Jack Johnson vs. Frank Moran
Jack Johnson 222 lbs beat Frank Moran 203 lbs by PTS in round 20 of 20
- Date: 1914-06-27
- Location: Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris, Paris, France
- Referee: Georges Carpentier
Notes
- It was reported before the fight that Johnson would get $35,000 and Moran $5,000.
- Johnson was a 3 to 1 favorite.
- There was a crowd of 30,000.
- Georges Carpentier was the referee and sole judge. The 20-year-old Frenchman, an admitted admirer of Johnson, was the reigning European Heavyweight Champion and future World Light Heavyweight Champion.
- The St. Petersburg Daily Times reported the following on June 28, 1914:
- The battle was hard fought, but Johnson won easily. Moran was game and stubborn and did most of the leading. Johnson's superior skill was effective and his upper-cutting wore Moran down and won the contest. . . . There were no knockdowns, or anything resembling a finishing blow in the fight. At the close Moran's face was bleeding from a cut under the nose and left eye. Johnson showed no marks.
From "Jack And The Game" by Finis Farr, Sports Illustrated, June 22, 1959:
Jack Johnson, the first Negro heavyweight champion of the world, arrived in Europe in July of 1913 as a fugitive from a jail sentence for technical violation of the Mann Act in the U.S. He was accompanied by his third wife, Lucille Cameron Johnson, and his nephew and factotum, Gus Rhodes. Johnson had a vaudeville act in which he clowned and played the bass fiddle, in addition to sparring and bag punching, and was undoubtedly a much better entertainer than the average pugilist who took to the stage. He also had delusions of grandeur and a strong tendency to overestimate his popularity and to mistake mere curiosity for admiration. But even Johnson began to get the message of disapproval when he was heckled at the South London Music Hall and heard the savage booing of the audience at the Euston Theater of Varieties. And at Wolverhampton his entire act was canceled on the protest of the local Free Church congregation.
In the face of such discouragement Johnson decided to abandon the theater for a while and meet a suitable challenger in the ring. But it was not until the following year, when he met Dan McKetrick, that he found a promoter whom he considered trustworthy. McKetrick was a high-strung Irish-American who was staging fights in Paris under the corporate title of La Société pour la Propagation de la Boxe Francaise. He suggested that Jack take on Francis Charles Moran, a red-haired young man from Pittsburgh who had served a hitch in the Navy. Moran had beaten some reasonably good fighters and was feared for his devastating right swing, which was known as "the old Mary Ann." Johnson signed articles for the fight at a bottle-loaded café table in the Bois de Boulogne.
McKetrick's temper, not smooth at the best of times, was continually abraded during the promotion of this fight. For one thing, the French journalists raised a cry of "Qui est Moran?" and refused to publish McKetrick's propaganda until he agreed to distribute $3,600 among them.
The promoter was even more displeased when Moran went to the U.S. and brought back Ike Dorgan, brother of Hearst Cartoonist Tad, as his personal manager. Dan McKetrick had special reasons for wanting to continue as sole director of Moran's career. He called the boxer into conference.
"Let's sign a contract, Frank," McKetrick said.
"I don't need no contract," Moran replied.
"Well, I do!" cried McKetrick, quickly coming to a boil.
"I'm sorry," Moran said. "When I left the Navy I took an oath never to sign no papers."
"You took an oath!" screamed McKetrick. "What if I take a punch at your head!"
"You've got more sense than that," said Moran, but McKetrick went away fuming. The truth is that the promoter was convinced Johnson was finished as a fighter and that Moran could beat him and would then be worth "a fortune of money." He was further convinced of this when Johnson, out after some extra money before the Moran bout, broke a small bone in his left arm while fighting a heavyweight named Battling Jim Johnson. McKetrick could not endure the thought of Ike Dorgan cutting in on his expected bonanza. In this implacable mood, McKetrick decided that nobody would get anything until matters were arranged as he wanted them. Using a claim against Moran for a $1,497 advance as legal excuse, he instructed a French lawyer to tie up the entire amount in the box office the minute the fight was over.
When the fight took place, before a fashionable audience at the Vélodrome d'Hiver, McKetrick saw he had been terribly mistaken about Moran's chances. It was true that Johnson was not in first-rate condition, but his superlative defense held up, and he was able to evade the dreaded Mary Ann and give Moran a severe beating without the full use of his left arm. Johnson had a rather preoccupied air, for he had heard rumors of writs and lawyers and knew but too well that this always meant trouble. And, as he feared, he was told after the fight that French police had grabbed the money and taken it away.
"Goodby, money, you're going to be long gone," Johnson muttered, shaking his head, and drove out to his villa in suburban Asnieres-sur-Seine for a victory banquet of chicken, lobster, whisky and champagne, all obtained on credit. These events took place on the night of June 27, 1914. Next day, in the provincial Bosnian town of Sarajevo, a political assassin shot the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Within 48 hours McKetrick's lawyer was called to military service, and in the excitement he left without giving his client the necessary papers to get the funds out of the Bank of France. When McKetrick cooled down and applied for the money the bank officials told him they had no authority to release it. It had taken McKetrick four weeks to get into a mood to talk business, and by this time World War I had broken out; and so the settlement would have to wait until the lawyer could get back to Paris on a furlough. But that brave man, unhappily, was killed in one of the first engagements, and to this day not a single sou of the gate receipts has ever been sprung. And so the Johnson-Moran match must be recorded as history's only world heavyweight championship fight in which the contestants worked without pay.
[The fight with Battling Jim Johnson took place more than six months previously and Johnson had only suffered a mild fracture which had had plenty of time to heal.]