Jack Johnson's title run

Jackson never had a major contest in Australia, he made what money he got, outside the country.
Were Wills 50,000 fans there to see a black v black fight, or a mixed race one? I say the latter.
I think your memory is playing tricks with you here.Box Rec records that 16,528 people attended the Johnson Jeffries fight,the original FOTC, yet you say 50,000 came out to watch Wills? Wills was never a big draw he was described as cautious and dreary in quite a few contests.
Wills met Langford around 20 times, yet Langford's biggest purse was for fighting Hague ?
How come if Wills was such a big draw?

Jim Corbett ,the day after the Jeffries Johnson fight stated."The worst of it is we have no white man in view able to defeat Johnson,and two colored fighters won't draw training expenses"
If Jackson was such an attraction the return with Corbett would have been made.
Jackson returned to Australia precisely because he could not get meaningful fights.

 

You could be correct about my memory, but look how big Wills-Firpo was! 80,000 people watched it.

Firpo was obviously popular but Wills was also a huge draw.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10815FF345412738FDDAB0994D1405B848EF1D3

Nothing but a throw away quote, imo.

Johnson was seen as Australia's best. When he drew with Goddard, he was treated by the Press as Australia (and the worlds) best fighter. He was getting all the media attention as Australias hero. When he fought Corbett, it is certain that Jackson was the sentimental favourite in most Australians mind.

As for the return match, The title was worth more than any individual match in those days. I am guessing that Corbett didnt want to risk throwing away his cash cow against a fighter who was every bit as good as him, maybe better. There were obviously other reasons as well though.

i

 

You keep referring to black and white contests as evidence that two black fighters would draw I fail to see the logic of your argument. Show me a primary source that proves two black heavyweights drew big gates.
Being regarded as the best ,and being sentimental favourite does not translate to box office .Jackson never drew big crowds in Australia ,look where most of his contests there took place.
Show me a contest, in which Wills fought a black fighter ,and drew big gates.
The Goddard fight for the Australian Championship was only an 8 rounder,and it meant nothing in the scheme of things at world level.

The paucity of class heavyweights in Australia,at the time ,is highlighted by the fact that Goddard was having his 14th fight and had beaten no one of any note at the time he faced Jackson for the national title.Goddard was Champion having beaten Mick Dooley for the vacant title,Dooley had the underwhelming record of 16 wins in 20 contests.
What was the population of Australia in the 1890's?
Goddard was a big fish in a very little pond.


Jackson imo, was superior to Corbett ,but because of public apathy towards black heavyweights, he could muster no support to force Corbett back in the ring, once Corbett became Champion,that is my point.
Corbett would only consent to fight Jackson in the deep south, which was a get out. Once Jackson was safely back down under Corbett came out from under his rock and challenged," that coward Jackson to fight me."
In 1890,when Jackson drew with Goddard the worlds best fighter was overwhelmingly perceived to be John L Sullivan,the general public may well have been wrong as he was physically diminished from years of abusing his body and drinking away his prime , but the public believed him to be invincible, even 2 years later,[ 1892,] Sullivan was a lopsided favourite to thrash Corbett,Corbett's own father bet on Sullivan.

 

I havent got time unfortunately to look for some decent gates between two black fighters. But the Wills gate I showed you (and you have got to admit, it was massive, even bigger than i remembered!) features Harry Wills as the hometown fighter and presumably crowd favourite (i am sure i read something to this effect). It is pretty doubtful that Firpo would be the main draw, in that one isnt it?

Others might have time to look, but i am fairly sure you will find that Harry Wills was getting some massive gates. Obviously not Dempsey level, but still pretty big.

Well as far as i know, he drew bigger crowds than any other fighters in Australia at the time. You would agree with this wouldnt you?

I havent got time to look for something at the moment. In the interim, I would be happy for you to show me some gates where Wills fought good black fighters and he didnt draw a good crowd. I am sure there are quite a few fights anyway where the good white fighters of the time fought each other and didnt draw good crowds.

I agree with this to an extent. Jackson was in no condition to fight and just hopped off the plane without training for the fight.

