BoxRec

As most on this forum are aware, in 1913 Jack Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act and was essentially forced to take the HW championship over seas to avoid getting thrown in a US prison. Johnson resumed his career with a fight late in 1913 in Paris and eventually lost the crown to Jess Willard a few years later.

I know this might be hard to think about when there are so many Ali threads to respond to, but what would have happened to the HW title if Johnson had been stripped of the title once he was convicted in court? Let’s say that the two best HWs in the world besides Johnson were matched to fight for the title. Who would they have been and who would have won?

OK, maybe that’s too easy, because most are going to say Langford-Jeanette, so to make this a little more interesting and realistic, let’s look at it from two perspectives. The first is the actual 2 best HW contenders regardless of race fighting, and the second scenario would be if the matchup was made between the two best white HWs at the time, since it’s unlikely that the people that controlled the sport would have allowed another black HW champion.

I guess in the first scenario it would be Langford-Jeannette. They were generally recognized as the best contenders at the time. (McVey was slipping and Wills hadn't reach his peak yet.)

In your second scenario, if it was just white contenders, then one fighter would probably be Gunboat Smith. He beat Moran in 1912, and in 1913 he beat Willard,Flynn, Wells and in November of 1913 he even beat Langford. His opponent may have been Luther McCarty. He had beat Flynn in 1912.

I guess it would also depends on the exact date in 1913 or early 1914 that the the vacant title fight would take place. If it was in early 1914, Langford might not have gotten a title shot because of his loss to Smith in November of 1913.

Ambling Alp wrote:I guess it would also depends on the exact date in 1913 or early 1914 that the the vacant title fight would take place. If it was in early 1914, Langford might not have gotten a title shot because of his loss to Smith in November of 1913.

Good point about the exact date. Let's say the fight was scheduled for December 24, 1913.

According to the rules of the time he could have appointed his successor.

The Great John L wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote:I guess it would also depends on the exact date in 1913 or early 1914 that the the vacant title fight would take place. If it was in early 1914, Langford might not have gotten a title shot because of his loss to Smith in November of 1913.

Good point about the exact date. Let's say the fight was scheduled for December 24, 1913.

If that was the date, Langford probably wouldn't have fought Smith in November. So the two most deserving contenders would have been Langford and Jeannette.

In all practicality, it probably would have been two white fighters fighting for the title. There was precedent for a retiring champion to select a successor or selecting two fighters to fight for the title. ie-Jeffries picking the winner of the Marvin Hart-Jake Root fight to be his successor when he retired.
However, it's unlikely a hated black champion would be able to pick his own successor and have the successor have a lot of support.

What is likely to have happened is that some promoter would stage either a tournament or just one elimination match between white fighters (My best guess is Gunboat Smith and Luther McCarty) and bill it as for the heavyweight title.

(In effect, this is sort of what happened about a year later with the White Hope tournament. However, it wasn't taken too seriously.)

There really was no "Governing Body" with much pull (or even Ring Magazine) to give credibility to whoever would be the new "champion". The public probably wouldn't have accepted the new champion, at least immediately. Marvin Hart wasn't seen as the "real champion" by many people after he won the vacant title and he had Jeffries endorsement.

Perhaps the new champion would have been gradually accepted if he was a "fighting champion" and defeated several top contenders in title defenses. The Sporting News was around at the time and if the new champion had their support that would have helped some.

Of course there really was no credible "Governing Body" to strip Johnson of the title in the first place.

Terry D wrote:

Jack London would have prepared the programe notes.

Anyone remember an article from a few years back -- either Kim or Katz -- which basically said that the Eurasian domination of the HW division was going to lead to Spike Lee visiting Lennox Lewis on his ganja farm in Jamaica & plead for Lenny to come back for the glory of the race?

How I laughed, et cetera. I'm so glad someone else in the world would've got that as well...

Ambling Alp wrote:I guess in the first scenario it would be Langford-Jeannette. They were generally recognized as the best contenders at the time. (McVey was slipping and Wills hadn't reach his peak yet.)

In your second scenario, if it was just white contenders, then one fighter would probably be Gunboat Smith. He beat Moran in 1912, and in 1913 he beat Willard,Flynn, Wells and in November of 1913 he even beat Langford. His opponent may have been Luther McCarty. He had beat Flynn in 1912.

I guess it would also depends on the exact date in 1913 or early 1914 that the the vacant title fight would take place. If it was in early 1914, Langford might not have gotten a title shot because of his loss to Smith in November of 1913.

A better question is why didn't Langford, Jeanette, Gunboat Smith, or McVey get a title by 1913?