100 Years Ago. Boxing Day, 1908. "A Large Black Cat Played With A Small White Mouse."

[Master]

Just seems like yesterday.

Tommy Burns the smallest heavyweight champion at 5ft 6 inches.

[Kel]

Just seems like yesterday.

Tommy Burns the smallest heavyweight champion at 5ft 6 inches.

What the fuck? Are you a hundred years old with a great memory or nuts?

[Zelley]

It was interesting reading the local paper on Boxing Day with an interesting article
"Australia commemorates Canadian's historic fight" by Randy Boswell.

The main problem with the article about Johnson and Burns was it gave the impression that Jack Johnson was the first black champion and compared Johnson's win a milestone akin to Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in major league baseball.

The problem with that reference in a Canadian newspaper is it overlooks
the achievements of former bantamweight and featherweight champion
George Dixon from Halifax, Canada. Without rehashing Dixon's complete boxing tour of
duty from 1886 to 1906, it is recognized that he won the featherweight title
with a victory over Australia's Abe Willis in San Francisco in 1891.
So with due respect to Jack Johnson, I'm not sure what racial barrier
that he broke.

Johnson's winning the heavyweight title was not necessarily a positive step
for the rest of the African American heavyweights. In fact most were diminshed to
fighting each other but no title shots with Johnson. It wouldn't be until
the Cinderella man James Braddock fought Joe Louis in 1937 that the African American heavyweights would start to see a rainbow and sunshine instead of stormy weather!

In other weight divisions we did have the likes of George Dixon, Tiger Flowers,
Joe Gans, and Joe Walcott.

[Kev]

Just seems like yesterday.

Tommy Burns the smallest heavyweight champion at 5ft 6 inches.

What the fuck? Are you a hundred years old with a great memory or nuts?

I believe Scrap was ringside for his fight with Ketchel