By paucity, i presume you mean abundance of talent, because Australia certainly had a lot more world class depth in those days than they do now.

It had nothing to do with public apathy towards black heavyweights, that was just a convenient excuse. If it was public apathy that stopped this fight, why was it negotiated at all, and why was Corbett prepared to fight in the south? It was all about gaining advantages and making the most money, imo.

Correction, he was overwhelmingly considered the Worlds best fighter by the casual fan in America. Incidentally, I am not so sure sullivan was such a heavy favourite. According to this article Corbetts odds dropped from 3 to 1 to 5 to 6. That would make him the betting favourite when the fighters took to the ring!

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00715F6345D17738DDDA10894D1405B8285F0D3

 

You make a statement ,I challenge it ,you then ask me to prove my challenge ? I think it's supposed to be the other way around?
Again you give me Firpo v Wills Black v White,which by the way was described as a stinker ,and Willls as dissapointingly cautious and dreary.
Wills the hometown fighter? He was born in New Orleans the fight was in New Jersey, and Firpo WAS the draw.
Australia has never had an abundance of world class talent, boxing, simply put,is a minority sport there, to compare the talent of the 1890s to today where it has the competition of Australian Rules Football,Rugby,Cricket, and numerous ,comparatively recent beach sports is disingenuous to say the least.

 

My mistake. I thought you had incorrectly said that Black fighters couldnt drawatsch I showed you where the black fighter drew 80,000 and apparently i am the one that needs to prove that they only came to see an out of town fighter. I had mistakenly thought you were interested in finding out whether or not what you claimed was correct. My mistake.

3000 turned up to watch Harry in a 6 round exhibition, though i suppose most of those were fans of Sgt Ray Smith. I heard he had a big following too.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...6301936&dq=harry+wills+attendance+fight&hl=en

Here is a fight between two coloured fighters that actually outdrew a jack johnson world title fight! How do you explain that?

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/404287111.html?dids=404287111:404287111&FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:AI&type=historic&date=Dec+28,+1913&author=&pub=Chicago+Tribune&desc=JOHNSONS'+BOUT+YIELDS+$5,179.&pqatl=google

I am sure that 80000 people turned up to watch a foreigner give it to the americanatsch

rugby league was huge in Australia in the 1890satsch

Australia was teh place to be in boxing for a while there.

 

Peter Jackson was described as drawing a good crowd for his "exhibition against Mace" where Mace was DQd.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9223319?searchTerm=peter jackson attendance&searchLimits=


Here is report on two of the top white fighters of the time - Slavin and MC Cauliffe. They drew a mammoth 200 or so spectators. What in the world makes you think that Jackson couldnt draw because of his colour?


And if Australia was such a poor place for Boxing talent, why was Jackson's draw with Corbett seen as proof that JAckson had slipped from what he used to be?
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/art...=peter jackson attendance fight&searchLimits=

 

I said two black fighters did not draw big gates ,and that the white public were uninterested in watching two black fighters fight for the heavyweight title, hence the era of the White Hope,if you want to get snotty, and sarcastic ,at least do so after absorbing my argument.
You give ONE example a Harry Wills fight against a white man , which by the way was fought in 1924 two decades after the period we are talking about,the 20's were the golden age of boxing we had several million dollar gates during this time ,[none involving black boxers], but that is not the era we were referring to.
The Wills sparring exhibition was an added attraction to a bill featuring popular local fighters, yet you have worded it to suggest that the 3000 crowd were there solely to watch Wills spar.

 

Drawing a good crowd for an exhibition against Jem Mace [white] proves nothing.

Ever thought the crowd might have come to see Mace?


He gave hundreds of exhibitions in Australia, and with Larry Foley opened the first boxing school in Australia in 1877, nurturing such talent as Jackson,Paddy Slavin,Mick Dooley and Jim Hall, Mace was more popular than Jackson.Boxing had a comparatively brief flowering in Australia, by the early 1900's it had subsided quite a bit.It stars having left for more rewarding pastures.
You seem to willfully misunderstand ,Jackson may have been the best draw in Australia ,so what? How many people were in Australia
I keep saying two blacks did not draw, and you keep giving me black and white contests atsch
Jackson was universally believed to be somewhat on the decline when he fought Corbett,he became an alcoholic during his stay in the UK and developed hand tremors as a result of heavy drinking, this has no bearing what so ever on the popularity of boxing , or the scarcity of world class talent in Australia.
All of which left the country to ply their wares elsewhere.

