Jack Johnson vs. Fireman Jim Flynn (2nd meeting)
Jack Johnson 212 lbs beat Fireman Jim Flynn 193 lbs by DQ in round 9 of 45
- Date: 1912-07-04
- Location: Open Air Arena, East Las Vegas, New Mexico, USA
- Referee: Edward W Smith
- Promoter: Jack Curley
- World Heavyweight Title (6th defense by Johnson)
- Photo #2, Photo #3, Photo #4
Notes
- April 17, 1912: New Mexico passes the Tripp prize-fight law, permitting 45-round contests, specifically with this fight in mind. [1]
- On the day of the bout, carpenters were still working on the arena, while fans were entering, putting on the finishing touches.
- There was a crowd of approximately 4,500.
- Johnson received $21,000 instead of the $31,000 he was promised. Two days before the fight, when things looked very bad for a big house, he agreed to take less.
- The promotion was not successful. Promoter Jack Curley said: "I stand to loss about $15,000 of my own money."
- Referee Smith stated after the fight: "Jim Flynn disgraced everybody by fighting as foul a battle as a man can devise. . . . I was about to disqualify him and give the contest to the champion when the state police burst into the ring and declared the thing at an end."
Syndicated boxing writer T.S. Andrews reported on July 5, 1912:
The fight was scheduled to go forty-five rounds, but in the ninth Capt. Fornoff of the state force, personal representative at the ringside of Governor McDonald, declared that it was no longer a boxing contest; that it was a brutal exhibition, and that Flynn's foul tactics made its continuance impossible. He jumped into the ring with his deputies and drove the fighters and officials who followed him to the corners. Referee Ed W. Smith then announced that Johnson had won and the fight was over.
Flynn displayed no ability throughout the fight. He was cut about the face until blood ran down his breast in a stream. He was utterly helpless from the first round on and by the sixth was deliberately trying to butt the champion's chin with his head. Time after time, as Johnson held him powerless in the clinches, Flynn jerked his head upward.
Smith warned him repeatedly, but it did no good. In the seventh he began leaping upward every time he could work his head under Johnson's chin. Flynn's feet were both off the floor time and again with the energy he put into his bounds. Sometimes he seemed to leap two feet into the air in frantic plunges at the elusive jaw above him.
Referee Smith forced Flynn back toward his corner half a dozen times. "Stop that butting," he would say, shaking his finger in Flynn's face. "Stop it or I will disqualify you."
"The — Negro's holding me," Flynn roared back. "He's holding me all the time. He's holding me like this," and he offered to illustrate on the referee. Smith evaded the blood smeared arms held toward him and waved the men together again.
In the next clinch—it was in the eighth round—Flynn flung himself upward again. Smith jumped between them and warned him once more. "Next time you do it I'll disqualify you," he shouted at Flynn, but changed his mind, for it happened again and again in that round and repeatedly in the ninth before the police took a hand.
Through it all the champion was grinning. He evaded Flynn's attack with the utmost ease, whether the Pueblo man led with his hands or with his head. Only once in the rounds did he show any wish to end the fight, and yet ringside opinion was unanimous that he could have put Flynn out at any time he happened to fancy, whether in the first or the ninth round.