CHAPTER 3 JACK JOHNSON VS. TOMMY BURNS Fight: Jack Johnson vs. Tommy Burns Weight Class: Heavyweight Title at Stake: World heavyweight Date: December 26, 1908 Location: Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, Australia Outcome: Jack Johnson by unanimous decision Referee: Hugh D. McIntosh Background During the tumultuous period between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many brilliant boxers of African descent (such as Canadians George Godfrey and Sam Langford, along with Peter Jackson, Joe Jeannette, and Sam McVey) were routinely denied world title shots in the heavyweight division. Only in the lighter weight classes were Black fighters permitted to challenge for world titles, albeit under very adverse conditions. The heavyweight division, then and now, has always been the most prestigious and profitable in all of boxing for any fighter not named Mayweather. More than a few heavyweight title fights over the past 141 years have been billed as The Fight of the Century. The fight between Jack Johnson and James J.
Jeffries on July 4, 1910, was the first to be billed as such, and it certainly lived up to its billing. Johnson won every round by a wide margin before knocking out the badly beaten and terrified former heavyweight champion in the fifteenth and final frame of a scheduled forty-five-round bout. The first bout between two undefeated world heavyweight champions, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, on March 8, 1971, was also billed as the Fight of the Century, and it not only lived up to the hype surrounding it but, in many ways, surpassed it. Like all truly great prizefights, the Johnson-Jeffries battle and the first Ali-Frazier bout captured a historic moment in time. In every respect, the Tommy Burns-Jack Johnson world heavyweight title clash really was the first Fight of the Century. This is due to its social and racial implications -- it would be the very first chance for a man of African descent to fight for the heavyweight crown. Racial tensions throughout the United States were at a breaking point leading up to the match, and many white Americans were strongly against allowing any man of African descent to fight for the most important prize in all of sports. The world heavyweight title, by design, had previously been the domain of white men.
Many around the world were outraged by Burns allowing Johnson to challenge him for a title they felt firmly belonged in the arms of the white race. Men of African descent weren''t even deemed worthy of consideration for the title. This is why there was so much criticism directed at Burns for giving Johnson a crack at the crown. The tidal wave of racism levied against Johnson was, as always, rooted in fear and ignorance. Biased white politicians, clergymen, and media all over the world urged their millions of servile followers to believe the virulent racist claptrap that white people were born superior to people of African descent. These ignorant, hate-filled white leaders had been spewing such garbage and calling it the gospel truth for centuries. Of course, what really terrified white leaders was the distinct possibility that Johnson could win, thereby exposing their prejudices and lies. The previous heavyweight champions, all of whom were white, were also not pleased with Johnson''s title shot.
John L. Sullivan, James J. Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, James J. Jeffries, and Marvin Hart were all extremely prejudiced toward African Americans. Hart was even rumoured to have been a member of the KKK. The title of world heavyweight champion did not truly mean what it implied until Jack Johnson assumed the throne on December 26, 1908, at Rushcutters Bay in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, by fourteenth-round stoppage. Although the film that was later released to the public was edited, there can be no doubt that Burns had been knocked out as he was on the canvas when the police entered the ring to stop the fight. Burns entered the fight as a six-to-four favourite.
Obviously, the odds were racially inspired. A closer look at their respective careers reveals that Johnson had the better resumé going into their fight. Johnson had fought and defeated Sam Langford, Joe Jeannette, and Sam McVey, three men whom Burns assiduously avoided, and with good reason -- they would have killed him. Burns had beaten some good heavyweights, but no one in the class of a Langford, Jeannette, or McVey. Burns was paid the enormous sum of $30,000 to face Johnson, which is equivalent to $1,003,659.78 in 2025. Some fans were outraged at the amount, but Burns''s logic was sound. Johnson was the biggest threat to his title; therefore, he should get the biggest purse possible.