 

What is the point of giving examples, you are not reading any of the articles. I though that the langford Jeanette fight, was a pretty good example of a high drawing black vs black fight.

 

Sorry I typod. Maybe if you would have read the articles i posted and you are commenting on you might have known i should have written Jem Smith.:admin

Your time frame is wrong here, actually, despite what the article says, Jackson declined after corbett refused to give him the title shot. Still, the whole point is that if there was no talent in Australia, whywas a win over the no 1 heavy in the US not seen as anything special. Jackson, Slavin, Farnin, Goddard, Lees, Fitzsimmons and many more were among the best fighters in the world. The Australians in this time period were as good or better than the English or the Americans. Many people put that down to the teachings of Larry Foley, and to a lesser extent, Jem Mace. But no matter which way you look at it, The Aussies were ruling the roost for a while there. Godfrey, McAuliffe, Cardiff and co were not as good as the best Australian fighters. What the sport of Rugby and other sports you mentioned (which never even existed at the time) had to do with this, i have no idea.

McVey, langford, Johnson, Jeanette and co all left the US to ply their trade elsewhere. What is your point, i dont understand.

 

I seem to have been unable to engage you
Jackson was believed to be in decline after his fight with Corbett.
You give me Larry Foley who I first mentioned,Foley had a total of 6 actual contests.
My whole point about the other sports that Australia has embraced ,Australian Rules Foot ball ,Rugby, Cricket, is that of enthusisasts from these that might have otherwise followed boxing. Am I framing my responses in a way that you find hard to follow?

 

There are so many inaccuracies in this piece it is laughable.
Lord Lonsdale was a 100% nut case ,who never promoted a fight in his life.
The premier boxing venue in the Uk at the time,the National Sporting Club offered the winner of a Burns Johnson contest just £500 ,with each side to pay their own expenses.
Johnson floored Burns twice in the first round.

Larry Cap Roberts is a chancer who repeats lies and bull**** because he is too lazy to dig out facts.He has never written a book, and represents no organization,[ his link to the IBHO was short lived].
He has no basis to say Burns was suffering from jaundice ,or indeed that he was ill at all, a yellowish tinge to his appearance? Bill Squires was described as having this when he fought Burns, was he suffering from jaundice too ? It is utter clap trap.




McIntosh not Macintosh as Roberts spells it ,was the promoter of several fights before this one including the Burns Squires fight, and the Burns Lang fight, he made his fortune selling pies at the boxing arenas the man knew boxing as well as anyone in Australia.he had been a boxer,and managed several fighters ,he also had Rush Cutters Stadium built to accomodate the Burns Johnson fight .

King Edward V11 made no public statement referring to Johnson at any time.

The proposed fight with McVey was to have been in the US, not Paris.

Johnson carried Burns ,to inflict the maximum damage ,it had allready been
pre arranged that in the event of the fight becoming too onesided , the police would step in.

McIntosh did not go to Burns corner after the 13th round, it was the police who entered the ring ,spoke to him ,and then visited Burns corner .
Burns did not win a single round.
The story of Johnson's damaged ribs was just that a story,promulgated by Burns.
Johnson had the press back to his dressing room after the fight and gave an extensive interview, whilst being rubbed down. the reporters stated he had " not a mark on him."
Johnson went out to dinner that night ,and dined in a party atmosphere.


Jewey Smith was never African Champion he never fought in Africa, or fought an African ,he was born in Spitalfields London.

Roberts is talking out of his rectum.

 

I couldn't get the other link to work.

 

Peter Jackson vs George Godfrey had a $1500 purse which was not too bad for them days. It sounds as high drawing as any of the white vs white purses from this time between top challengers doesnt it?

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP19320806.2.155

Also very interesting that George Godfrey actually drew the colour line himself! Now that is an innovative way to hold on to the coloured championship!