[url]http://www.josportsinc.com/catalog/view.php?id=13562[/url] I don't condone the racism of the times, and no doubt the lyrical content to this song is racist, but it's impressive that this was such a super fight to inspire songs. But boxing was a huge deal in the first half of the 20th century, and lots of champs had songs and poems penned for them. I seriously doubt Jack Johnson or his black supporters were as sensitive to this stuff as people are today. They had far worse things to be concerned about, and people were generally ignorant in those days anyway.
You'd be smiling, too, if your title reign only consisted of middleweights, sparring partners and has-beens.
No, he was the benificiary of it. Jeffries made two vaudeville tours on the strength of his challenge to Johnson , he was making a guaranteed $1,000 a week plus a large % of the profits.The tour was for 7 months.The second tour pulled him in $112,500, $2,000,000 in todays currency. Jeffries was not particularly popular when champion he lacked colour and had a sour, surly disposition he hated the lime light and only bore it for the $$$$$$. Challenging Johnson, he became the saviour of the White Race, and an overnight idol. He was no victim he cashed in big time.
This is true, but I verry much get the idea that Jeffries really didn't want to make a comeback, much less act as the saviour of the white race. He let other people pressure him into it for their own ends and of course lost. But in the words of the song "tell me who won?"
The hype surrounding Kaufman was considerable when Johnson fought him. This would definitely have been seen as a logical title defence.
George Little ,who was Johnson's manager leading up to the Jeffries fight said that Johnson agreed to carry Kaufman,so as to make the forth- coming fight with Ketchel appear to be a more competitive proposition than it actually was. Little alleged that he several times, had to caution Johnson during the fight, not "to overdo it". The writer for the San Francisco Bulletin said Kaufman managed to land precisely 6 punches on Johnson.
Other writers - the majority of writers - gave Kauffman credit for some success, including hurting him with body punches.
Johnson won all ten rounds.Johnson visited Kaufmann's training camp and said afterwards,"to use my uppercut on him would be cruelty to children". After the fight Johnson ,said ," Kaufmann had no more chance of blocking my left than a turtle has of running down a jack rabbit" . Rex Beach ,a big Jeffries booster, watched Johnson spar with Kaufman ,for the Jeffries fight , Beach said, Johnson not only kept up a running commentary on the action, but told him where he was going to hit Kaufmann next, and he did so.Beach said he made the angry Kaufmann look foolish.
Johnson had trouble in the ninth and tenth. "In the ninth came the change that caused amazement...In the first minute [Kauffman] landed twice in the stomach blows that were so powerful that they took 50% of the fight out of the champion...for the first time in the fight Johnson lost his smile...[but] he still had his cleverness and fought along, giving Kauffman more than he recieved, but the sting was missing from his punches...Kauffman waded in and fought like a demon. Time and again he landed to the body recieving smashes to the jaw that should have stopped him...but he was not in the ring to be stopped." Richmond Planet. You may be right that he won all ten rounds, but he certainly didn't have it all his own way in the closing rounds.
This content is protected [url]http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00917FB395A12738DDDA90994D1405B898CF1D3[/url] This link is an account of the fight.
Kaufman was trained and managed by Billy Delaney, probably the most famed handler in the business, trainer of champions. Perhaps that accounts for much of the hype that followed Kaufman.