Battling Jim Johnson vs Jack Johnson Revisited

I would guess Jack Johnson, or his people, thought the risk vs. reward of fighting Langford, Jeanette, or McVey was not something he wanted to deal with. Finding a promoter was probably not easy either. Even if Johnson believed he was better than those three, they were still close to his level. Any of them could potentially have beaten Johnson on a given night, and Jack knew that. Champions in those days had a lot of leeway on who they defended against. As it was, Battling Jim almost took his belt, but Jack's damaged left arm probably caused that more than Jim's ability as a boxer.

 

Johnson drew the color line against the best black fighters while he was champion. The exception being Battling Jim, who I think was a cherry pick gone horribly wrong. Johnson struggled with Battling Jim for ten rounds, injured his arm in what may have been either the 3rd or final rounds, still some debate in that. The oddest aspect of that fight was that Jack accepted way less than his usual $30k demand. He side-stepped Jeannette and Langford thinking Battling Jim would be an easy payday. Johnson likely didn’t train much or condition himself for this fight as he was all but out on his feet by the final bell.

 

Technically Jim Johnson was the highest rated black HW Jack Johnson hadn't beaten. This was right before Wills emerged.

In reality Johnson had beaten Langford, Jeanette and McVea when they were either young or nowhere close to their top level. But he had beaten them. Jeanette and McVea he'd beaten a bunch of times. He had the excuse.

 

I name you Ghost Of Dempsey recently banned from ******* ,and I claim my prize!

The hate gives you away,same old, same old.lol

Moth To Flame.lol
I was wondering when you would show up,how long is your ban?

 

You have a PM.

 

I agree with all of that especially with Langford. The IBU was demanding Johnson fight Langford and Langford and Jeanette fought in Paris just 24 hours apart from Johnson&Johnson. It was a duck but he had an excuse for it plug this scenario into the modern era and it'd be the same. With white HWs it was a similar story guys Johnson already beat stopped the emergence of new contenders and then Johnsons training partner cleaned out the white side of the division. Johnson was inactive after 1909 but he had fairly logical excuses for most or all of it. Those excuses were still excuses..

Besides Langford most of the guys who'd have beaten Johnson fairly easy show up or get their act together in 1914 or 1915(Wills, Fulton, Coffey etc). Langford fought 10x as much in the early 1910s and Johnson could have done the same regardless I'm just saying he got away with it for a reason the same way Jeffries and Dempsey did. Dempsey might have ducked Wills but if he had gotten through Wills and Tunney the division was otherwise "cleaned out". And if Johnson had rematched Langford and Jeanette and somehow beat both the division was cleaned out.

WW1 really changed this whole story as it really removed European boxing politics from the picture. It is possible Johnson would have played ball and fought Langford eventually but any pressure to do so vanished.



I'm defending giving the shot to Jim Johnson more then I'm defending not rematching Langford and Jeanette or even his inactivity. Jim Johnson wasn't a cherry pick he was the highest ranked black HW Jack hadn't beaten at that time. In December 1913 Jim Johnson was only 1-6-1 against the big 3 but he'd only been stopped once and it took 21 rounds. A lot of people had Langford, Jeanette and McVea all in their top 5 or top 6. In the elo rankings from this period Jim does not enter the top 10 until after the Jack Johnson draw but he had a case to be in the top 10 already.

Jack Johnson might have beat the big 3 when they were young and was trying to take advantage of that but you can use this same logic to defend Jim Johnsons bad record against the big 3. Virtually all the top black HWs except Wills got "thrown to the wolves" at the start of their careers and were farmed by top guys in their prime including Jack Johnson himself. In "black boxing" this was systemic. Jeanette was below .500 at the start of his career for a reason and its not that he sucked for a top fighter that age. Jim Johnson fought Langford and McVea at 22 and Jeanette at 24. Jim Johnson lost to Jeff Clark in his 4th fight and knocked out superheavyweight Bill Tate in Tates 3rd fight. This was the way black boxing worked. So Jims record against the big 3 is much more impressive in this context at least going into his title shot.

Another factor that makes Jim Johnson look good was the resurgence of Tony Ross who Jim had a draw against. Tony Ross had a career resurgence in the early 1910s and in late 1913 Tony Ross was the 2nd highest ranked active white HW behind Gunboat Smith.

 

Didn't you once say that Johnson tried to fight Langford? There is a tide developing on the thread...why not tell the contrary story here.

 

Johnson signed to fight both Langford and Mcvey in Australia for H D McIntosh, for $ 45 ,000,plus $5000 exes ,plus 4 round trip tickets,plus a percentage of the movie rights, but once Johnson jumped bail the Aussie public and the church turned against him, and McIntosh cancelled the defences, giving a public statement to that effect.
Johnson also signed to defend against Joe Jeannette in NY twice for his price for a defence ie $30,000,the NY AC vetoed the fights and threatened any promoter who put them on with having his licence withdrawn.

The AC Commissioner,O Neil, and the would be promoters, the McMahon brothers made public statements confirming this.

All this can be found in Adam Pollack's excellent 2nd vol " Jack Johnson The Reign".
The facts show that when Johnson was offered his asking price of $30,000 for a title defence he accepted it.

It's all rather inconvenient for those who habitually like to dump on Johnson,but,nevertheless ,its true.

 

Langford and the other premier black fighters had to fight so often because they weren't drawing big purses.Johnson was getting $31,500 for defending against the likes of Flynn!

Langford's biggest ever purse was £6000 for fighting Iron Hague in London.Two blacks fighting in the States didn't draw big purses,hence the exodus to Australia,and France.

 

This is the line Johnson drew.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Once his price was met he signed on the dotted line.

 

Shortly after secretly fleeing the US, where he was convicted of violating the Mann Act, Jack Johnson was scheduled to go to Belgium and France to appear in staged wrestling shows and strongman demonstrations. Belgium banned him.

Then the French Boxing Federation declared the World Heavyweight title vacant, saying they removed recognition because Johnson was a convicted criminal in his own country. Since Johnson was in France, his manager arranged for him to defend the title twice. Once against Jim Johnson and the other against Frank Moran.

Jim Johnson was a journeyman. The French fans didn't know him. Most thought he was related to Jack Johnson because he was also black. To make matters even more confusing, Jim Johnson shaved his head before the fight and tried to make himself look as much like Jack Johnson as possible. The whole thing was a disaster.

According to the book Unforgivable Blackness, nothing much happened in the first two rounds (of the 10-rounder) because both were counterpunchers. In third, Jack Johnson attacked and then pulled back abruptly. He'd fractured his left forearm when he slammed his arm into the side of Jim Johnson's head. After that, Jack Johnson held with his other arm and the rounds ticked by with very little happening.

By the end, Jim Johnson was exhausted. Jack Johnson's arm was broken. And the referee declared it a draw, since nothing much landed from either.

The Frank Moran fight had to be postponed until the following year. And Jack Johnson did receive only $1,000 (and a broken arm) for his troubles.

In other words, a complete train wreck.

 

Jack Johnson fought Sam McVey three times, Sam Langford once, and Joe Jeannette 10 times.

Out of those 14 fights, Johnson lost on a foul to Jeannette one time.

How many goddamn times do you have to fight someone? Seriously.

Should Usyk fight Fury EIGHT MORE TIMES or he's ducking him?

The only black fighter among them who apparently had an argument for a return with Jack Johnson was JIM Johnson. And Jim couldn't beat a one-armed Jack Johnson convincingly.