor. And as misleading. The rise and fall of Jack Johnson was shaped as much by his being black as by America's reaction to it, and in many ways, his was as much a preordained tragedy as that of Othello.

Bert Randolph Sugar-The 100 Greatest Boxers Of All Time
Jack Johnson ranked #13