BOXING's INTERREGNUM: HOW GOOD WAS TOMMY BURN WORLD Heavwelght BOXING CHAMPION, 1906-1908 by Don Morrow and Terry Jackson the University of Western Ontario
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BOXING'S INTERREGNUM: HOW GOOD WAS TOMMY BURN WORLD HEAVWElGHT BOXING CHAMPION, 1906-1908 by Don Morrow and Terry Jackson The University of Western Ontario. London, Ontario Randy Roberts, in his celebrated work Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and Era of White Hopes, declared that after Tommy ~urns'1906 defeat of Mar Hart: His fight with Hart was a dull affair that attracted little public interest. Burns won, but from the newspaper coverage of the fight it was difficult to say exactly what he won. Certainly he was the new heavyweight champion of the world, but the title by 1906 had reached its bargain-basement low. It appeared that the only people interested in the crown were a handful of undramatic contenders and a few Western promoters. The public and the press showed no interest.1 However, John Lardner, author of the 1951 White Hopes and Other Tiger writing in Newsweek (1955) commented: It is likely Burns was a better fighter than anyone who had held the title since (Gene) Tunney's time, with the exception of Joe Louis and perhaps Rocky Marciano.2 In short, Lardner suggested Burns, the world heavyweight boxing champior from 1906 to 1908,3 was a more legitimate heavyweight champion than Max Schmeling, Jack Sharkey, Max Baer, Primo Carnera, Ezzard Charles and Joe Walcott. The purpose of this paper is to examine the career of Tommy Burns in the context of his boxing times. It would appear that Burns has been glossed over as champion of mediocrity during the hiatus between Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson. In fact, Isenberg, who in John 1. Sullivan and His America incorrectly identifies Burns as a "French-Canadian,"4 would have us believe that following ~urns'decision over Hart, Burns "embarked on a worldwide flight of almost three years to keep out of the range of the clear class of the heavyweights, Jack Johnson."s To the contrary, we would contend that Burns' situation and legitimate status as the world heavyweight champion was much more complex than "fight or flightm-certainly worthy of much closer scrutiny-and that he made significant contributions to the development of modern professional boxing. over's Son lt is not necessary to trace Burns' early life for the purposes of this er. However, there are some points of biographical information that do ite to our later discussion. Burns was born in 1881 and christened Noah sso, the sixth child of German immigrant parents.6 As a farmboy, there are nerous stories about his fistic encounters but most of these have been tten in retrospect7 We do know that he excelled at field lacrosse and ice :key, both of which were popular sports at the time in southwestern tario. Several documents confirm that he was good enough to play on reral semi-professional and professional teams even during his pro boxing .eer and there is at least some speculation that he may even have played altender in lacrosse. If so, it is tempting to attribute some of his defensive txing skills to those necessary to perform well in blocking an india-rubber 111.9 Equally strong evidence suggests that Burns was a good all-round hlete who played not only hockey and lacrosse but also football, basketball td baseball. At 17 years of age, he lost by one second in a 3-mile leedskating race to the world champion and fellow Canadian, R. McCullough.lo The point is that Burns had wide experience in competitive sports. ever a big man-he was 5 feet, 7 inches and weighed 180 pounds in his oxing prime-it would seem that he had the desire to excel in sport and that is early life supported a lifetime wanderlust. Uprooted at least 5 times as a ~oy,Burns was independent and adventurous enough to move anywhere- outhern Ontario, Ohio or New York-that he could play sport. By 1900, he ?stablished himself as a painter11 in Detroit, Michigan, and spent his spare :ime at the Detroit Athletic Club learning the rudiments of boxing. By sheer chance, Burns filled in for another fighter in a professional match with, appropriately to his later fame acquired in breaking the colour line, a local negro fighter, Fred Thornton.12 He won that one and over the next 4 years, in his first 38 reported matches,l3 he knocked out 23 opponents, lost 3 times, won 5 and drew 7 times.14 His three losses were to reputable, ranking middleweights and light heavyweights, Mike Schreck, "Philadelphia Jack" 0'~rienand Jack (Twin) Sullivan. There was an acknowledged light heavyweight title at the time, but boxers tended to downplay it in favour of chances at the heavyweight title. By 1904, Burns became a relatively well known middleweight boxer in the mid-west. He even experienced the near-death of an opponent when in 1904 he floored Ben 0'~rady and spent some time in jail pending manslaughter charges until 0'~radyrecovered.15 In the same year, he adopted the ring name, Tommy Burns, probably taken from a relatively famous Canadian jockey of the period16 and a name that was in keeping with .