Jeffries-Johnson World's Championship Boxing Contest, Held at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910 (1910) User Reviews

Another Great White Hope Bites the Dust...

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 23 October 2011]

The film of this fight that I watched was only six minutes long - not the 100 minutes running time given by IMDb. I don't know whether the entire film still exists, but the six minutes I watched suggest that what we're watching is something of a one-sided fight. Back in 1910, white boxing fans were apparently so desperate for a white man to overcome the undefeated black fighter Johnson that former world champion Jim Jeffries was persuaded to come out of retirement to challenge him. the outcome was sadly inevitable.

The print I saw wasn't in particularly good condition - very grainy and blurred, but the size of the crowd watching is unmistakable. Once Johnson gets the better of Jeffries, the white fighter is given no time to recover from the blows that initially felled him by the referee - who was also the fight's promoter, stepping in after President William Taft and writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle both turned down the opportunity.

THE fight of the 20th century

[EdF135 · 6/10 · 13 July 2005]

*** SPOILERS TO THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW THEIR BOXING HISTORY *** Ali - Frazier, Louis - Schmeling II, Dempsey - Tunney II were huge, but EVERYONE was on pins and needles about Johnson - Jeffries. Jack Johnson became the first black Heavyweight champion in 1908 after shaming Tommy Burns into crossing the "color line" and annihilating him in Sydney, Australia. After going on to defeat one "Great White Hope" after another, public pressure fell upon Jim Jeffries, who had retired undefeated in 1905, to come back and reclaim the title for the white race. Ultimately, the fight didn't live up to the hype though, and there was so much hype there's probably no way it could have. An ex-champion who'd been out of the ring for 5 years vs. a current champion in his prime... The results were a very one-sided fight. Not too exciting, but fascinating.

An Incredible Story

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 23 January 2016]

The film was so successful, but caused so much controversy, that two years later Congress banned the interstate traffic in fight films...

This was the fight of the century, no matter what anyone says. Today (2016), you ask people about fighters in the 20th century and you might hear Holyfield, Foreman, Tyson and Ali. All great fighters, but did they ever cause a sensation like this? (Maybe Ali... maybe.) We have record high ticket prices, a stadium built just for one fight, the president of the United States asked to be the referee (he declined). And a fight that went many, many rounds and got people agitated along racial lines (which is never good). I suspect no other single fight affected the history of boxing more than this one.

Historically, the Most Important Fight Of The Century Filmed

[springfieldrental · 7/10 · 22 February 2021]

Major racial overtones surrounded the Jack Johnson/ James Jeffries boxing match before and after the fight in Reno, July 4, 1910. Jeffries, an ex-heavyweight champion who hadn't fought in six years, was enticed with a huge paycheck to come out of retirement, with an arranged match against African-American boxer Johnson, the reigning champion. Jeffries, 35, never lost a fight, but was totally out of shape before accepting the challenge.

Labeled the "Great White Hope," Jeffries had to lose 110 of his overweight 330 pounds before the fight. Johnson was in superb shape, but this match, on the basis of Jeffries' untarnished record, was labeled the "Fight of the Century." Nine movie cameras were set up to capture the scheduled 45-round action. In sweltering 110 degree Nevada summer temperatures, the fight went 15 rounds before Jeffries was declared a technical knock out loser to the superior Jackson. When word went out of the match's results (this was before radio or TV, yet through instantaneous telegraph cables, the news hit the public quickly), African Americans raced onto the streets dancing with jubilation. Whites, humiliated, attacked those celebrating, igniting nationwide riots.

Compounding all the chaos, when the movie of the Jackson win was subsequently scheduled to be shown throughout the U.S., the potential of additional race riots was evident. Such threats of death and destruction from the playing the film was so great that the two-hour movie was banned throughout the South. So jarring were the riots on that early-July period Congress took action to prohibit boxing films to be shown across state lines, beginning in 1912. Congressional action on the ban lasted nearly 30 years, until 1940 when it was permissible to view out-of-state boxing films.