Dempsey's one KO loss

I can understand some gamblers offering money to fix the fight but its pretty far fetched for me to believe that the mob fixed the Dempsey fight. The San Fran mob was just street gangs at the time. They had not interests in anything in Utah and probably not boxing in 1917, at least not Fireman Jim Flynn and Jack Dempsey. They were into extortion and basic gambling. Boxing didn't see mob control until the 30s when they could control boxing organizations. It's more than just telling a guy to take a dive in the 4th.

 

If you asked Dempsey whether or not he considers himself an atg what do you think he would say?

 

Lol at Unforgiven falling back on the pathetically weak "we'll never know why it was fixed" argument because nobody can come come up with even the beginnings of a halfway plausible scenario as to why this fight would be fixed.

No Dempsey wasnt from out of town. Murray is a suburb of Salt Lake City where Dempsey was based at the time. Jim Flynn was brought in to face the "local boy" youd know this if you read the first hand sources and ignored the mythologized bull****. No there was no gambling syndicate in Utah which was controlled by Mormons who are totally opposed to gambling and no the "mob" which had extremely limited power in 1917 did not have influence in Murray ****ing Utah. No Flynn would not have gotten a discernible boost from beating a nobody like Dempsey and the Gambling, if there was ANY AT ALL wouldnt have been able to generate enough to make a fix for such an unimportant fight worthwhile enough. I could go on and on about the multitude of reasons why this story is beyond stupid but my time would be wasted. If you want to believe that Dempsey was so good and so polished and so superhuman in 1917 that it was totally out of the realm of possibility that this could happen then rational argument is going to put a dent in that illogical stance.

 

And yes, when the story of the fix is written literally to explain away "the one blemish" on Dempsey's record in a series of articles which mythologize the man then yes, it was done as ploy to build him up. Particularly at a time when the Macine Cates story and trial were damaging his reputation. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if the unnamed writer of that series was Otto Floto, the Denver based boxing writer who worked as Dempseys press agent and used his column to write an unending series of love letters about the man.

 

It's a dead end argument, since I'm talking about "the mob" in another sense to what you are.

The whole "just street gangs" argument is incorrect too, since full-scale criminal networks that colluded with city politicians and bosses existed prior to Prohibition era, and interstate gambling racket existed.
Men who ran casinos and invested in horse tracks and the racing wire and brothels and employed sluggers and bombers and killers and warred with each other and paid off the police and poiticians were not "just street gangs". They were big time racketeers.

Yes, obviously Dempsey-Flynn was a small affair.

 

There isn't much to add to what klompton2 has posted except the New York Times on July 7, 1919 reported that new champ Dempsey paid off a debt of $6126.20 to Salt Lake City businessman A. J. Auerbach who was Dempsey's manager at the time of the Flynn fight and who frequently loaned Dempsey money in 1916 and 1917. Dempsey shouldn't have been all that hard up for money.

Also, I think it reallly makes no sense to fix a fight for Flynn to win and thus destroy local attraction Dempsey.

 

Look at you pretending that we can know. Perhaps you're living in a pathetic bubble where you believe you can know, afraid to admit you're own limits of knowledge.
I'm telling it how it is: We don't know.

A plausible scenario: To win a bet.
Gambling.

I don't believe that at all. As per usual you're distorting what I said so you have a strawman to argue against.
I completely believe Dempsey was raw and inexperienced enough to be defeated by Jim Flynn in 1917, and anyone can be KO'd.

The fact of the matter is Maxine Cates alleged that Dempsey threw the fight for money. That's WHY we're even discussing it. It was an allegation made by someone close to the man.
Dempsey denied it, but he denied pretty much anything negative about his past (for example, he denied having lived off her earnings or even known she was a prostitute when he married her, the latter being laughable, right?).

That's all we have. An allegation.
And I'm saying, yes, it is possible.
For some reason that perturbs you and your sense of certainty about this event that happened 100 years ago. That's your problem.

 

If he's borrowing money that suggests he was hard up for money.

 

I think it fair, as it is frequently brought up with Louis and Marciaano, and others, to ask how proven was Dempsey's jaw? How unlikely actually is a Flynn knockout?

Well, while Dempsey's rise in 1918 is about as impressive as most, it was over the usual faded names like Gunboat Smith and Pelkey and Flynn, some journeymen, and a couple of younger up and comers like Brennan and Miske, neither of whom were off the record all that big a puncher. The best on the way up were Levinsky and Fulton. Levinsky was a boxer with no punch. Fulton could punch, but never hit Dempsey to test his jaw. Willard didn't either at least until after taking a fierce beating.
Carpentier? He had a punch, but was much smaller. Hard to see what he could do against any really top heavyweight, although he folded up a couple of weak jawed Brit heavies. Gibbons? Not much of a proven puncher at heavy.
Sharkey? 13 KO's in 55 fights doesn't point to awesome power.
Tunney might have punched harder than most, but the Dempsey fights were for only ten rounds. Gibbons, Carpentier, and Heeney went more than ten with Tunney. Nothing awesome here.
Brings it down to Firpo, definitely a puncher, but how much does KO'ing a 42 year old Willard, a ring worn Brennan, and an always shaky jawed Weinert prove?

I will be all alone here, but I don't think Dempsey has that proven a jaw. A terrific puncher, but I question the proven iron-jawed viewpoint.

 

And had a source to get it if he needed it.

 

Those that watched Dempsey live stated he had great whiskers. Fighting that type of style you must be able to take it in order to be sucessful.

Firpo was known in his time as a Herculean right hand banger.

 

I think an interesting question is did Maxine Cates know about Auerbach?

It is certainly possible she didn't. I can see how Dempsey might have wanted to avoid telling her about his connection to the legitimate world. And he might not have wanted Auerbach to know about Maxine.

So if Dempsey showed up with cash he got from Auerbach, Maxine plausibly might have jumped to the wrong conclusions, like a fix.

 

But that's borrowing. You have to pack it back.
Almost everyone would rather have money of their own than a loan.
Borrowing suggests he was desperate. It doesn't suggest the opposite.

 

"Herculean"

Press agent language. His big KO was over a 42 year old, obviously a little soft about the middle, and frequently laid off, Willard, in eight rounds.

Which fight shows Firpo a bigger puncher than Wills?

Do you consider Wills a Herculean puncher?

 

If borrowing suggests desperation, there must be a lot of desperate folks buying houses and the like.

The point for me is why would he have to toss a fight for money when he could just ask Auerbach for it?

I think it is another bit of weight on the scale against the Flynn fight being a fix.