The Iron Man

It was a great occasion in ring affairs when James J. Jeffries defeated Fitzsimmons to win the heavyweight title.

Jeffries was taken in hand by three wise ringmen, Billy Delaney, Bill Brady, and Tommy Ryan, and they developed him into one of the greatest pugilists of modern times. Born in Carroll, Ohio, April 15, 1875, he came from stock that traced its ancestry back to Normandy.

His family moved to California in 1881, and Jeffries lived in that state until his death on March 3, 1953 at Burbank, California.

Jim was six feet, two inches tall and weighed 220 pounds stripped when he was only sixteen years old. He was a gruff, taciturn man whose ox-like strength gained for him the heavyweight crown. He lacked style, dash, boxing skill, and other assets of an excellent fighter when he made his climb, but by the time he reached the heights, he gained international acclaim.

In action he looked like a big bear, with his massive hairy chest, and he fought with the ferocity of one. Such giants as Gus Ruhlin, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Corbett, Tom Sharkey among others, tried to subdue him, but without success.

Jeffries was an iron worker, and while in that employ he learned how to box. He won a couple of contests and then Harry Corbett, a California sportsman, introduced him to Billy Delaney, who was looking for a sparring partner for Jim Corbett, then in training for his fight with Fitzsimmons.

He wanted one who was big and husky, one who could take Corbett's punches without wilting. Jeff accepted the post, and in camp he absorbed the knowledge that enabled him to climb to the top. Billy Delaney saw a find in him, took him in hand, and trained him. A couple of years later Jeffries surprised the world by trouncing Fitzsimmons to gain the world heavyweight championship.

He was called the Iron Man of the Roped Square. He could batter an opponent into submission with his TNT wallops but could easily be hit and often took severe punishment until he perfected his crouch as a means of defense. In his first battle with Corbett, and his twenty-five round bout with Tom Sharkey in which he broke two of Tom's ribs, Jeffries received as much as he gave, but his endurance surpassed his rivals' and he won.

The same happened in his fights with Bob Fitzsimmons. When Jeffries faced Ruby Robert for the first time, he scaled thirty-eight pounds more than his freckled opponent, who came in at only 167. Fitzsimmons was an old man as boxing ages go, thirty-seven years, when he faced Jeff, thirteen years his junior. Here is how their bout ended:

Jeffries advanced carefully. Then his long left crashed to the jaw of the champion. A feint at the body was followed by a powerful left again to Fitzsimmons' jaw. His knees buckled, and his brain was benumbed.

Jeffries launched his right with 205 pounds behind the toss and it landed with a thud against "Freckled Bob's" jaw. He fell. Jeffries stood and looked down on his defeated opponent while Referee George Siler counted the doleful decimal.

Fitzsimmons lay on his back. His eyes were closed. His blood-stained shoulders quivered. The great arms that had wrenched the crown from Corbett, doubled up the powerful Tom Sharkey, and hammered Gus Ruhlin into submission, lay inert at his side. Over him swept the cheers that he had so often heard before, but this time they were not for him. They were for a new fistic hero from the Golden West.

Five months after winning the crown, Jeffries tackled Sharkey in a twenty-five rounds bout in Coney Island, New York, that developed into one of the most brutal seen during the early days of the gloves era. The former gob, who had previously lost a decision to Jeffries in twenty rounds, was a much improved battler this time. Though he failed to win, he made a desperate effort to do so.

Before the gong sounded for the last round, it was obvious that only a knockout could win for Sailor Tom, but he still was full of fight despite two broken ribs and severe lacerations brought on by Jeff's cutting, stinging blows. Jeffries charged from his corner and overwhelmed his opponent with a fusillade of lefts and rights that forced Tom to retreat. At the bell ending the fight, Sharkey was in a sorry state. Referee Siler held up the hand of Jeffries, the victor. Sharkey had to be removed to a hospital.

An exhibition tour followed and several minor contests were staged by Jeffries. In one, he faced a burly miner, inexperienced but powerful Jack Munro, who surprisingly dropped Jeffries with a blow to the jaw.

Jack Curley, a promoter, took advantage of the situation and through ballyhoo aroused sufficient interest to rematch the pair. This time, Munro was knocked out in the second round. During World War One he joined the Princess Pat Regiment of Canada and was one of the outstanding heroes in the famous outfit.

It was after that bout on August 24, 1904, that Jeffries, unable to obtain suitable opponents, retired and selected Marvin Hart and Jack Root to fight for the vacated throne, with Jeffries to act as referee. When Hart knocked out Root in the twelfth round, he was proclaimed new champion.

But dissension arose.

There were other excellent heavies in the field who protested Jeffries' act. One of these was Tommy Burns (Noah Brusso of Canada, born June 17, 1881). he challenged and cleaned up the field, taking on all comers in various parts of the world. Through his triumphs he received universal recognition as champion.

