John Arthur Johnson or most widely known as Jack Johnson was considered as one of the greatest American boxers of all time. Johnson was also the first world Heavy Weight Boxing Champion who is an African American. He was noted as the most notoriously famous African American in his reign, which was about 13 years ranging from 1908 up to 1915.
Johnson was born on March 31st of 1878 in Galveston, Texas. He was the first son of former slaves Henry Johnson and Tina Johnson, who had Coromantins ancestry from the Gold Coast.
He was the very first African American Heavyweight champion who was able to secure a spot on about any top ten listing. He was the most audacious boxer before Roy Jones Jr. and Muhammad Ali. Johnson was able to retain his title for over 10 years and was quite well-known to have humiliated his opponents. He loved to mock almost all his opponents and has angered the white Americans with his antic “in your face” signature. One of the ways that he does to embarrass his opponents is by not having them knocked out easily so he could continuously beat them up. And although the press has a lot of negative comments about him, he proved his worth by being undefeated. Though it was noted also by some journalists that he was for more than a decade, the most well-known and least-liked African American ever lived.
He is also considered as one of the greatest boxers of all time because of his unique boxing style which made it had for his opponents to put up a punch on him. His move was unpredictable. He is undeniably large yet he has light feet which made it him hard to be punched by challengers and thus made him invincible.
Johnson’s big break to victory was when he fought the white American James J. Jeffries who was at that time still undefeated. Johnson’s fight with Jeffries was one of the most awaited boxing fights in the history of boxing and was thus called “The Fight of the Century“. Jeffries who was then already retired from boxing came back from the profession to prove that a white man is far better than a Negro. Johnson’s challenger, Jeffries went back from the top training to regain his boxing shape, endurance, and speed, but still he lost from Johnson’s unpredictable moves. During the fight, it was pretty obvious who Johnson’s overwhelmed Jeffries. And before Jeffries can be knocked out, his team threw the white towel to stop the fight. From that moment on, the critics who were discriminating and discrediting Johnson became silent.
Although Johnson has a spectacular boxing career, his love life on the other hand was a bit rough on the edges. He was married three times and all on to white women. This situation caused additional controversy to his life. In addition, his first wife Etta Terry Duryea committed suicide after how many times of being beaten and has suffered from depression. His second wife Lucille Cameron divorced Johnson for infidelity. His third and last wife was Irene Pineau. When Irene was asked by a reporter of what was it that she loved about Johnson, she replied that Johnson was a man who was not afraid of anything.
Jack Johnson has a record of 73 Wins – 40 of them were Knocked Out, 13 Lost, and 9 Draws. He was basically the greatest Heavyweight Champion of his generation.
