The Jack Johnson Vs Tommy Burns Fight.

Correct. The sequence that is often sold as Burns on the verge of a knockout and the police stopping the cameras is actually from the seventh round and Burns doesnt go down, he stays upright and continues to fight. In fact the police never stopped the cameramen from filming. The entire fight was filmed including the stoppage and it was shown all over the world. Its easy to find newspaper reports of the film illustrating this and I have a handbill advertising the fight which describes the scenes that are shown and it includes the stoppage, post fight footage in the ring, and the fighters collecting their paychecks. I wrote a lengthy PDF I posted on facebook with photos illustrating all the ways Jim Jacobs lied about this film but Im not sure how to reproduce it here with the photos. When Jacobs first found this film he appeared on CBS Sports Spectacular with Jack Whittaker and showed clips of it. He showed a completely different scene that he was telling people was the end of the fight. Essentially when Jacobs discovered this film he only discovered one reel of the film. This fight was at least three reels and maybe four or five. The reel he found encompassed rounds 6-10. Jacobs and Cayton were marketing these films though for television and nothing is more frustrating than an incomplete fight, particularly the middle of a fight. So Jacobs edited the film and created a story around it in order to make it appear as if the fight had some continuity to it (for example he added footage of Johnson training for Jeffries and Burns training for O'Brien and says its Burns and Johnson training for each other prior to the fight) and make it more satisfying from a storytelling perspective then packaged it with his "Greatest Fights of the Century" for broadcast on television. However, if you look at the original unedited film that Jacobs chopped up for his program, which I have, it has the original intertitles identifying the rounds, etc. and you can see all of the events clearly in their original sequence.

 

Thanks, that is top info.

Someone uploaded what it appears to be all the available footage of the Johnson - Jeffries fight - about 27 mins or so, sans pre fight stuff like training etc.

I’d prefer to watch that than any other edited stuff - save for the portions they’ve cleaned up - as in the Burns doc - it’d be great if they could do that for the whole of the available fight footage.

 

I have the entire theatrical film of Johnson-Jeffries. It includes the entire fight, all rounds, and with all of the prefight training, prefight in the arena footage, and post fight footage it runs 1hr 54mins and 28secs. The fight itself, up to the stoppage, runs just under 45 minutes. I agree, unedited footage is the best. The more raw the better.

 

That’s amazing to have such lengthy, full coverage footage for a fight going all the way back to 1910 - but of course it was the first so called FOTC with so much more at stake in sociological terms than any other fight.

 

Here is the article I wrote on the Burns-Johnson film:

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What a great name for a promoter, Hugh "Huge Deal".

 

lProof, that this in endlessly fascinating subject. I never knew any of this manipulation. I have quite a few books on Johnson, so thank you for these nuggets.

 

Can you ballpark how much it might cost procure the complete theatrical film of the fight? - or is that not possible - which I can understand for several possible reasons - for one thing, I don’t know exactly how scarce the full fight film is.

The 27 mins or so available on YouTube becomes pretty ghosty at one point - maybe that portion, without refinement, is as good as it gets.

The old boxing magazines used to advertise projector film (Super 8?) of fights such as Johnson vs Jeffries but I assume they only contained HLs anyway - similar to the oft seen packaged HLs we see today.

Maybe, at the end of the day, they were simply the edited Jacob films.

 

The era isn’t exactly served on a factual silver platter, is it?

Half the fun is trying to sort out fact from fiction - and that is very much part of the overall allure.

I find Johnson, both the fighter and the man to be the most fascinating.

Also, at best, he was a seriously conditioned fighter - he was shredded - to be any better he’d would have to have been on roids. Lol.

I understand normal atrophying with age - but Jack seemed to lose his heavily muscled armoury quite quickly after a certain age.

I also believe Jack could shift his feet a lot more than he is given credit for - but we don’t really see him pushed to full throttle on film.

That’s why the Willard fight is still very valuable, though Jack is past it and fat, to see him trying hard, energetically launching and landing multi punch combos is quite a thing to see.

There are moments when he does same against Jim Flynn - his hands are a blur but it’s obvious, at least imo, that he’s deliberately holding back on power - capable of hitting a lot harder if he was so inclined.

 

Does anyone have any information as to why Tommy Burns was so much lighter than usual in the Johnson fight? I have heard everything from "by design to gain speed" to "Tommy was sick for a long time before the fight."

Very interesting times in boxing, for many reasons! Middleweights and Super Middleweights fighting as Heavyweights, all the way back to Charlie Mitchell and Bob Fitzsimmons, and probably before that, and forward to Sam Langford and Mickey Walker. I mean actually entering the ring at those weights against Heavyweights! And many of them did rather well. It is certainly food for thought!

 

This is excellent, on point info. Thanks again.

I like Jacobs but his forgoing of accuracy in deference to other priorities is disappointing.

Many renowned boxing experts are far more self promoting raconteurs than strict historians <sneeze - Bert Sugar>.

Some other fights, perhaps Johnson vs Jeffries, you can deduce obvious mislabelling of rounds due to facial damage (Jeffries’) incurred or not yet incurred.

I really like this footage. Johnson exercising, wrestling and sparring,

His partner wasn’t specifically identified per the film notes but imo easily seen and deduced to be Gunboat Smith. Of course the film is also stamped as being made in 1909.

Smith was in Johnson’s camp for at least the Ketchel fight (legend claiming they “practiced” for Johnson’s KD “dive”) so I’m guessing this was part of the film package for same. Besides his skills, Johnson’s condition is acute and would put many “mods” to shame, imo.

Note also, the film is reversed making it look as if Johnson and Gunboat are fighting as southpaws: -

[url]https://aso.gov.au/titles/historical/jack-johnson-training/clip1/[/url]

 

"I have the entire theatrical film of Johnson-Jeffries."

I phoned the National Film Registry a couple of years back and was informed that they only had rounds 1, 4, 12 to 15. If you have the entire fight you might consider donating a copy to them for preservation. It would be a nice gesture.

The Johnson-Jeffries fight was voted onto the National Film Registry a few years back.

 

Burns who was inclined to plumpness trained rigorously for Johnson,he knew what he was up against.
Burns was ;
170lbs for Flynn in1906
170lbs for O Brien in1906
171lbs for Moir in1907