Jack Johnson Agrees To defend Against Sam McVey For $30,000

Jeffries here, his comments, are to let the PUBLIC know he would not go against the expected norm of the color line and give a black a chance of winning the championship.

He is not quite obviously announcing to the world that he is afraid to fight a black hwt. He fought a goodly percentage of his bouts against black men.

 

And you blindly believe his account of events without acknowledging researcher bias as a factor in his story telling?
Sugar is a legitimate respected world famous boxing historian who appears on countless documentaries, bios, boxing programmes and who has been quoted in dozens of boxing books.
Sugar is 1000% more reliable than some unknown writer and fan that only a handful of people have heard of.

 

They drew the colour line because they could, it meant they didn't have to fight the best fighters.
Its that simple.

 

In terms of Jeffries this is absolutely untrue.

The norm.....what was EXPECTED from the PUBLIC of all white hwt champions was an announcement that the champion would not allow a black man a chance at winning the championship. The reason? A black hwt champion signifies that a black man could physically defeat any man in the world (in the white publics mind....,every white man in the world). This was in an era where the white man was doing all he could to ensure the black man was thought of as not on the white mans level....even sub human. A black hwt champion was thought of as the beginning of the end of white man dominance. Lots of phycological and social implications FAR FAR deeper than simply Jeffries being afraid to fight a black man. If you believe that you have very superficial knowledge of the time period.

 

Sure Bert told a few tales but sugar was on a much larger platform and so more open to being criticized.
Primary sources, facts can't be questioned but intangible details about Johnson such as what he thought about defending against black challengers certainly can be and Bias certainly plays its part in opinions and Pollack is not exempt.

 

But the fights never happened.
Can you explain why he only fought one black fighter after wining the title despite dozens beforehand?
Im not trying to criticize anyone, just stating what seems obvious, don't be so defensive.

 

Sugar was more a huckster than a true boxing historian IMO.

 

You may well be right on that one.

 

Sugar was not even aware that Foreman was counted out in the eighth round vs Ali. Sugar was allot of talk without much thought behind his words.

 

Seeing as he watched it live i'm sure he was aware of what was going on in front of his eyes.
Whether or not it slipped his mind at one time in his life doesn't really mean much.