THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF ARTHUR CRAVAN
On an overcast April evening in Barcelona in 1916, a bizarre boxing bout took place between two men who appeared to have been beamed in from completely opposing galaxies. In one corner flexed the American Jack Johnson, the son of two former slaves who had risen from an impoverished background to be crowned the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world. And in the other corner trembled a slippery upper class character calling himself Arthur Cravan: an inveterate loudmouth, charlatan, poet-pugilist and professional provocateur, who announced to all who would hear that he was the nephew of Oscar Wilde.
Cravan stood at 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed a little over 100kg. Despite promoters claiming him to be a European boxing champion, the fight was a colossal mismatch, and Cravan knew it. His only hope was that Johnson would go easy on him for a few rounds to keep things interesting for the all-important cameras – lucrative deals had been forged on the film rights – and to appease the restless crowd.
But even if they were fighting in an exhibition match, as Spanish law demanded, Cravan was stretching his elastic luck further than ever before. In a previous show bout,