Johnson earned $5,000, which in 2025 comes to $167,276.63. The fallout from Johnson''s stunning victory was far greater than the money either man received. Johnson considered his remuneration for the fight a personal insult, which it was. He took his fiscal anger out on the smaller Burns, punishing him unmercifully for fifteen one-sided rounds. Johnson could not have brutalized Burns any better had he been allowed the use of a baseball bat. At the turn of the twentieth century, several world boxing champions were Canadian, which is astonishing for a country with such a small population. George Little Chocolate Dixon, Johnny Coulon, Mysterious Billy Smith, and, of course, Tommy Burns were just some of the great champions that emerged from Canada.
Fellow Canadian Sam Langford is widely believed to be the greatest fighter never to have won a world title. Tommy Burns garnered more press than any of these turn-of-the-century Canadian pugilistic greats except for Dixon and Langford. Why? Well, he held the most prestigious title in sports. Burns was an outgoing man who lived his life to the fullest and, like Johnson, always danced to a tune of his own making. Tommy Burns Tommy Burns fervently believed that he was born with a love for fighting the same way Mozart was born with a genius for music. Burns loved fisticuffs. He could never get enough fighting, in or out of the ring. He grew up in what was then considered frontier Canada, in southern Ontario, and was forced to endure a very rough and violent upbringing.
Fighting was a way of life in small town Canada in the late nineteenth century. Burns was born Noah Brusso on June 17, 1881, a mere fourteen years after Canada became a sovereign nation, in 1867. His parents were Frederick Brusso, an Italian Canadian cabinetmaker, and Sophia Dankert, a German Canadian housewife. Noah Brusso was the first Canadian-born prizefighter to win the world heavyweight title. He was not, however, the first Canadian-born fighter to win a world boxing title. That honour belongs to the immortal African Canadian George Dixon, who won the bantamweight and featherweight world crowns and invented shadowboxing and the heavy bag. In his late teens, Brusso changed his name to Tommy Burns, to hide his chosen profession from his mother. Tommy Burns was from Hanover, Ontario, which is how he earned the sobriquet The Little Giant of Hanover.
Burns stood slightly over five foot seven and is still the shortest man ever to hold the heavyweight crown. He was really a puffed-up middleweight (with heavyweight power). Today he would be considered a super middleweight. In fact, Burns turned down a shot at middleweight king Tommy Ryan in order to go after the more glamourous heavyweight belt (and more money) by taking on Hart. Burns was well put together. He had huge shoulders and thick calves. He took great pride in always being in tremendous physical shape. He may have been built like a middleweight, but he had enough power in his fists to stretch any heavyweight for a ten count.
Burns carried dynamite in both hands and knew how to get full leverage on all of his power shots. But the sport in which he really excelled was lacrosse, which is the national sport of Canada. Back then, lacrosse was a very violent sport. When trouble broke out on a lacrosse pitch, it was usually Burns who stepped in -- he''d settle scores with opposing players and rambunctious, drunken fans alike. Burns never took fighting personally, except for his fight with Johnson. He was pugnacious by nature, never letting any slight or slur on his character pass unanswered. Although Burns loved fighting, he had never even considered a career in professional boxing. While playing lacrosse in Detroit, a sportswriter named Joe Jackson told Burns he should pursue boxing as a vocation.
Burns was getting into fights everywhere he went -- bars, restaurants, hotels. He was a magnet for rowdy ruffians desperate to engage him in street brawls. And Burns was always happy to oblige. Jackson suggested to him that rather than fight for free, why not do it professionally and get paid. Burns followed Jackson''s advice and began to pursue in earnest a career in pugilism. Jackson referred Burns to former boxer and promoter Sam Biddle, a crusty old cur of a man. Biddle might have been a curmudgeon, but he knew his boxing, and he knew how to bring a fighter along. Under his tutelage, Burns quickly learned the craft of boxing and started to ascend the ranks of the heavyweight division.
Burns acquired the undisputed world heavyweight title from Kentuckian Marvin Hart on February 23, 1906, in Los Angeles, California, via a twenty-round unanimous decision. Ironically, Hart had been gifted a decision over Johnson the previous year, in San Francisco, in a fight clearly dominated by Johnson. Upon winning the title from Hart, Burns upset many people in the boxing community by emphatically stating that he would be a champion for all people, regardless of race, creed, or colour. In 1906, this was a revolutionary proclamation -- it was practically.