Jack Johnson, the Galveston Giant, was one of several top ringmen who contested the right of Burns to the crown.

He followed Tommy all over the world to force him to accept a challenge to settle the matter of supremacy. Burns was finally cornered in Australia, where Snowy Baker guaranteed Tommy $30,000 to fight the Negro at Rushcutter's Bay, Sidney, on Boxing Day, December 26, 1908.

That huge sum, the largest offered to any fighter up to that time, was the golden egg from which were hatched the millions Dempsey, Tunney, Joe Louis and others later drew. Tommy received a shellacking from his tormentor, who in an avenging spirit took pleasure in cutting up his opponent. The police stopped the bout in the fourteenth round.

When he beat Burns, Johnson had a record of sixty-seven ring battles. He was a cautious, tantalizing performer. He stood six feet, one-quarter inch and at his best scaled 210 pounds. He possessed great ring science, was a master of the now lost art of feinting, and carrying punishing power with his stiff jabs, he could make things most uncomfortable for an opponent. He was a fighter with a perfect stance.

Following his triumph in Australia, he fought Victor McLaglen, the movie actor, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, and Al Kaufman, and won from each handily. Then came his historic battle with Stanley Ketchel, middleweight champion, in which, though an agreement was reached whereby there would be no knockout, Ketchel, seeing an opening, lashed a powerful blow to Johnson's jaw in the twelfth round and dropped the big heavyweight king.

So angered was Johnson that, quickly rising, he squared off, let go his left, and it was curtains for Ketchel. He was knocked flat on his back and was counted out.

The quest of a "White Hope" was now on. In every country, enterprising managers were scouting for a Caucasian to whip Johnson, whose escapades and marriages to white women had turned public sentiment against him.

Charged with violation of the Mann Act, for which he later served a year in Leavenworth Prison, Johnson left America for Europe and later South America, while promoters were kept busy digging up talent to obtain an outstanding Caucasian as an opponent for Galveston Jack.

Before going overseas, however, Johnson had one more important contest in the States. Jeffries, urged by his friends, particularly Jack London, the author, who had been present in Sydney and following the Burns slaughter had written to Jeffries pleading for him to come out of retirement and bring back the title to his race, signed for a fight with Johnson. Tex Rickard, who was both promoter and referee, staged it at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910.

Jeffries, a shell of his former self, proved easy for the Galveston Giant, who handed the Boilermaker a severe beating, almost as terrible as he had given to Burns. In the middle of the fifteenth round, Sam Berger, Jeff's chief second, tossed in the sponge in token of defeat and Rickard, acknowledging the gesture, held up the hand of Johnson.

That victory redoubled the action of the promoters seeking someone who might take the crown from the Negro. The "White Hope" race was now on in earnest.

With Johnson's triumph ended another era in the heavyweight division -an era that boasted of the greatest array of talent since Tom Dyer's installation as America's first champion.

It seemed now that a White Race cult had suddenly come into existence that took the stand that only a Caucasian heavyweight could hold the championship-a ridieulous situation.

When on January 1, 1914, Gunboat Smith knocked out Arthur Pelkey in fifteen rounds in San Francisco, the New Yorker laid claim to the "White Heavyweight Title." The "White Hope" craze suddenly went into crescendo.

Among the leading boxers were Luther McCarty, a giant cowboy, Carl Morris, Tom Cowler, Fred Fulton, Arthur Pelkey, Gunboat Smith, Frank Moran, Al Palzer and Jess Willard. They were the more prominent from among whom it was expected the man to beat Johnson would be found. And he was.

The "White Hopes" thrived between 1910 and 1915, and they were a mighty impressive lot, far better than the majority of the contenders in recent years.

For a time it seemed that Frank Moran might be the successful candidate, and then the eyes of the boxing world became centered on a better all-around heavyweight, Luther McCarty.

Unfortunately, in a bout for the championship of the Caucasian race, staged by Tommy Burns at Calgary, Canada, McCarty died a few minutes after his contest with Arthur Pelkey got under way, not from a blow he had received, hut, as the autopsy showed, from a broken collarbone, an ailment not disclosed prior to the affair.

With him out of the way, all eyes became focused on another giant, Jess Willard of Pottowatomie, Kansas, who through a number of knockouts over pretty good heavyweights and a national ballyhoo campaign by Billy McCarney, who was handling his affairs, gained national recognition.

He started his career in 1911, and by the time he was ready for the leap into the field of challengers he had taken into camp, among others, Sailor White, Soldier Kearns, Billy Young, who died following a knockout in the eleventh round, and Boer Rodel, with whom he previously had gone ten rounds in addition to fighting ten rounds no-decision contests with such stars as Pelkey, McCarty, and Carl Morris.

It was after his knockout of Rodel in Atlanta, Georgia, that Willard's preliminary work had been completed and he was ready for the shot at the crown.