It is character and knowledge of character, which, together with strength and skill, makes boxing champions to-day. And we are inclined to think that the psychological element in fighting came in only within the day of gloves, and rather late in that day. Certainly the old records of the early Prize-Ring are of brawn and stamina, skill and courage rather than of forethought and acutely reasoned generalship, but there are exceptions, and one of the most noteworthy is that of Tom Johnson.

Johnson (whose real name was Jackling) was a Derby man, who came to London as a lad, and worked as a corn porter at Old Swan Stairs. For a heavyweight champion he was very small—short, rather: for he stood but 5 feet 9 inches. He must, however, have been made like a barrel, for he weighed 14 stone, and the girth of his chest was enormous. A story is told of how Johnson when his mate fell sick carried two sacks of corn at each journey up the steep ascent from the riverside and paid the man his money, so that the boxer’s amazing strength earned the double wage.

The best known and probably the fiercest of Johnson’s battles was with Isaac Perrins, who stood 6 feet 2 inches and weighed 17 stone. It is not probable that boxers trained very vigorously in those early days, so that the weights may be misleading. Contemporary prints, however, certainly give the impression of men in hard condition. Perrins, a Birmingham man, is said to have lifted 8 cwt. of iron into a wagon without effort.

The fight took place at Banbury in Oxfordshire on October 22, 1789. The men fought (it is interesting to know when we 8 think of the prizes of the present day) for 250 guineas. Two-thirds of the door money went to the winner, one-third to the loser. The men fought on a turfed stage raised five feet above the ground.

Johnson’s method had always been to play a waiting game, to try to understand his opponent’s temperament, to take no avoidable risks. He knew that he was a good stayer, so he was accustomed to use his feet and to keep out of distance until he had sized up his man. He would always make rather a long but certain job of a fight than a quick but hazardous one.

Johnson’s greatest trouble was his passionate temper, which was largely the cause of his downfall two years later in his fight with Big Ben Brain. Isaac Perrins, who had the name of a good-natured giant, was the first to lead. He ... “made a blow,” Pierce Egan tells us, “which, in all probability, had he not have missed his aim, must have decided the contest, and Johnson been killed, from its dreadful force.” But Johnson dodged the blow and countered with a terrific right-hander which knocked Perrins down. At that time prize-fighters stood square to each other with their hands level, ready to lead off with either. And in that position a man naturally fell over much easier than from the solid attitude of a few years later till the present time.

The next three rounds were Johnson’s, for Perrins was shaken by his first fall. Then Perrins gathered himself together, and by sheer weight forced himself, regardless of the blows that rained on him, through the smaller man’s guard and knocked him down. And for several rounds in his turn Perrins was the better. He cut Johnson’s lip very badly, so that he lost blood, and the betting for some time remained in his favour.

Tom Johnson by this time had the measure of his man. The usual waiting game would not serve now. He must not only wait, but he must keep away, and in order to keep away, he must run away. This may not have been wholly admirable from a purely sporting point of view, but we must forgive Johnson a good deal (and as we shall see there really was a good deal to forgive) on account of his inches. “He had recourse,” says Egan, 9 “to shifting”—that is, he kept out of the way for as long as possible, and then, as by the rules of the Prize-Ring a round only ended when one of the men went down, probably closed and let Perrins throw him.

But the spectators approved of this method no better than they would to-day, and there was a good deal of murmuring against Johnson. At last Perrins, unable to reach his nimble-footed antagonist, began to mock at him. “Why!” he exclaimed to the company at large, “what have you brought me here? This is not the valiant Johnson, the Champion of England: you have imposed upon me with a mere boy!”

At this Johnson was stung to retort, for he was no coward and was but fighting in the only way which his size allowed. Moreover, Perrins’s observation roused his dander, and he blurted out, “By God, you shall know that Tom Johnson is here!” and immediately flew at his man in a passion of rage and planted a terrific blow over his left eye, so that it closed almost at once.

This incident nearly decides for us that Perrins was not much of a boxer. A wild charge of that sort, particularly by a much smaller man, is seldom difficult to frustrate. And the opinion of the crowd began to veer round. Those who had put their money on Perrins began to hedge.

Undaunted by his closed eye, Perrins pulled himself together in the next round and returned as good as he had got, closing Johnson’s right eye. And so for a while the fight remained level. Many rounds and very short ones. A half-minute’s rest between. Much hard punishment given and got, but a great deal of it not of a kind obvious to the inexpert spectator. Quite apart from short-arm body-blows which are sometimes apt to elude observation, there was wrestling for a fall with which far more rounds ended than with falls from a blow. The effort to throw is exhausting enough, but to be thrown and for a heavy man to fall on top of you is terribly wearing. And though the strength of these two men was prodigious, yet Johnson was the closer knit of the two, from a boxer’s point of view the better made. 10

Now when they had fought forty rounds, Johnson was confident and happy, but he knew that he was pitted against a lion-hearted man who was by no means yet worn out. Suddenly he got an opening for a clean straight blow with all his weight behind it. This was a right-hander, which struck Perrins on the bridge of his nose and slit it down as though it had been cut with a knife.

The odds were now 100-10 on Johnson, but he had by no means won the fight. Perrins was boxing desperately, striving with his great superiority in reach to close Johnson’s remaining eye. He knew very well that many a fight had been won like that, an otherwise unhurt man being forced to throw up the sponge because he was totally blinded by the swelling of his eyes. In the forty-first round Johnson either slipped down or deliberately fell without a blow and Perrins and his backers claimed the victory. If Johnson did actually play this very dirty trick to gain time and have a rest, he deserved to lose. We don’t know what actually happened. The records merely state that he fell without being hit. But the umpires allowed it because that contingency had not been covered in the articles of agreement made before the fight.

Perrins now changed his method, attacking his man with chopping blows presumably on the back of the neck and head, and back-handed blows which are seldom efficacious. These puzzled Johnson at first, and he took some of them without a return until he learned the knack and guarded himself. And Perrins’s strength now began to go: while Johnson, who for a few rounds had seemed tired, began to improve again. But yet he never began the attack. He left that always to the giant. In fact, Johnson did everything to save himself and to make his man do most of the work. Then Perrins, who had lunged forward with a terrific blow, fell forward, partly from his own impetus, and partly from weakness. Johnson, who had stepped aside from the blow, watched him and as he fell hit him in the face with all his might, at the same time tumbling over him. After that Perrins was done. Every round ended by his falling either from a blow or from sheer weakness. Johnson hit him as he pleased, 11 with the consequence that Perrins’s face was fearfully damaged, “with scarce the traces left of a human being.” But he refused to give in, and round after round his seconds brought him to the scratch, when he swayed and staggered and struggled for breath and tried to fight on. His pluck in this battle was the inspiration of the Prize-Ring for ever afterwards. More than once Johnson, still strong, sent in tremendous blows which would utterly have finished lesser men, but Isaac Perrins held on until his friends and seconds gave in and refused to let the good fellow fight any more. The match had lasted for an hour and a quarter, during which sixty-two rounds had been fought.

In many ways it was an unsatisfactory fight, but for cunning (if rather low cunning) on one side and magnificent courage and determination on the other, it must be counted one of the greatest combats of the old days.