“I’ve always been interested in constants in combat and how certain fighter types adapt and others don’t. Let’s say we have a time machine. What happens if we match up the consummate killer—this Liver-Eating Johnson guy, with the top UFC guys, like John Jones? How much of what this guy does translates to the other guy’s environment?”
Thanks for the stimulating question David.
Overall
The first thing we do is look for ‘game changing’ ability; something uniquely outstanding that will serve as a constant in any situation.
With Jones it would be his freakish athletic ability. You can never count out a guy that can pull something out of the biomechanical hat that we could only dream of. The fact is we rarely see this in top fighters as they tend to be evenly matched and have much of their potential nullified by an equal. The modern professional of Jones’ caliber just has more ability than athletes of previous ages due to the attention of specialized sports medicine and a long evolution in training.
In any combat situation psychology is as important as physicality, and the more lethal the combat, the more the mental outweighs the physical. Having survived 10 times as many life and death combats—including a fight with a grisly and a mountain lion in a wintry cave—Liver-Eating Johnson has a huge psychological advantage over Jones in most situations. Jones, mind you, has never fought to the death.
Physically Jones is a light heavyweight and Johnson is a heavyweight. However, Jones has superior athleticism, so in unarmed combat I will call it even before considering the psychology, environmental and skill set factors.
In The Cage
Officiated MMA combat is the only area that favors Jones psychologically. The rules would fluster Johnson who could be expected to fall victim to any number of techniques, or be disqualified for biting or gouging.
Where Life is Scarce
Johnson fought almost all of his mortal combats alone but for his opponent in natural settings from caves, to woods, to riverbanks and starlit campsites. The aloneness would be alien to Jones. In the natural setting I will give odds for Johnson over Jones like so:
1. Unarmed, summer 1-2
2. Unarmed, autumn 1-1
3. Unarmed, winter 2-1
4. Knife, summer 1-1
5. Knife, autumn 2-1
6. Knife, winter 4-1
7. Mixed hand weapons, 4-1
8. Any nighttime combat, 10-1
9. Any mounted combat, 20-1
10. Any battle situation, 30-1
11. Any one-to-one handgun combat, 40-1
12. Hunting one another with rifles, traps, secondary weapons, etc. 100-1
Remember that Johns fights naked under tropical conditions, not heavily encumbered by the clothes he would need to survive in winter.
The Alley Test
When I consider such things as the character of great combatants I like to bring it down to the ‘alley’ or close hard setting. From caves, to canyons, to narrow medieval streets, to car crowded parking lots, and our own modern alley, much of mankind’s most desperate hand-to-hand combat has occurred close to a dwelling or rock formation, either during a raid or an assault on a community, dwelling or fortification.
In examining all the variable attributes and skill sets that UFC Light Heavyweight Champion John ‘Bones’ Jones and Champion of the Mountain Men John ‘Crow-Killer,’ ‘Liver-Eating’ Johnson bring to the classic close fight, I would have to call it even. If both fighters engage unarmed it favors Jones until that point where a wall, a rock, a pipe, or a brick comes into play, then it swings to the weapon fighter’s advantage. Keep in mind that Johnson once engaged two large knife-armed Sioux warriors at the same time before numerous witnesses, and killed them with his hands. So, where as in the cage Jones has the tactical advantage, and in the wilderness situations Johnson has the tactical advantage, if we put them both in an unarmed situation with available improvised weapons—like in a barroom—then I would say it is even, with the early portion favoring Jones and the outcome tilting toward Johnson the longer the fight goes.
Conclusion
The main problem with considering fighters of the past against fighters of the present is that our top name fighters have never handled a weapon, and the ancients thought fighting without a weapon was purely secondary, as a man was judged by his armed status. In my mind there are two more interesting questions to ask:
1. What if we sent a Navy SEAL back into the Rockies in the 1850s and assigned him to take out Johnson with period weapons?
2. What if we sent John Jones back to the same period and had him live, hunt and fight by Johnson’s side for a decade, eating raw Crow Indian livers after each fight? I don’t know if we’d want John back.
What would that look like?
Interesting question! As much as MMA currently is the closest thing we have to regulated combat, it is still a SPORT. I have no doubt that in no rules life or death combat many of the historical figures (including gladiators of much earlier times) would beat and kill the best of MMA fighters in a life or death match. As you know, and both of us have said: It would be great to see a full contact MMA weapons type match (stick is appropriate).
I think, when we get to the gladiators like Aptus of Alexandria who was undefeated in 37 death matches, what you have is a killer instinct of a high order. When it is all on the line and there are no rules that is a huge deal. Below is one example of the different psychology in sports combat.
In the late 90s I watched a K-1 type event in America, at which Don 'The Dragon' Wilson and Roy Jones Junior both commentated. At a certain point one fighter was in trouble. Don and Roy pointed this out at the same time. Don recommended a certain finishing technique—had deduced the fighter's trouble technically. Roy just said, 'he ready to go" indicating it was time to jump on him; indicating that he basically just smelled blood in the water. That is an example of two related sports, that, just from the addition of kicks, results in fighter psychology being different. They are both sporting forms but boxing offers fewer options and is more conducive to instinctual action.
With weapon fighters who have fought to the death often, what you have is Don's cool's technical assessment paired with Roy's wolfish instinct—that is nasty; that's Aptus, Liver-Eater, etc.