The reports Senya put up contradict each other. Mendoza is correct when he says reports are hit and miss with knockdowns. We shall never know, unless someone has been hiding a well-preserved and complete fight film for a century, and it gets discovered. Extremely unlikely.
Today knockdowns are 10-8 rounds or multiple knock down round 10-7. This was a finish fight. There was no scoring by the judges or ref so there was no official knockdown count either.
Here people here is a great link, thanks to Mr Andrew Senior from England who is another great researcher.. This is literally full of great rare memorabilia and news reports. http://www.joejennette.com/SamMacVeyVsJoeJennette17April1909.html
That many knockdowns is not something ordinary, that all of next-day report wouldn't care to mention them.
Actually I was just wondering who you were and here you suddenly pop up... I now play the theme from the TV classic series THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Cirque de Paris - Sam MacVey Vs Joe Jennette - April 17, 1909 “I have to affirm, I, Joe Jennette, have never fought as hard a combat as I have against Sam MacVey... The matches of forty- nine rounds are rare, and even rarer those where the combatants show similar eagerness. I have triumphed and I regard this victory as the most beautiful success of my career... I had the greatest confidence in the ending of my match. Initially I had followed a very serious methodical training regimen, which put me in danger of overtraining. I remembered a useful lesson from our previous meeting. I had only one fear, that was to be the victim of an accident, like an injury to an arm muscle. In truth, in the twenty-fifth round, I hurt my right hand, but I overcame the pain and did not show my weakness to my adversary. But this wasn’t the only incident which really worried me; the other incident coming from the fact, of course, that in the twentieth round, I was almost put out of combat. “Sam MacVey hit me a terrible blow directly on my nose. The blow came so quickly, was so brutal, that I did not realize I was on the ground. I fell back, my arms crossed, and most surprised when I rose, was poor Sam, who I have been told, had danced the jig, at seeing my prone body. In the twenty-first round, I found the ground again, by a violent left hook to the jaw. I feared I would not be fresh enough to continue the fight, but, thanks to the energetic care of my marvelous seconds, Dan McKetrick, Willie Lewis, and those that helped them, I became myself again after the rest. “Until the thirtieth round I had but one objective: to damage Sam MacVey. And I took from some of the applause from the spectators, that I carried out my desires. Besides that indicator, despite all of my efforts, I could not arrive to knock out this colossus, so I changed my tactics. I simply changed my tactic to force Sam to give up, by my repeated blows to the sides and to the stomach. And be certain that the fact that he gave up in the forty-ninth round, was only thanks to the violent number of these blows which one could say could break one in two. “I was very happy with my victory, I highly state that I have never met a man as resistant as Sam. He is better than Johnson as a puncher, that fact is indubitable. He is less of a scientist, but his endurance and his power would enable him to claim victory in a match until the finish with the current heavyweight champion of the world. And as for my part, I would strongly support and bet on the chances of Sam MacVey.” It is obvious that one cannot pay enough beautiful homage to the courageous Californian.
The newspapers in USA liked sensations. Sporting journalists were happy to print stories they knew were not true, if they considered them interesting for readers to help sell papers. I don't think they would have missed this chance.
Still we don't know how many KDs occurred in the fight. It's okay to say 38 or 46 KDs didn't happen, or whatever, but we still don't know how many did.
Sounds like Jeanette thinks Sam McVey would have beaten Johnson. Mcvey in his prime in 1909 would have been Johnson's most formidable title defense, and if we are talking 20-25 rounds might have won. The victories Johnson had over McVey mean little as he was a teenager and very raw when then meet.
Yes that is clearly what Jeanette says and means and you know what I do think a prime McVey beats Johnson in a FINISH fight and I declare I think Joe Jeanette would have too and I think Johnson sorta fears this as a distinct possibility and draws the bloody colour line the hypocrite. In the end these three are a very interesting mix of styles and on any particular day the results could vary a lot. From the film I have seen with Joe fighting Langford in their tenth meeting Joe reminds me a bit of Ali to be honest, he is unusual to me in that he seems to be great on the outside and has some Ali type traits, in fact like Ali in some ways but more orthodox, he seems at least on a par in skills with Jack Johnson and more modern looking than all four of these great brown men.