Marvin Hart W20 Jack Johnson - The "Worst" Heavyweight champion's Screw you to Historians !!

Marvin Hart one of the early Heavyweight champions has always been maligned......Mainly for how he got the title as it was "pretty much a gift from a retiring Jeffries" though in reality he was given Jack Root to fight and he wasn't a stiff..Poor old Root had beaten Hart both times before and was recognised as the first light heavyweight champion of the World by some historians......

Hart's fetish for training in front of Ladies while wearing pink tights probably didn't endear him either !!

Quite problematic legacy-wise is that Hart lost his title to the diminutive Burns in Nevada soon after in his first defence......Strange fight the aggressive and bigger Hart apparently was anything but that day.....according to sources..(I've written a piece on this fight before).....Lots of arguing before the fight between the two and a brawl between them kicked off over hand tapings..Some say the brawl before the fight was better than the actual one.

Yes the Kentuckian's win over Johnson has been downgraded to robbery through time "He was white Johnson was black" but sources at the time are in dispute over how dominant Johnson was....

The fact Johnson landed the better blows and was the more cultured and Hart forced the fight and kept on top of him is not really argued.....The effectiveness of both fighters is generally the main dispute..

(San Francisco Chronicle) Had it for Johnson but did state that "If you scored it for aggressiveness then Hart was your Man.....By every other criteria Johnson took it !!"

(The Spokane Chronicle)  "Though Hart's face was damaged...Johnson's punches lacked sting in them...Hart kept lunging in forcing Johnson to retaliate"....They had it for Hart....

Ring magazine ("NPG" back then) Wrote that "Johnson dominated for most of the first ten rounds and then Hart came on.....They wrote "The decision wasn't good and that a draw for Hart would have been a present in itself"

Neutral observers opined that all Hart's work was cheered loudly while Johnson's was treated with silence..Kind of as you would expect.

Has to be said also that the referee did state before the fight that he would give the decision to the aggressor and Hart certainly was......

Consensus though had it for Johnson but not by too wide margin.....Also it is true that Johnson commented later on that...He felt he didn't do enough in the second half of the fight...Though he cried robbery at the time...

Whatever it was a better effort from Hart against Jack than pretty much all his contempories and when you add respected names like Maher...Choynski...and Gardner to his record....Marvin Hart really does deserve better treatment..

Sadly he died of drink related illness the day after his 55th birthday and on his tombstone it reads "Marvin Hart - Champion Heavyweight Boxer of the World"....He did beat Jack Johnson though just as Spinks beat Holmes and Sharkey beat Schmelling in other dubious Heavy-title decisions.

Hart w20 Johnson....No better screw you to his detractors...