Johnson Ketchel knockdown set up fake

It looked fake to me, and yes the punch misses his head. I think it was faked to make the film more dramatic and sell better. It wouldnt have sold as well if it had been the one sided beating Johnson could have dished out.

There are a couple of times Ketchel starts to go down and Johnson grabs him under the arms and lifts him up like a child.

 

The point for a fake KD would be to sell a longer, more exciting film and to get major bank on a rematch.

I am not entirely convinced it is fake. It looks like Johnson is ducking what he can see is coming but gets clipped on the back of the head. Furthermore, what would be the point of him flattening Ketchel so viciously if only the KD was a set up? I think the whole thing was staged to go 10 for a more lucrative rematch. Ketchel went against script. Johnson got angry and gave him a new smile.

 

Johnson appears to be falling before the punch lands,if it indeed lands.
He had agreed to take it easy on Ketchel, and did, as can clearly be seen.

I think Ketchel got frisky ,Johnson saw it coming, went down to make it look good ,and decided to take revenge once he arose.

 

Exactly.

 

Gunboat Smith was interviewed before his death and spoke about this fight. He was a sparring partner for JJ and was at ringside for this bout. He stated that the KD of JJ was faked by Johnson because he wanted a reason to KO Ketchel. He stated that JJ was going down before the punch was thrown. Johnson got up and then flattened Ketchel with his first blow. Smith said JJ could have ended the fight at any time.

 

Houdini u took the words right outta my mouth
That was in the Heller book

 

Is it surprising to anyone that Johnson was killed while he was champion for all those years.. I mean the amount of hate exhiibited towards him during that time... all with him easily available to be shot during exhibition and shows... Does it surprise anyone that this never happened?

 

:deal. Sounds exactly right

 

Funny I have thought many times that Johnson was lucky not to be killed by some redneck or indeed be the victim of an organised assassination

 

Mendoza says Johnson was clearly hurt and ,so groggy he lost his balance when he was upright.I've always said he wasn't so groggy he couldn't take Ketchel out with one shot. Apparently Ketchel was out for over 10 minutes.

 

Johnson hit Ketchel plenty prior to the KO. If there was some sort of agreement between the two, I find it hard to believe that Ketchel would agree to a busted up face to enhance movie ticket sales. No newspaper I read questioned the knockdown. The film might be missing frames.

Johnson went down from a punch, rolled over, had to brace himself to get up, and lost his balance and fell forward when he delivered the finishing blow.

Then after that, he rested on the ropes when Ketchel was counted out. Fighters who are buzzed tend to lose balance and rest on the ropes as Johnson did. Johnson balance on film is rather good, so him falling forward again is a telltale sign he was in fact still buzzed from the punch that Ketchel landed. Johnson's fall looks natural to me, and that is hard to fake.

My take is Johnson was caught, a little hurt, embarrassed, and went for a finish before Ketchel could land another wild blow. The story of the fix came after Ketchel’s death. If this was a fix or pre-arranged match, it becomes a slippery slope for Johnson. What other fights of his were “ fixed “?

 

To suggest fix the way we see it now may be wrong .there are I am sure quite a few fights in the first ten to twenty years of the last century after all a number of boxers seem to have fought each other quite a few times I am not suggesting these fights were fixed but there may have been an arrangement in place as to not take two much out of each other and fight again somewhere else a couple of weeks later. So Johnson and ketchel could well of made an arrangement concerning length of fight and closeness of contest to perhaps gain in a future rematch