"Willie Meehan is still the riddle of the ring. The San Francisco marvel made a bum out of the Salt Lake champion, Jack Dempsey, last night in the Emeryville open-air arena, and he did the job so thoroughly that there was no room left for argument. Dempsey may come back and lick Meehan some future day, but last night he was as helpless as a man with both hands tied." He later beat Dempsey again in 1918 when Dempsey was 42-3.
Isn't Dempsey supposed to be some fast out of the gate starter who knocked out Fulton in 18 seconds. what happened here?
Wasn't these fights some kind of war relief semi exhibition at an army base where Meehan was the boxing instructor?
The weird thing about these fights is Dempsey was a terrific starter so in theory the 4rds distance should have favoured him :huh Langford also dropped a 4 rd dec to Willie who may have looked like a cream puff but certainly wasn't.
Some people have compared Willie Meehan to Butterbean, also known as Eric Esch. Despite being pudgy for at least part of his career, Meehan was a legitimate club fighter or journeyman who faced far better competition than Butterbean. Also unlike Butterbean, Meehan fought in quite a number of bouts scheduled for ten or twenty rounds with some success. - Chuck Johnston
I have always wondered about this - never seen the fight - how the hell does a fast-starting, explosive champ like Dempsey lose two short fights to essentially a non-entity? Was Meehan severely under-rated, or was his style just poison for Dempsey?
Didn't Dempsey floor Meehan pretty hard in this fight ? Yeah, it sounds one-sided, but these days they usually give a 10-8 round for that.
This is one of the reasons that Dempsey-Flynn isnt the fixed fight people make it out to be. Dempsey wasnt Dempsey in 1917 yet. In late 1916 he barely beat human punching bag Terry Keller, two fights later Flynn knocks him out, he the draws with journeyman Al Norton, gets beaten easily against Meehan, draws with Norton again and then two fights later draws twice with Meehan again. It would be a year before Dempsey started to show signs of the guy he would become later.
Sweet. klompton is one of the guys who, when he speaks, I shaddup and put on my listening ears. Thanks.