Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-07-13
BIG FIGHT PROVES
4 TAME AFFAIR
JOHNSON AN EASY WINNER IN
THE FIFTEENTH ROUND
or BATTLE.
JEFFRlEs BADLY POUNDED, GIVES
UP TO AVOID KNOCK
OUT.

1
! Reno, New, July John Arthur
Johnson, a Texas negro, the son OF an
American slave, is the first and undis
lputed heavyweight champion OF the
world.
! James J. Jeffries of California, win
ner of % championship fights, the man
who never was brought to his knees
before by a blow, has passed into his
/ tory as a broken idol He met utter
defeat at the hands of the black cham
pion.
While Jeffries was not actually
counted out, he was saved only from
this crowining shame by his friends
pleading with Johnson not to hit the
| fallen man again, and the towel was
brought into the ring from his corner.
| At the end of the fifteen round,
Referee Tex Richard raised the black
| arm, and the great crowd filed out,
/ glufn and silent
| Jeffries was dragged to his corner,
bleeding from nose and mouth, and a
dozen cuts On the face. He had a
black, closed eye and swollen features
and he held his head in his hands,
dazed and incoherent
Johnson walked out of the ring
without mark ON his body, except a
slight cut on his lip, which was the
opening of a wound received in train
ing.
Jeffries OutcIassed.
Ring experts agree that it was not
even a championship fight. Jeffries
had a chance in the second round, per
haps, but after the sixth it was plain
/ that he was weakened and outclassed
in every point, and after the eleventh
round it was hopeless.
1t was the greatest demonstration
the ring has ever seen of the failure
of a fighter to come back" after years
of retirement. The youth and science
of the black man made Jeffries look
like a green man. The great Jeffries
was like log. The reviled Johnson
YVES like q black panther, beautiful in
his aIertness and defensive tactics.
Jeffries fought by instinct, it
seemed, showing his gameness and his
great fighting heart in every round,
but he was only the she'll of his old
self The old power to take a terrible
beating and bore in until he landed
the knockout blow was gone.
Easy for Johnson.
After the third round Johnson
treated his opponent almost as a joke
He smiled and blocked playfully,
warding off the bearlike rushes OF
Jeffries with a marvellous science,
now tucking a blow under his arm,
again plucking it out of the air as a
man stops a baseball.
Out of the sea of opinions and argu-
ments that bolstered up this fight ana
made it the talk of the world these
pinnacles of facts have been cast up:
The fight was on the square. Of
that there was no doubt after the first
round
There was no evidence or hint of
the famous yellow streak on the
part of Johnson
Johnson proved himself so abso-
lute1y Jeffries master that experts
such as w Corbett, the Australian
sporting writer and ring expert, de-
ciared that Tommy BURNS h4-d put UP
better fight against johnson, and
that the black man was on. playing
with the other man.
The end was swift and terrible. Tt
looked as If Johnson had been holding
himself under cover. all the rest of the
time, and now that he had measured
Jeffries in all his weakness he had
determined to stop it quickly.
Jeffries had lost the power of de-
Tense. A series of right and left up-
per cuts delivered at will sent him
staggering to the ropes. He turned
and fought back by instinct, as if he
was dying hard
the fight was tame. Jeffries did not
have the power in his punch to hurt
Johnson after he had received blow
after blow on the jaw, and his vital
power was ebbing But even before
this stage came, Jeffries could mot
reach the black. The blows, almost
all of them, landed with all the speed
taken out of them It was ike hit
ting a punching bag.
The Decisive Fifteenth Round.
When the men faced each other it
was plain to ali that Jeffries was in
distress His face was pulled and
bleeding from the Furnishing let's and
rights he had received, and his move
ments were languid. He shambled
after the elusive negro, sometimes
.crouching low with his left hand
stuck out in front and sometimes
standing erect. STOPPING or erect, he
was a mark for Johnson's accurately