So, as you'll see, while he's fighting Tommy Burns here,
Jack Johnson talked a lot of trash.
And you'll see him just talking to him while he's going on,
and back then they used to call trash talking mouth fighting,
which makes more sense, right?
So this is called "Mouth Fighting."
Sometimes the fight is over before we even split the ropes.
A fighter's glass jaw, the cut of his costume,
the absence of pretty women in his entourage,
all fair game for the mouth fight.
Never mothers or children, never wives or crippled relatives,
or women at all unless they're sporting women.
There is always something else to talk about.
A civilized mouth fight is about making a fighter wild,
and as soon as I can tell he's listening, I know I won.
Yellow fighters like Tommy Burns want to tear out
when the talk starts.
You can see their knees knocking as clearly
as spoons in a vaudeville show.
Others lose composure, and that's when it's over.
How is a fighter supposed to think
about defensing when he's trying to get at me by whatever
means necessary?
That's why the mouth is the most devastating weapon, and mine,
mine shines to high heaven every time I take a swing.