Battling Jim Johnson vs Jack Johnson Revisited

The world was not the US and part of the reason there was no hard color line is because the US didn't unilateraly decide the champion(at least not yet). This is not the MLB this was an international sport. The Europeans wanted Johnson to fight Langford. But a Serbian guy had a different sort of fight in mind and whatever plans the Euros had in boxing went up in flames.

You must remember that Johnson v Johnson and Langford v Jeanette happened in Paris within 24 hours of each other. They were directly competing title fights.

 

I said it was an excuse. Unlike Langford Johnson had went 5-1-1 against Jeanette. Jeanette had dramatically improved and hadn't lost in years but some would argue a champ doesn't have to explain not giving someone an 8th chance.

Now this isn't a typical situation. The way the black circuit worked is fighters got thrown against top competition early but their bad records weren't held against them the way it otherwise would. And Johnson had taken advantage of this system to beat up on the golden generation when they were young and then avoid them in their prime when he had a winning record.

 

This is certainly true ,now can you give us definite offers of $30,000 from any promoter ,and for any venue in the world, for Johnson to defend against any of the black trio that he refused?

 

No actually they don't ,the most respected and certainly the most diligently researched biographies on Johnson are the three books written by Adam Pollack which sit on its head this lazy assumption that Johnson would not defend against his three most dangerous rivals. Now Ghost you are using the same identical hackneyed phrases you used on the other Forum from which you are banned.

 

The offer to defend against Jeannette was for a 30 round fight, Johnson at the age of35 had no interest in such a fight.

Jan 11th 1912
Head of the NY AC Frank O' Neill said he would not allow Johnson to box in NY. " I have come to the conclusion it is against public policy and expediency to allow Johnson to fight here.This is final."

Dan Mcketrick, Jeannette's manager never offered more than $15,000
for a fight with Joe. Johnson dismissed the offer . Salt Lake Tribune Jan 12 1912
History tells us that he accepted $30,000 to defend against Jeannette over 12 rds TWICE in NY and no amount of spin is going to alter that fact.

 

No,The Black press condemned Johnson for flaunting his White women in the face of Whites.The leading Black newspaper ,The Freeman was invariably supportive of Johnson.

 

Max wasn't champ though, Braddock was. Bradock's contract saw him take a huge chunk of the revenue for Joe Louis's subsequent bouts after he defeated Bradock.

Louis was the one giving Schmelling the title shot, not the other way around

 

The chunk was taken out of Mike Jacobs end for his promotions of the heavyweight title for 10 years,not from Louis' purses.

 

Which shows how messed up boxers purses were in this era

 

I know they're in their 60s and it's only a short clip, but Johnson skillset is way beyond Jeanette's

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I'm not the one who made the claim Jack Johnson turned down 30,000 to fight Jim Johnson for peanuts. I did not make that claim. Maybe its true maybe its not. All I know is Langford fought Jeanette for the IBU title the day after the Johnson and Johnson encounter.

I am of the view it is hard enough to decipher these sort of situations in the present with guys like Fury and Wilder where we have a ton more information. Who was offered what to fight who, who was willing to do what and for how much. I try and stay away from all that.

 

You keep accusing posters of being Ghost or Dr. Z, absolute paranoia. You also insist both are banned from another forum when they are not. Odd obsession you have with them. All while your own primary account over there was permanently banned.

 

Johnson turned down a $20k offer from Jeannette who had already beaten Battling Jim that same year. Johnson used his $30k demand to avoid title fights with the best black contenders then accepts $1,000 to cherry pick Battling Jim. He “agreed” to a NY fight knowing full well NY would not allow it.

 

The reason I brought this up is you said Willard was better than Fulton and used "Fulton lost to journeymen" as your justification. What is a journeymen is not important but the point is you are holding losing to Burke against Fulton.

A larger theme here is you are elevating shorter resumes above larger ones with more in the win collumn but losses guys with the shorter resume don't have or won't have as many of. Its a spectrum and in some cases I'm going to be defending the guy with the shorter resume and less losses to someone like Burke but here you are holding losses from the start and end of their career against them against guys who didn't sniff relevance. That shouldn't be in the discussion at all. And normally such losses are just discounted. Almost everyone in this era has such losses because they weren't trying to go undefeated. It should be a non issue.

What does stand out is the short resume of someone like Willard. And its not like he was undefeated either he was 25-7-2. And to the extent the guys who beat and drew with Willard weren't that bad they certainly would not exceed the strict standards you are holding Fulton to.

Fulton has one of the best careers in the history of the HW division. Willard does not.

 

My apologies my reply was meant for GOAT.