FATALLY INJURED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26176, 12 June 1946, Page 5

FATALLY INJURED

JACK JOHNSON DEAD

' NEW YORK, June 10. Jack Johnson, a former heavyweight boxing champion, was fatally injured when the car he was driving crashed into an electric light pole and overturned. Johnson made a living by operating saloons and night clubs and acting as master of ceremonies in cheap cabarets. In 1933 he tried to give boxing and wrestling exhibitions, but abandoned that idea when he collapsed in a Brussels ring. He was reduced in 1936 to the role of spear-carrier in “Aifa” at the New York Hippodrome, and then became a nuisance around New York boxing establishments, predicting that the next opponent would slaughter Joe Louis. Johnson then became a performer at a 42nd street Arcade sideshow, lecturing eight times a day on boxing and physical culture. He planned a series of bouts on the Pacific coast in 1943, but physicians declined to give him a medical certificate. The same year he called on Mrs Aimee Semple McPherson at her Los Angeles temple, where he proclaimed that henceforth he was going to do his fighting for God. He gave an exhibition bout last year that resulted in the sale of 3.000,000 dollars worth of war bonds. Three weeks ago he said he was going to Texas to make a film of his life.

Johnson took the world title from Tommy Burns at Rushcutters’ Bay, Sydney, when Burns was so badly beaten by the negro that the police intervened in the twelfth round. He lost the title to the cowboy boxer, Jess Willard, some years later. Johnson was probably the best defensive heavyweight boxer the ring has produced