Dempsey's one KO loss

This is interesting. Where does this info come from. No reason to doubt you on anything, but

$111,000 in today's terms is not all that much money for a lot of people, especially someone who owns a business.

It does strike me as very generous. Could be he saw Dempsey as a comer and felt backing him was a good investment. Or there might be a personal reason if we read between the lines.

To be specific--how did you find out the information about how affluent Auerbach was or wasn't a hundred years ago? Where is this info kept. Tax records? But he would have to had quite an income to even pay income taxes back then, wouldn't he?

 

"Wills was known as a huge puncher"

That was exactly my point.

"look back and alter known boxing history"

That is what historians do. The past does not change. History does.

"some level of feeling of accomplishment?"

Boxing history? Believe me, this is just a hobby. Not at all important compared to what I did when I was working.

 

Adjusted, that's the equivalent of a $10,000 payoff, more or less, in today's dollars.

That's a lot of money to give an unknown heavyweight to throw a fight in a backwater town against another guy who's not exactly a future world champ.

 

You pull this **** out of your ass! Who are these shadowy powerful syndicate of Utah gamblers that cared so much about a nobody and a has-been to fix their fight? Who were all of these people betting on this fight? Thats what you dont seem to understand! You cant just say it and make it true. And if you dont believe the fight was fixed then shut the **** up and quit playing devils advocate. I didnt create any fictitious statements. You are the one pretending there is some powerful organized crime racket operating out of Utah in 1917 with literally ZERO proof to back that up. You are the one that is saying this imaginary syndicate COULD have fixed this fight. You are the one pretending there COULD have been reasons for them to do it. You are the one pretending there is nothing ridiculous about the idea of a ****ing beautician in a department store (which is exactly what Auerbach was) paying Dempsey the equivalent of $111,000 in one year and further pretending that Dempsey was so poor at the time that he needed that much money. Yet Im stupid for calling into question every single dumbass leap of faith you have to make in order to play devils advocate only for you to say you dont believe it was a fix.


Lets recap here for those in the cheap seats:

You said: "It could have been a mob fix but so could the rematch."

There was no mob in Utah. So you then decided it was an imaginary gambling syndicate.

You said: "It's irrelevant where the fight took place. The fighters and their managers were from out of town, as far as I know, and well travelled."

Dempsey was a local. He lived in Salt Lake City. Both fighters stayed in and trained in Salt Lake City for the fight. The fight was promoted out of Salt Lake City. Dempsey was not only NOT out of town but he was as local as it gets.

You said: "Yes. The story that Dempsey threw the fight for money didn't originate in an effort to build "the unbeatable Dempsey" legend."

Clearly youve never seen the series of articles that detailed the fix. They were entirely written to mythologize Dempsey and humanize him at the same time to counter the growing public dislike of him as the Maxine Cates story was blowing up. The series continually tried to paint Dempsey as an "aww shucks" who never drank, never smoked, never went to bed late, etc. (this is a guy who married a prostitute and allowed her to continue working as such while he was married to her). In short it was trying to clean up his image and make him appear like a great man and a great fighter. It pours it on so thick that at one point the author describes Dempsey's reading habits and says he keeps a gilded book of poetry handy. PUUUUHHHLEASE. Yes, the one lone blemish on his record was a fix. I see, so he really couldnt have been knocked out. Uh huh. Sure.

You said: "It originated in the public sphere from Maxine Cates, and we have no idea where she got it from or whether it is true. We will never know. We can't ever know."

She did say that. She also said Jack beat the hell out of her regularly. He also stole from her she said. She also said that the reason he was so aggressive early in fights was because he used cocaine before hand. What do believe and what do we ignore from a woman who obviously had an axe to grind and who by the end of her trial had changed her various stories so many times that she was a completely discredited witness?

You said: "We can't know who was betting and how much they were betting. These deals weren't done in the open. Big gamblers will bet on things we don't even know about, obscure fights and races. The magnitude of the event is unimportant in a shady realm of illicit gambler."

We cant even know if there were any bets at all. But you seem to take it as a matter of course and have invented an entirely fictional syndicate across Utah that was controlling all of this and pulling the strings on Dempsey-Flynn.... which now you dont believe was fixed but want to continue arguing all of this nonsense.

You said: "A plausible scenario: To win a bet.
Gambling."

And my point is that simply blurting out a buzzword "gambling" which is exactly what you did does not add up to a plausible scenario. If you understand how gambling works, which you clearly dont, you have to have enough money on the table to make a fix worth not only the effort but also the investment in the fix, and still realize a profit big enough to have made it all worth while if you pull it off. None of that applies here because the fight was so small. You are essentially saying that it would be worth $10,000+ today to fix a fight between two nobodies at your local county fair. Think about that. I really mean that, use your head and think about that. Wouldnt happen.

