Interesting article on Dempsey's next opponent post Toledo

I mis-read the article. :good

 

Whether he was sick or not at the Dempsey fight, he was coming off quite a long layoff from top-flight competition, and had some dodgy form before then.
So he wasn't really qualified to challenge, IMO.

The best thing that can be said about him for the Dempsey fight is he seemed to have grown a bit in size, strange for a sick man. But he was no longer 175 pounds.

 

Happens with me sometimes too.

 

That explains it then.

 

I don't think the same press as a whole could be trusted to get behind a black champion though, or placate the racist anger and racial tension that would be whipped up while there was a black heavyweight champion.

That's the way the press works. By all means they would attack a white champion for drawing the color line ... obviously a real champion takes on the most qualified challengers, regardless of race.
But soon as a black man becomes champion, half the stuff they write would be voicing the most awful prejudices and fear-mongering.

 

The worst thing is, in boxing terms, they milked it so slowly.
Dempsey was nowhere to be found in a boxing ring most of the time, post-1919.

It wasn't a great reign at all, but they were "super-fight" style promotions, million dollars gates and the like. So in boxing history his reign is very notable.

 

Yes, and their opposition to the color line wasn't worth spit when they couldn't be trusted to get behind a black champion or not use the eventuality of a black champion to provoke mayhem and ill-feeling. That is the point I'm making.

I don't know Tex Rickard's full motives, but I can understand why he'd rather take flak for freezing out blacks for the heavyweight crown than have to deal with the more complex and fluid situation of dealing with the hysteria that comes with a black champion. Largely caused by unethical press coverage and fear-mongering.

 

In all seriousness Mc ,after Dempsey kod Billy Miske in 3 rds on Sept, 1920., how do you account for the fact that Billy Miske, went UNBEATEN in his next TWENTY BOUTS, until Tommy Gibbons won a close decision from Miske, Dec, 1922 ? He evidently was in remission for this time. Give the rising Dempsey his due. Yes Dempsey's title legacy left a lot to be desired, but he did what his braintrust told him to do, as he was the greatest
mealticket attraction of boxing in the roaring twenty's. I believe in all my heart and what I have read lo these many years that Jack Dempsey
personally feared no man in the ring, but adhered to what the "doc" said , Jack Kearns, and Tex Rickard. And after his tremendously difficult youth riding the rails,from town to town, he after becoming champion , opted for Hollywood, and bedding down silent screen starlets. Who the hell can blame him ? I can't...Cheers

 

Yes, that's fair.

I felt Stonehands skirted over an important issue though when he wrote :

"Rickard and Kearns both had the recent spectre of Jack Johnson to think about, sure, but they were less concerned about that than they were about milking the title like almost every other champion who ever lived."


In the case of Kearns, I agree.
But Tex Rickard didn't own Dempsey. In fact, Dempsey's first two defences were not promoted by him, if I remember rightly. Nor was the Gibbons fight.
And Rickard ended up putting Dempsey in with a fighter as good as Tunney, he was clearly less protective.

He promoted Dempsey as the bad guy against Tunney, Carp and Firpo, he wouldn't have found that so easy against a black challenger.
He also suffered from the Johnson reign, unable to promote in America and with the race riots that caused a lot of political heat against the fight game.
He would have done well if Carp or Firpo had won. He built them up as romantic figures. They wre highly bankable, their foreigness nothwithstanding.
His interests weren't strictly with protecting Dempsey.

And most importantly he had very good reason to consider the "spectre of Jack Johnson" a primary concern, rather than a secondary one.

In my opinion.

 

Conn, you are correct saying Tex Rickard had legitimate concern about matching a black heavyweight against Dempsey or any white HW title holder of that time. Besides the NY athletic Commission wouldn't sanction
a license for a bout, FEARING a repercussion of the riots following the Jeffries/Johnson riots in the USA. Was it fair for a Harry Wills to suffer because of the 1910 riots in the USA ? Hell no... Was it understandable at that time in history ? Hell YES...