'In the Ring with Jack Johnson Part I: the Rise'

Thumbs up on the research.

But what is your take on Burns having Jaundice like symptoms? Historian Kevin Smith, who spent years researching early African American prize fighters says there is evidence of this, and book on Burns also says those at ringside said Burns looked yellowish and sick. He was also at a low weight of 168 pounds.

I have heard rumors that the 14th round is out there in Australia. Hope this is confirmed one day. For whatever reason, legends on Jack Johnson films just are not true, such as the teeth ion the glove incident with Ketchel and the films being stopped prior to the knockout.

 

Oh my god yes, you can see in the film he was just sooo jaundiced. He also had a bad case of measles, dyptheria, whooping cough, and the mumps. You can easily see all of this in the film and thats clearly why he lost. He would have won easily Im sure had he not terminally ill.

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation, research and once again recovering lost films. So if the fight didn't end with the freeze frame sequence we are all familiar with, what does the ending look like? It seems to me from the film that I have seen (the popular edited one), that Johnson could've finished the fight much sooner but wanted to punish Burns, would you say that is fair from the footage you have? Again, thanks for the update and findings

 

That's not the question an you know it! A 100+ year old grainy film is not going to show that type of detail. Yet is has been reported.

I do not think Burns would win healthy at 175, he's simply too short & small, but the fight could have been a little different.

 

The extant film reel ends at the end of the tenth round. The fighters simply return to their corners and the film ends. At this point the projectionist would have switched reels to maintain continuity but we are missing the next reel.

Yes, I believe Johnson toyed with Burns like he did with a lot of the opposition we see him against on film. To Burns' credit he is tough and tries hard to fight back despite the disparity in skill and size. He was very courageous and he typically weathered the storm when Johnson opened up but you have to figure that had Johnson sustained his beating instead of fighting in spurts he would have smashed Burns.

 

For what is worth, my Grandmother (and actually i think she was relaying what her mother or aunty told her so technically this is not a first hand source) said that Tommy Burns kept coming back to Jack Johnson and was swearing and cursing in a disgraceful manner and Jack Johnson kept smashing him continuously so badly that she couldnt look. She didnt consider it as anything but a one sided beating.

I am not sure where she was in the crowd, she was close enough to hear the swearing but not close enough to see any jaundice.

 

Your great grandmother/aunt was at Johnson-Burns? That's insane!

 

I thought Jack Londons wife was the only woman allowed to attend the fight.

 

Please let us all know when the first edition of "In the Ring With Harry Greb Part 1: Two Eyes"
comes out.

 

I dont really know was this reported? First hand or documentary style commentary?

Either way, i dont think it really has any effect on the truth or otherwise of the story. AS you and i have often disputed previously, first hand evidence is sometimes as good or better than first hand news reports. This was a bit of a family story, according to my dad, and i can vaguely remember my grandmother repeating it to me when i was young and watching a history of boxing vcr. She was more worried about the language of the white guy which is a little funny. Whether it 100% happened, who knows. Not sure why she would lie about it, but who knows. Again, if memory serves correct birth dates from the family tree search may have even cast some doubt on it, though i havent studied it. Maybe you could find me some first hand reports showing that she snuck off to the beach with a couple of blokes instead of going where she said she went?

 

God there were some great fights filmed and lossed...I almost don't want to know..guess we are lucky to have the ones we have

 

Just an update: I have finished going through the film backwards and forwards and it is rounds 6 thru 10. The film begins roughly 45 seconds into round 6. Its missing about 30 seconds of the 7th give or take, about 30 seconds of the 8th, about 20 seconds of the 9th, and about 28 seconds of the 10th. When Jim Jacobs first exhibited this film the round he tried to pass off as the knockout round was actually the sixth. Later when he re-edited the film for Greatest Fights of the Century and used the now familiar frozen frame of Burns seemingly in mid fall that was actually taken from the 7th round, as is the knockdown which appears in the Ken Burns documentary. The total fight footage runs just over 15 minutes. Which is roughly four minutes longer than the Greatest Fights of the Century version. Most of this excess footage is from the 6th round, very little of which was shown in Jacobs production, and the 10th round, none of which has been shown in any production that Ive ever seen. Essentially Jacobs took rounds 7, 8, and 9, and a small portion of round 6, chopped them up, rearranged them, and cleverly edited parts to make them appear to be rounds 1, 5, 8, 11, and 14. At the beginning of the Jacobs film he has training footage of Johnson and Burns which he purports to be for this fight. In reality it is Burns training for Squires 1, and Johnson training for Jeffries. He also interspersed footage of the motion picture camera men supposedly filming the fight but this footage is also taken from a different fight film.