You wrote: "If he's borrowing money that suggests he was hard up for money." and "He was borrowing to live, most likely. Like most middle-lower-tier boxers in those days he ran out of money a lot. His wife was a prostitute. Kearns says "Dempsey was a bum" when he first knew him, Dempsey admits he was a beggar around this time or shortly before, and a hobo, and he was working manual jobs up to 1917. He lived a precarious existence."

No, someone living hand to mouth borrows enough money for food. They dont borrow $111,000 because they cant afford enough to eat. That is completely laughable. The guy was working at the time. The guy was fighting at the time. He had income and his income was actually more than the national average. Yes he had dependents but lets get real. He didnt need $111,0000.

You said: "
There were gamblers and organized gamblers and paid off police and officials in Utah. Yes, in 1917.
That's irrelevant to this fight perhaps but you tried to make the argument that "mormons oppose gambling" being relevant, as if they'd stamped it out in the state."

You have no proof whatsoever that there was a powerful gambling syndicate in control in Utah in 1917. Its entirely fabricated for you to continue your argument. Furthermore, yes the mormons control Salt Lake City. They had even more control over it in 1917 than they do now and they have a hell of a lot of control over it now. Dont believe me? Go there and check out their city government, public schools, etc. Does that mean gambling didnt take place? No. But it does mean that the odds of some powerful organized gambling syndicate that exists only in your imagination would have gone out of their way to fix a meaningless fight in their backyard is slim to none.


So did I invent that devils advocate argument youve been pissing in the wind about or did you really say all of that?

 

It came from Auerbach. He mentioned it at various times in the papers. He said the payoff was for his old contract on Dempsey, plus interest, plus travel expenses to Toledo plus his hotel bill for two weeks (Which was nearly $400) AND several loans to Dempsey. They puffed up the loans and minimized the contract which should be obvious and for obvious reasons.

 

Unlike yourself I 'm a huge Dempsey fan , but I have no problem that a somewhat green Dempsey was caught cold and taken out by an experienced and wily old pro .I commend you for your objectivity on this thread and really cannot see why a group of gamblers would interest themselves in what was basically a small town dust up. I think it was kosher,

 

You got that right, Dempsey's own brother threw in the towel.

How he lost to the likes of 37 year old Flynn, who won 1 of his last 6 fights is a shocker in itself. And then you add in a KO 1 loss?

 

1916 bout between Dempsey and Johnson.
Newspaper decision for Johnson from NY Tribune, NY Sun and Press.
Newspaper decision for Dempsey from NY Evening World, Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
A draw from NY Evening Telegram, Alex Walters (NY Age).

The anonymous writer who wrote that series of articlesin 1920 was likely James O’Donnell Bennett, although there were a bunch of other writers who used pseudonym "an eye witness" (A Dictionary of Literary Pseudonyms in the English Language" lists 21 writers who used that non de plume at one time or another). But it was known that Bennett wrote several non-sporting articles for the Chicago Tribune as "eye witness" in Nov-Dec 1920.

 

Im mot sure that the story was actually commissioned by the Chicago Tribune. It was not uncommon for those syndicated articles to be tagged as "commissioned by" the paper that was printing them when they were actually appearing in simultaneous locales. That series originated out of LA so Id have to check the various LA papers to see for sure. Regardless, the point stands that it was designed to be a puff piece on Dempsey. You cant escape that fact by reading it. Nevermind that they interviewed only Dempsey and people who adored him to give their "unbiased" accounting of his life.

 

Given the circumstances of the day, there is no shame in getting caught cold in one of these fights. It doesn't diminish his greatness unless you think he was an immortal impervious to defeat.

 

1920-02-15 The Chicago Sunday Tribune (page II1)
The Tribune assigned Eye Witness, one of the ablest and most experienced reporters in the country, to "cover" the career of Jack Dempsey in a series of unbiased articles, first of which is printed herewith. "Get the truth," was the only instruction given to the reporter. He is not a sporting writer, and he has approached the subject as an outsider, without preconceived opinions. He has here written a human picture of one of the most interesting and spectacular individuals in modern sporting life. The stories will appear daily on the sporting page.

1920-02-15 The Kansas City Star (page A17)
The Chicago Tribune assigned "Eye Witness," one of the ablest and most experienced reporters in the country, to "cover" the career of Jack Dempsey in a series of unbiased articles, first of which is printed herewith. ...

 

Henry Armstrong and Benny Leonard were ko'd early in their careers. Both are ATG's and so is Dempsey!

 

Flynn was an old war horse by this time but he was well know for right hand power. Could the KO been legit? Certainly. The idea that this was a fixed fight is a relatively new revelation. Unfortunately we could argue forever here because there is no real proof.

 

You need some very new and exacting evidence to change nearly 100 years of known history. As typical with YOU....you don't have it.