Revisiting Rummy's Excellent Video/Interview w Manny Stewart

In fairness to Emanuel, the question I asked about Jack Johnson was pretty generic. Complete transcript of that portion below.

But I remember doing this interview. Emanuel had just gotten back from Wlad's win over Eddie Chambers a week or so earlier, and he was getting into a new training camp, and I believe he also had an HBO commentating coming up. All he knew beforehand was I wanted to do a longer interview about Heavyweight Boxing History. Originally, we were gonna do it in three 20 minute chunks, so he wasn't tied down for too long. But he wound up being fired up and having some free time, so we did the whole thing in one shot (*which was later released as a 3 part transcript).

But given the context of the question I asked, I think he addressed it rather thoroughly. It's true that he didn't get into his pre-title reign, but he addressed his title reign - which for what it's worth coming from my perspective, that's kind of where his legacy resides at the heart of it.








QUESTION: Jack Johnson is an interesting man in the rich history of the heavyweight division. Some fans tend to overrate him, others tend to underrate him—how do you rate him?


ANSWER: I think he was a totally amazing man more so than just as a fighter. I think that he was a good fighter. He brought a whole new era of control in a fight that I don’t think anyone ever controlled a fight with so much ease and was so relaxed during the course of the fight. When I look at his accomplishments in the ring, I think they’re amazing and good but I think he was more known for his, really, his character beyond boxing. His total going against going against the system and his total really just mission he had of just really like embarrassing the white male race and doing things that no one had ever done and probably today I don’t think anyone would do the things he did—that is what to me is more of his character than the actual boxing attributes.


I think he was a good fighter, but when we break it down, beating Tommy Burns a 5’7” guy in Australia, Stanley Ketchel another middleweight 5’7”, Jim Jeffries who was brought out of retirement to redeem the dignity of the white race—a man who had no business fighting a fighter in his prime, especially considering the fact that Jeffries was 36 years old I guess or something. He still didn’t fight the black fighters of his era that were good fighters and then I guess he loses to Jess Willard which he said he threw the fight.


It wasn’t where he fought and beat that many dominant heavyweights himself, but I think his character and arrogance is what really made him bigger than life. I mean, he was a phenomenal businessman, he used to travel all over the world and negotiate his own deals, dressing up and changing clothes sometimes two or three times a day, talking with the top presidents of countries. He was just a truly amazing man I think, more so, than even just when you really break down the boxing part.