To my knowledge, there are only two surviving films of the legendary middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel in action. One is the beautifully photographed but infamous October 1909 mismatch against heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. The other was Ketchel’s title defense in July of that year, in the same arena, against rival and former middleweight champion Billy Papke.
I first acquired an extended print of the Ketchel-Papke fight in the 1970s. I was disappointed with the fight. Papke, sporting a Chippendale-style protective cup, fought much of the bout, pulling Ketchel into clinches, wrestling, holding and hitting, while the referee struggled round after round to keep the fighters separated. Even when viewing on a large screen, the infighting made it hard to parse out the action. When Ketchel did break away, it was exciting to see him dig in with the ferocity he was famous for, but those moments seemed to be few.
Over the years I collected more versions of the film as they became available. None were better, and those posted on Youtube were worse. When I finally received a clean hi-res scan of the surviving footage, it changed my perspective of the fight entirely. The clarity of the film made the fight more exciting to watch, and it revealed the fight to be intense and brutal and with Papke coming on in the final rounds. During many of the clinches and infighting, the two fighters appear to be either trash talking or baiting one another, especially Papke. Ketchel won a very close decision.
With the recent passing of our friend, the boxing historian and film collector, Steve Lott, I’ve been inspired to reevaluate my film collection and how to make it a more useful archive. It’s one thing to collect and amass materials, but it’s another to create something with it and share it in ways that’s of value to others. I thought about the Ketchel-Papke film and sat down to review the copies I had. I found that my extended print contained some footage not in the hi-res scan. The hi-res scan also had portions that were new to me, and scenes that were also corrupted.
The fight was held outdoors under cloudy stormy conditions. The clarity is good for a 1909 vintage print, though of my three films, the quality is uneven. The hi-res scan shows the complete camera frame, while my extended print is inferior with the picture cropped and zoomed in.
The extended film shows nine rounds of the fight over 30 minutes. They are allegedly 1,2,13,15,16,17,18,19,20. One thing I’ve learned over the years is how early fight films, especially those that predate the 1930s, are badly preserved and many survive as little more than relics of their original form.
Once I sat down to edit the footage, I realized that the Ketchel-Papke film was a jigsaw puzzle. Some rounds were mis-titled or out of order, or not titled at all, some with splices and jump cuts that made it difficult to verify what round the action was taking place.
So I dug through what evidence I could see in the film itself. The fight took place over 90 minutes, under partly cloudy skies. In Round 16 you can even see a cloud shadow pass over the audience. The fighter’s shadows got longer as the sun moved into the afternoon, not to mention how Papke and especially Ketchel became marked up as the fight progressed. There’s also the changing pace of the action, though honestly, Ketchel and Papke kept up the action with amazing stamina.
The best evidence ended up being the round card display. At the end of most rounds, a person can be seen at ringside, displaying a large sign with each upcoming round number for the audience and for the cameras. The teleprompter of 1909.
Based on what I can determine, the film shows action from Rounds 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ,18 and with one additional round that could be either 19 or 20. Most Youtube posts of this film are from the eleven minute Big Fights Inc short, which does not show the end of the contest. In the extended silent version I have, the round labeled as 20 shows Ketchel eating a nasty right from Papke and then walking to his corner. This turned out to be the end of Round 14, leading me to suspect that Round 20 may not in the footage at all.
I’d like to believe the remaining footage does show Round 20 and the end of the fight, but it’s likely to be Round 19 instead. In this last footage, we see the fighters are on the ropes in a far corner. As they break, there’s a rush into the ring by the seconds. An exhausted Ketchel is met by his handlers as he walks to his corner, while Papke’s handlers dash across the ring to escort him away. This could be a post fight celebration, or the excitement of handlers assisting the fighters just before the final round. There’s a similar scene at the end of Round 17, but you can see the round card immediately hoisted up displaying Round 18. As the action comes to an end of this particular round though, the card isn’t visible.
I spent several weeks in front of a video editor matching and combing, often frame by frame, the three prints of the film for this article. I’m calling this a Collector’s Cut. It’s not a restoration. A restoration involves having most if not all the original footage restored with the aim of replicating its original form. As a collector, I assume there is more footage out there, but I can’t verify that one way or another, so I worked with what I have. A Collector’s Cut is a partial reconstruction, and a work in progress. --Carl
