Joe Louis Gets A Pass For J H Lewis. Jack Dempsey Gets Ripped For Miske

I wonder if Miske actually had Bright's disease or just cumulative kidney damage after a career of taking body shots in three ounce gloves. Anyone got a clear picture what kind of fighter this guy was? Did he get in close a lot and absorb a lot of blows to the body? (And I mean relative to other fighters of his era.)

 

1 Million a year in the '20's? Holy ****, that's about 20 million adjusted for inflation.

 

These are my thought as well. I don't have any problems with a soft defence as long as the tough ones also are made.

 

I think the crux of the matter is Louis didn't have an opponent on Wills level that he ducked. Dempsey did.
I don't have a problem with either match, however, I do feel both avoided the better black talents of their time.

 

Wasnt it the norm for HW Champions in Dempseys time to do the whole vaudeville thing which was where the steady money was? Wasnt that Kearns idea? Wasnt it Kearns who just kept pissing money away and needed the steady paydays? From what I remember reading Dempsey wanted to fight more often but it was Kearns who always had a new scheme up his sleeve to use Dempsey in another capacity. Just my opinion if memory serves me correct.
I agree with McVey post. Hes correct IMO

 

John Henry Lewis was an active reigning champion when Louis fought him.

Billy Miske had failed to win his last four fights before taking a year long forced retirement due to kidney disease and got a title shot after a one fight comeback against a bum. He was sick enough in training that at one point he had to stop training because “he ate a bad pie” and somevreports say when he entered the ring his skin was a “sickly grey.” It was an open secret that he was seriously ill and Dempsey himself admitted it.

Regardless of Lewis vision its been shown in the past by fighters such as Greb, Gibbons, Langford, Gypsy Joe and others that a man with vision problems can still excell at the sport. Miske, for all the hype around his post championship challenge record, didnt accomplish much and more than one of those fights was considered a dive.

When you factor in the above, the fact that Miske was Dempseys first title defense (signed the day after Wills knocked out Fulton in a title eliminator) combined with Dempseys long periods of inactivity and proclivity for avoiding the best competition and its understandable why this would be seen as a lot less forgiveable.

 

The legend (maybe not the facts) about Miske is that he basically got off his death bed for one last fight to provide for his family . Sounds very Hollywoodish to me. One fight to make his family secure? What did he do with the money from his other 100+ fights? He must have been living like Johnny Depp.

 

And no IRS at that time...

 

Im not saying to write them off entirely but his two biggest wins, KOs over Brennan and Fulton were so suspect that both men were banned and disgraced. The rest dont really stand out. I dont even consider his win over Gibbons because he lost every round of that fight before winning on a suspect DQ and then lost the rematch by a wide margin. The other guys he was beating were either padt their prime, retreads, or both. Its not like he has this phenomonal run after Dempsey where he beat Greb, Wills, Norfolk, Gibbons, Firpo, in stunning fashion. People use that tepid run at the end of his career as evidence that he was a good contender without really understanding the illness he was suffering or taking into account how he got his title shot. He was a terrible title defense by any stretch.

 

Ironic isn't it?