Saw this the other day on YouTube .. some excellent footage This content is protected Never saw the two sec clip of Johnson greeting McVey .. thinking it may be in Cuba but never saw it ..4:50 Never saw photo of Burns contract signing at 6:23 Never saw the two first round knockdowns vs Burns .. 6:35 Curious where this footage came from .. Hopefully Compton will see this and offer insight or someone else ..
The McVey footage is from the Theatrical release of the Willard fight. Those knockdowns are the same knockdown just reversed. That was done by Ken Burns for his documentary Unforgiveable Blackness to give the impression he had more footage of the fight than he did. Its not from the first round but the seventh. The only footage ever found of that fight are rounds 6-10. Jim Jacobs edited the footage and mislead the public about how much he had in order to build narrative around the fight when it was shown for his program "Greatest Fights of the Century".
Yes unforgivable blackness and Willard johnson realease....unforgivable blackness had some excellent footage
Showing Johnson swing Ketchel around then bragging about how strong he was is ridiculous. How much did Johnson outweigh Ketchel...40 pounds?
The footage that shows where the Burns Vs. Johnson fight was stopped was not round 14. As another poster mentioned, it's highly edited. McVey worked with Johnson leading up to the Willard fight to get him in shape. Yep, that's him in the corner wearing the tie. Some of the photography show is rare. One thing I could never place is "they" will say Johnson was hated and part because of his actions, I have no doubt he was. Yet it doesn't appear that way when Johnson interacts with the crowd. If you want to see a guy hated, watch the the pre-fight stuff with Foreman vs ALi.
Thats not Langford but that is Mike Gibbons standing right next to Johnson as he shakes McVey's hand.
What do you think of the trial of Johnson? I've seen or heard some of the testimony somewhere...cannot reference it...where he admits that he sent a woman (Belle Schreiber) to Chicago with the intent of setting up a brothel. "Schreiber's memory of dates and places seemed encyclopedic, and her bitterness at Johnson's treatment of her made her just the witness investigators were looking for". (https://www.pbs.org/weta/unforgivableblackness/knockout/) So it was her accusations against his denials? Or did he admit that he sent her to open that brothel?
Id have to reread the trial transcripts. I have them. But from memory, if I recall correctly she said the money was being used for a ***** house, he admitted giving her the money but denied knowing what it was for. Another witness or more (again my memory is hazy) testified that he did know what the money was intended for. The thing about the trial that was interesting to me was that it was clear the prosecution had a lot of other damning evidence and information against Johnson that couldnt necessarily be introduced on procedural grounds because a lot of it is alluded to in testimony. The evidence that was introduced was enough to convict though. This has allowed some of his apologists to claim he was railroaded etc. well, thats kind of like claiming Rubin Carter was innocent because his conviction was thrown out for procedural reasons. Johnson was clearly in violation of the Mann act in both the spirit and letter of the law.
Johnson's night club in Chicago doubled as a ***** house. He was a pimp and did in fact violate the Mann Act. It's not like Johnson was the first convicted for this, many others were. Some might say it was targeting, but he was guilty and didn't serve a day for beating on women or the sick.
Right, Just as I thought. I have nothing against Johnson, but I've always felt he was guilty as charged and deserved the prison sentence. And he was an idiot for leaving the country....his sentence was "only" 1 year, he could have done that time standing on his head. But instead he ran and had 6 years out of the USA when he could have made some good money. And he served the 1 yr anyway!
I don't understand why Trump pardoned him. Trying to get votes from the African American base? I don't know. Neither Clinton nor Obama would touch that issue. I wonder if John McCain tried to get him a pardon. McCain was a big boxing fan.
McCain was involved in the campaign at one point. So was Ron Lyle. I find the whole idea of pardoning a man who died over 70 years ago for a relatively minor crime he probably did commit over 100 years ago a bit hollow, and pretty cynical.
