Life and Battles of Jack Johnson
JOHNSON'S CAREER Excerpted from: The Life and Battles of Jack Johnson
Champion Pugilist of the World
Richard K Fox Publishing Company
1912
The full version is available on the Jack Johnson collection CD. There is nothing spectacular about the career of Jack Johnson, and his earlier fighting record does not mark the champion. As in the case of Peter Jackson, white pugilists, in many cases, have drawn the color line on him. Up to the time he fought Burns he really had no chance to show what he could do. But that battle and the one with Ketchell gave the public a line on his real ability.
He began his career in 1897, when he beat S. Smith in ten rounds; later he put Jim Rocks away in four rounds. In 1898 he knocked out Reddy Bremer in three rounds, and beat Jim Cole in four. He fought a fifteen-round draw with Henry Smith. He went twelve rounds to a draw in 1899 with Pat Smith, and the next year beat Josh Mills in twelve rounds, and Klondike in twenty rounds. In the latter part of 1901 he met Joe Choynski in his home town. This battle brought his name before the public and after winning several battles in the Southwest he was taken to Chicago, where he continued to win and to show signs of cleverness. In that year he had three knockouts to his credit, as follows: Charley Brooks, two rounds; Horace Miles, three rounds, and George Lawler, ten rounds. This showed that he had a punch. The next year, 1902, he added six knockouts to his credit, and one of the defeated men was Jack Jeffries, a brother of the then champion, who had begun to show promising signs as a boxer, but he only lasted five rounds with the black man. His first defeat was at the hands of the veteran boxer, Joe Choynski, with whom he was matched by the Galveston Athletic Club in March, 1901. He was outclassed from the start, as might have been expected from a man with his limited experience. He did very well, however, in the first and second rounds, but in the third he was caught on the jaw with a right hook, and he went down and out. For this contest both men were arrested at the instigation of Gov. Sayers, and held in $5,000 bail, but they were eventually released.
The big year for Johnson, so far as number of fights engaged in was concerned, was 1902, when he was one of the principals in sixteen contests, losing not one, and having four draws. This was the year that he met Jack Jeffries, brother of Jim, and played with him for five rounds before he dropped him for the count.Probably his hardest battle of the year was on October 31, when he met George Gardiner, the middleweight champion of New England, before the San Francisco Club of San Francisco, Cal., and he surprised the people at the ringside who came to see the clever New Englander hang another scalp on his belt. Johnson forced the fight from the start, and kept up the pace during the entire twenty rounds, winning the decision with plenty to spare. This battle brought him more prominently before the public than all of his previous contests put together. After that he met and defeated in six rounds at Los Angeles, Cal., Fred Russell, and again on February 23, 1903, he outpointed Denver Ed Martin in twenty rounds in the same town. Sam McVey, who is at present cutting a wide swath in pugilistic circles in Paris, was Johnson's next opponent. He was a tough customer, capable of taking a good licking and coming back, and he had a punch, too. They came together in Los Angeles, on February 27, 1903, and the bout went the limit of twenty rounds, but from the first the issue was never in doubt, for it was Johnson all the way. The man who is now champion showed then that he had a good punch in either hand, that he was quick, aggressive and resourceful. At the finish the decision went to him, and justly, too. The next day he announced that he was going after Jeffries, for he wanted a chance at the title that was to come to him later on. He claimed at that time that he was the logical opponent for the big fellow and he was also sure that he could beat him. But the champion evaded him, having drawn the color line since he met Hank Griffin in 1901. Johnson won all of his battles during the year of 1903, beating the rugged McVey twice. His first opponent in 1904 was Black Bill, whom he met in a six-round exhibition bout in Philadelphia. On April 22, in San Francisco, he knocked out McVey in the twentieth round, putting a quietus on the aspirations of that boxer and proving conclusively who was the master. He also won from Frank Childs in Chicago in six rounds, and finished up the year by knocking out Ed Martin in Los Angeles in two rounds.
Marvin Hart gave him his first real setback, getting the decision at the end of twenty rounds in San Francisco on March 28, 1905. Hart won, however, purely on his aggressiveness, as at the end of the fight he was badly beaten and in miserable shape, while Johnson, on the other hand, showed scarcely a mark.
He hit cleaner, he showed more cleverness, and he would have won easily had he forced the fighting instead of allowing Hart to set the pace.From that time on he went steadily up, his speed, his cleverness and his ring generalship increasing, and he soon began to be recognized as a dangerous factor in the heavyweight division. The only thing that kept him down was his color, and there are plenty of sporting men today who say that if he had been given his chance he would have been champion long ago, and Tommy Burns would have been in the scrap heap with the rest of the second raters. The only man of his own color capable of competing with him was Joe Jeannette. They met several times, but no one who ever saw these battles had any doubt but that Johnson was the master at all stages of the game and could have done with Jeannette just as he pleased.
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