Top Contender
Johnson beat former colored heavyweight champ Frank Childs on October 21, 1902. Childs had twice won the colored heavyweight title and continued to claim himself the true colored champ despite having lost his title in a bout with George Byers and then, after retaking the title from Byers, losing it again to Denver Ed Martin. He still made pretence to being the colored champ and claimed the unrecognized black heavyweight title as well. Johnson won by a TKO in the 12th round of the scheduled 20-rounder, when Childs' seconds signaled he couldn't go on. (He claimed he had dislocated his elbow.) The defeat by Johnson forever ended his pretensions to the colored heavyweight crown.
Read more about this topic: Jack Johnson (boxer)
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“The necessary has never been man’s top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man’s greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)