Which fight was the most historical significant?

Maybe you really had to be there to experience the significance of those events as they happened?

Don't suppose that can be applied to anyone posting here?

 

Louis KO Schmeling had to be the most significant.
Followed by Johnson KO Burns and Johnson KO Jeffries.

Johnsons fights represented the fight against racial oppression.
Whereas the Nazi regime was a common enemy to all races in America.

That's my best assessment short of living through those events.

 

Johnson-Jeffries by some distance. The least sportingly significant, but historically it was just a new chapter.

I'd probably have opposite ranking for these three in terms of sporting and historic significance.

 

Globally, it's Louis-Schmeling. And it's not even close.

Regarding Jack Johnson, the rest of the world didn't care if a black man fought for or won the heavyweight title ... it was just scandalous in the U.S. Black fighters were big draws all over the world. The U.S. is where they had their problems.

Ali-Frazier I generated widespread interest globally, because Ali was known all over the world and he had been forced out of the ring for more than three years by the U.S. government and the fight with Frazier was a big event. But the Vietnam angle surrounding Ali-Frazier I was really only a big deal, again, in the U.S. Most places, it was just a big sports story. Sort of like how the buildup of the Klitschko-Povetkin fight included the backstory of the battles/conflicts between Ukraine and Russia, but that aspect of the story didn't factor in to most of the rest of the world that wasn't really involved. It was just perceived to be a good matchup.

Louis-Schmeling had true global interest, because the entire world was choosing up sides (either with Hitler or against him and preparing for conflict on the battlefield), and Schmeling was one of the biggest sports stars in the world, and a huge player in Nazi propaganda at a time when boxing was the top sport in the world.

Globally, it was more a fight about ideology. That's true in the U.S., too. If it hadn't been for the Nazi angle, most of the U.S. (which was predominently white) would've likely been rooting for Schmeling (like they had in the first fight).

 

I agree with an earlier post, that you have to live through the experience to appreciate the significance ( fully ).
I remember as a very small kid, the FOTC seemed to almost stop the world.
That night in Zaire took some topping though.
The night The Greatest sealed his legacy by putting the Mummy back in his casket in the early hours of an African morning.

 

Absolutely untrue. That was such a huge event that the motion pictures were marketed from South America to Russia and from India to Canada. The demand to see that monumental occurrence was unheard of. The idea that because black fighters were already appreciated elsewhere in the world that the fight wasnt that big anywhere else is backwards logic. The simple fact that because black fighters were accepted widely outside the USA and that significant percentage of human beings on the planet were "of color" and also experienced oppression under colonialism would argue much more in the favor of this being a major event worldwide as opposed to your incorrect impression that everyone else simply thought "nothing to see here, move along." Furthermore, to pretend that the USA was the only place where race was an issue in boxing or society at large is absolutely ridiculous. Its such a preposterous notion Im wondering where you went to school or if you did. Even in Australia where the fight was held the racial question loomed large over the promotion from beginning to end. England didnt drop their color line until well after the United States. I could keep going and even cite plenty of examples from the much more liberal France, to where many African American fighters fled to find greater opportunities, of inequality but come on, who is really going to buy the idea that a black man fighting for and winning the crown jewel of boxing in 1908 wasnt a big deal worldwide??

 

It's true that we have to remind ourselves the mentality people had about physical inferiority and all that dumb crap. And how significant Johnsons victories were. I know growing up in America, the story of equality in athletics was usually tied to Jackie Robinson. But Jack Johnson happened way earlier, and the implications of his victories had to be astronomical.

So much has changed in even the last 10 years in terms of race relations that it's becoming more and more difficult to feel the importance of Johnsons reign.

 

I didn't say the fight wasn't a big event. It was a world heavyweight championship fight. They weren't many if any sporting events that were bigger than a world heavyweight championship fight.

But globally Johnson-Burns wasn't bigger than Louis-Schmeling II.

 

Jack Johnson did happen way earlier. But what did he change, exactly?

