De boxeo
El anunciado match de boxeo entre el negro Jack Johnson y el inglés Cravan ha desilusionado al público.
Jack se dejó pegar durante cinco rouds [sic], y en el sexto aniquiló de un puñetazo único á Cravan. El público, comprendiendo el juego, protestó ruidosamente.
Cravan versus enano: «Arthur Cravan Poète et Boxeur Espagne 1916. Le seul film montrant Arthur Cravan_le poète boxeur en action»:
L’esquella de la torratxa, a dos días del partido:
Jack Johnson – Arthur Cravan són els dos noms que més corren de boca en boca, entre els sportmen barcelonins i es destaquen en les planes dels periòdics.
[…]
… Cravan a qui desconeixem, i que en els anys anteriors a la guerra europea no havíem sentit anomenar mai en els matchs de Londres i de París, té bastanta feina si pensa desferse de son contrincant, encara que posseeixi condicions físiques de primera per a plantar-li cara.
No obstant, nosaltres creiem que el match encara pot ésser molt interessant si en ell els lluitadors tenen la suficient sinceritat per a boxejar sense combinacions i comedies, cosa que, en el primer match d’importancia que es celebra a Barcelona, desilusionaría a molta gent, ja bastant recelosa de per sí.
Veurum doncs si la lluita serà noble i franca i, sobre tot, ben igualada.
La noche anterior Johnson y Cravan fingen una pelea, y la policia les anima a más (La Correspondencia de España):
Definitivamente se celebrará esta tarde en la Plaza de Toros Monumental el partido de boxeo anunciado.
Hasta primera hora de la madrugada no se ha tenido la seguridad de que se celebraría la lucha, por negarse á ello el luchador inglés, á consecuencia de una reyerta que tuvo anoche con el negro Johnson, que le abofeteó.
La Policía le buscó y logró convencerle de que debía luchar hoy.
Los recuerdos de Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia y Juliette Roche.
It is my contention that Cravan’s ambivalent burlesque of boxing was, as was typical of his style, a public insult and act of revenge against John Douglas, the 9th Marquis of Queensbury. For Cravan, the boxing ring was another stage where he could erase the lines between discipline and anarchy, and in doing so, he mocked Queensbury, and avenged his uncle. Extant film footage of Cravan boxing shows him fending off a diminutive opponent in a deliberately absurd exhibition fight (this may have been the source material for Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore’s reminiscent sketch in the first episode of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s 1965 TV show Not Only, But Also featuring a boxing match between Cook’s dandy Gentlemen Jim ‘The Torquay Stylist’ and Moore’s ‘The Dagenham Dodger’). The zenith of Cravan’s ironic career as poet and boxer was his bout with exiled World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson in Barcelona on April 23, 1916; a ‘collaboration’ between two outrageous artists staged to save both from penury, and to afford Cravan his passage to New York (with Leon Trotsky as his fellow passenger). Cravan almost certainly arrived drunk at ringside for the fight, and various accounts have him avoiding knockout from between three to six rounds. The fight exemplified the theatrics of transgression at which Cravan excelled: a multiple affront to Johnson’s persecutors -that he still had a friend in the queer figure of Cravan, to boxing -in that it emphasized the ‘fix’, and by extension to Queensbury and his formalist ‘rules’. Arthur Cravan whose disputed death/disappearance/suicide continues to vex those in his corner and his opponents in equal measure, transgressed all boundaries of art, sexuality, nationality, sportsmanship and identity. He was the Heavyweight Champion of the subtext, the ulterior motive, and of dada.
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