Boxing Profile: Marvin Hart

What happens when you're almost historically seen as the guy who filled in when the champion walked away? Sadly for Kentucky based plumber Marvin Hart that's exactly what he was when he won the world heavyweight title after the retirement of James J Jeffries. Worst of all, every one knew he wasn't fit to lace Jeffries boots and the façade that saw him become world heavyweight champion was thankfully short lived, much like Fitzsimmons before Jeffries, Hart would lose in his first defense.

After he was born in Fern Creek, Kentucky on 16^th September 1876 he went to high school and learned the plumbing trade. Back in those days he was considered quite a big guy, standing just shy of 6 foot and weight around 170-180, though much smaller than the man that had come before him in the bear like Jeffries. At the age of 23 he would make his first foray into professional boxing and for the first 2 years he went unbeaten, a string of 14 wins with 13 KO's (and a DQ win) with out any losses. It would be just a few days after celebrating 2 years as a boxer that he would lose for the first time, a first round KO to Billy Hanrahan in what would be Hanrahan's last career victory.

Hart would come back from defeat winning his next 4 with 3 by KO but all against rather none distinct fights before being taken the distance by Billy Stift (a man he'd knocked out in 3 rounds earlier the same year). This was the first time Hart went the full distance in any fight. Following this was a draw against another opponent of little note.

After the draw Hart faced Jack Root an experienced fight with a proven track record, he was solid but unspectacular, though would inflict the second loss of Hart career, beating him on points over 6 rounds. Root would then go on to face and beat Kid McCoy in a fight billed for the American Light Heavyweight title, but was later seen as being the inaugural world title fight at that weight. Hart came back this time less than a month later facing the ever testing Philadelphia Jack O'Brien in a fight ruled by the newspapers as a draw (at the time many decisions were informally decided by the newspapers).

A rematch with O'Brien followed a year later with a No Decision being reached, though perhaps it should have been scored a knock out win for Hart as by the end of the fight O'Brien had all but collapsed in his corner after being out on his feet for much of the dying seconds. Another loss followed the draw being stopped in the 12 by George Gardener, this was followed by another draw to the now ageing Joe Choynski (who had drawn with Jeffries 6 years earlier and knocked out a novice Jack Johnson as well as having 4 fights with James J Corbett).

A run of draws and wins over the following 15 months saw Hart becoming a rather tough to beat but not great fighter. He'd been lucky in at least 2 of the fights to not be beaten and so when he met face to face with Jack Johnson in 1905 it was thought that the skilful African American fight would stake his claim to fighting the then champion James J Jeffries. Johnson had been unbeaten in 3 years and was viewed as a heavy favourite going in but lost on points as he held more than usual and threw less than usual (which was saying something for Johnson). Though rumours persist about blackmail surrounding the fight, Johnson had effectively thrown away a prime chance to call out Jeffries. The problem with the blackmail theory is that Johnson would rarely accept he was beaten fair, claiming he was bribed to throw the fight with Jess Willard a decade later and even after a series of losses claimed he'd beat the likes of Dempsey and Tunney who were competing for the world crown whilst Johnson was losing to relative journeymen.

This was the biggest win Hart had had and had elevated him to the point where he could pretty much challenge for the title and had gotten Johnson out of the title scene. A win against a journey man followed before the biggest fight of his career. A rematch with Jack Root who had beaten him some years previous would follow for the recently vacated world heavyweight title, the fight would be refereed by the retiring champion James J Jeffries. Despite being knocked down by the former light heavyweight champion in round 7 he would stop Root in round 12 to be crowned the world heavyweight championship.

His reign lasted just 7 months (and 20 rounds) as he lost in his first defence to Noah Brusso (better known as Tommy Burns) who was a tricky and stocky Canadian fighter. After this loss Hart seemed to lose his drive winning 5 of his next 12 (and 2 of them were DQ wins) the only notable wins were Peter Maher (a man who had had a very dodgy claim to being world champion in the 1890's) and Mike "Twin" Sullivan who shared little other than a surname with the great John L Sullivan.

He died of liver and blood pressure problems a day after his 55^th birthday the memory of his career based around 3 fights in 24 months (Johnson, Root and Hart) in which he became world champion by name only, and lost the "inheritance" shortly afterwards. Much like Ken Norton would some 70 years later.

Sadly for Burns it will be historically remembered he was little more than a champion filling in for white America that had drawn the colour line against Johnson. He would have been little else than footnote note in the history books had it not been for 2 fights out of his 48 (or 47) fights.
Boxrec.com states his record was:
30(20)-8-7-2
Whilst Gavin Evans in "Kings Of The Ring" (pg 54) states his record to be:
31(21)-9-7-1

What is certain is he beat Johnson, beat Root in their rematch and then lost to Burns.

RIP
Marvin "The fighting Kentuckian" Hart
1876-1931