White America despised him. Black leaders hated him. Black America, by and large, grew to despise him. He wasn't allowed to defend his title in major U.S. cities like New York and Chicago. He was forced out of his country. He was imprisoned. He got out of prison and was never given another chance to get back into title contention. Other black fighters distanced themselves from him. And his actions kept other black fighters from getting a shot at the title for another two and a half decades.

He didn't lead some renaissance of equality in the U.S. The Ku Klux Klan was NEVER MORE POPULAR in the U.S. than it was after the reign of Jack Johnson.

In many ways, Jack Johnson was a singular instant. He didn't kick open any door except one for himself.

Truth is he slammed it shut even tighter behind him for other black fighters than it was before he became champ.

Since later athletes opened it again, and progress was made LATER, people hold him in high regard. But he didn't help race relations AT ALL and he didn't help other black fighters get title shots AT ALL.

On the contrary, Joe Louis had to knock out the last three heavyweight champions and do everything in his power to convince people he wasn't like Jack Johnson in order to get a title shot.

 

A lot of people were all in on Jeffries proving racial superiority. Remember that Jack London call to arms?

Johnson set the precedent of black athletes being as capable of anyone else and dispelled a lot of racist rhetoric. And that resonated beyond sports.

 

Again, that was a white U.S. writer calling for a white U.S. heavyweight in a white-run U.S. publication to restore the white race's superiority in boxing.

The "white supremacy" angle was a huge part of the Johnson-Jeffries fight in the U.S.

The Louis-Schmeling rematch was so big, many white supremacists in the U.S. rooted for Louis to beat Schmeling "the Nazi."

The Louis-Schmeling rematch was so big, they put their racism aside.

Like I said, Louis-Schmeling II was much bigger globally in so many ways. But in the U.S. alone, millions of white people in the U.S. NEVER cheared for Johnson like they cheered for Louis.

 

I hear you. I agree that Louis Schmeling was bigger, but I don't think the implications of Johnsons feats should be underestimated.

 

Something tells me that louis-schmeling was less of a big deal in places like china, india, africa, etc than Johnson-Burns were people were falling all over themselves to see it. Thats how you measure its impact. When you trumpet the battle of democracy vs nazism you are talking about a largely anglo fight (despite Louis being the champion of Democracy). Thats just the way it was. We also have the added dynamic of the fact that people now know exactly how hollow the idea of a black man living under segregation defending that "democracy" against a tide of nazism represented by a guy who was decidedly anything but a nazi.

As for Johnson not changing anything, well, thats just nonsense. Without Johnson would there have been a Siki, Flowers, Thompson, Lewis, etc?? Theres no doubt Johnsons behavior allowed people to close that door that he opened behind him but theres also no doubt that once that precedent is set, once that line is crossed and people wake up the next day and see the world is still spinning and the sun still rises it becomes a lot easier to think about, discuss, and accept. Thats what Johnson-Burns did. I stand by the statement that Louis-Schmeling and Ali-Frazier didnt change anything. And such will not reverberate throughout history as anything more than big sporting event.

 

There were black champions in the lower weight classes before Jack Johnson won the heavyweight title.

You could say without Joe Gans or Joe Walcott or George Dixon, there never would've been a Jack Johnson.

The heavyweight championship was different. You know that.

Jack Johnson didn't open the door for anyone but himself. And he was almost as reviled by black leaders and the black press by the time he was kicked out of the U.S. as Joe Louis was loved and canonized by them 20 years later. And I don't recall any black fighters talking about wanting to emulate Jack Johnson until Ali came along a half a century later.

Johnson was so "loved" by fellow black boxers "and so admired" that they avoided him like the freaking plague after he went to prison.

 

Do you really think the crowds partying in the streets of Harlem gave one sh*t about some crazy white dude 4000 miles away who had yet to invade a country? Perhaps to Whitey and the saber rattlers, Louis' victory meant this but I really doubt it was the major motivation for celebration those who identified most closely to Louis.