Tommy Burns: Canada's Unknown World Heavyweight Champion

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Canada’s “unknown world heavyweight champion” was Tommy Burns, a
forgotten Canadian sports hero, or was he the second-rate “lemon”
early 20th-century American sportswriters claim he was? Dan McCaffery
believes the former is the case. In fact, he believes so strongly in
Burns—Canada’s only world heavyweight boxing champion—that the
gloves come off in his opening sentence: “This book is about a
Canadian hero whose legend was lynched by racist American reporters.”

McCaffery bases his opinion on two facts. First, four of Burns’s
world records have stood intact for a century. Second, throughout his
career, Burns was reviled by the American sports press for fighting all
worthy challengers regardless of their race.

Like most Canadians, McCaffery had never even heard of Burns until he
decided to find out something about the man who gave Jack Johnston, the
first black man to become world champion, a chance to fight for the
championship. First, McCaffery was surprised to learn that Johnston had
won his title from a Canadian. Then he was shocked to learn that Burns
was only five feet seven inches tall and only a middleweight fighting
heavyweight opponents. Finally, McCaffery was fascinated to learn that
besides being the smallest man to ever hold the world heavyweight boxing
title, Burns holds the record for the fastest championship knockout (one
minute, 28 seconds) and is the only champion to defend his title twice
in one night.

In classic Canadian hero tradition, Burns rose to the top of his
profession only to die in obscurity and poverty. McCaffery openly states
that he is determined to resurrect Burns’s name and restore it to its
rightful place in boxing history. But do not mistake McCaffery’s book
for a barrage of purple prose by a dewey-eyed fan. The portrait he
paints of Burns is not pretty. Canada’s champion was the product of a
violent childhood in an equally brutal 19th-century rural Ontario
society.

McCaffery’s engaging prose is backed up with solid research and
dozens of period photographs. This book will knock out boxing and
history fans alike.