Jeffries did eventually agree to emerge from his Burbank alfalfa farm to face Johnson. In 1910, London was back in the United States and provided copious pre-fight commentary, about a dozen articles in all, each covering a different aspect of the upcoming contest. In one, he described the men separately; in another, he described them in tandem. He dissected their ring tactics, analyzed their character, and estimated their “abysmal brutishness”.[^10] London’s racialized discourse is at times bewilderingly inconsistent, contradictory, and sometimes downright bizarre. He wrote, for instance, about “protoplasmic vigor”[^11] and the effects of “cell generation”.[^12] London did not forget the one-sided beating he had witnessed in Sydney, yet through some racist gymnastics, he portrayed Johnson’s talent as a liability. Johnson was more “boxer” than fighter: too smart, too stylized, and even too affable a person to remain champion. In the pages of the The Spokesman-Review, London harks back to The Call of the Wild, portraying Jeffries as “still red of fang and claw”, more “Germanic tribesman and warrior” than civilized, modern man.[^13] London has reversed the usual racial stereotypes of savagery and civilization, and yet Johnson still comes out the worse for it.