Peter Jackson and Jack Johnson, by W.W. Naughton, 1911

 1911-05-28 The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, CA) (page 44)

Jackson and Johnson Had Different Style of Boxing
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By W. W. Naughton

It is very evident that Peter Jackson, former champion of Australia, had most admirers among California's patrons of boxing and that he is still remembered as a pleasant, well behaved fellow and a Class A heavyweight.

In an article written some little time ago I took occasion to say that I did not care to hazard an opinion as to whether Peter Jackson, in his day, was a greater fighter than Jack Johnson is in his day. I have explained time and again that there is no way of settling an argument of that kind satisfactorily. But the arguments keep cropping up just the same.

A correspondent who frankly utters the opinion that Jackson would have demolished Johnson in ten rounds and who just as frankly declares that he can't for the life of him see why I am not of the same way of thinking asks me to describe for his personal benefit wherein Johnson compares with Jackson as a fighter.

To begin with, the two famous colored exponents of the glove game do not compare. I mean they had not a thing in common. They presented a striking contrast and that is why I can't make up my mind how a fight between them would have come out if they had flourished contemporaneously.

Peter Jackson, in my idea, was the most finished of all the boxers developed under the Mace system. He was a marvelous judge of distance, a wonderfully sure hitter and he had tremendous reach. He could send in a straight left that it seemed impossible for an opponent to get out of the way of. He could draw a man's fire and meet him with a right cross that would land squarely on ear or chin.

He knew to a dot when to unload with a left at the body or a right at the heart and he knew to a nicety when to block or draw back from a lead or counter.

But he was a mechanical fighter, albeit a rapid, heady one. He knew nothing outside of what the Mace system taught, whereas this man Johnson is a natural fighter with a stock in trade of punches that the Mace system, if employed to-day, could not provide against.

It may be that Jackson with his splendidly timed straight left would keep Johnson at bay and cut him to pieces gradually.

But if he failed to do so?

If Johnson worked close to Jackson as he did to Jeffries?

If Johnson courted clinches and began uppercutting Jackson with a free left and right in turn as he did Jeffries?

What then?

Therefore I repeat I don't know.

Jackson was a great fighter and Johnson is another. But they belonged to different ages and different schools, and for the life of me I can't say whether old Peter's straight-from-the-shoulder-stand-away work would have carried the day against Johnson's clinging tactics and his grape-vine punches.

While on the subject I would like to refer to Jackson's fight with Jeffries in San Francisco. It has been said quite often that Jackson was but a wraith of the Peter Jackson of other days when he fought the boilermaker.

Well, while results proved that Jackson was not as good as formerly--just as the result at Reno showed a falling away in Jeffries--it must be said that Peter's confidence in his own prowess was not impaired. He came to San Francisco from England looking for a match with Jeffries and he went systematically to work to gain his desire. He convinced the matchmakers of the Olympic Club of San Francisco that he was in earnest and that he had firm belief in his ability to trim the rising young boilermaker, and he was the most self-satisfied man on earth when called upon to sign articles.

Nor did he think that the defeat by Jeffries meant the end of his career. This was shown when Eugene Van Court, a strong personal friend of Jeffries, approached Peter after the fight and said: "Jeffries told me to give you his respects and tell you not to be downcast over losing the fight."

"You tell Jeffries to look out for himself and not to mind me," said Peter with a snort. "The sweetest message Jeffries could send me would be word that he is willing to fight me again."