Jack Dempsey openly stated he would not fight black challengers

I dont even know what to make of most of this diatribe. You are all over the place here. Apparently America was super racist but Dempsey wasnt but because America, not Dempsey, was so racist, Dempsey couldnt fight Wills.

Again, this ignores the fact that America wasnt the only place this fight could have been made. It ignores the fact that Dempsey himself stated, right after winning the title, that he was drawing the color line and regardless of all of the phony contracts he signed (and he admitted they were phony) he never faced Wills the man universally regarded as his top challenger throughout his title reign. This big generic boogey man, "whitey", or some giant conspiracy didnt make Dempsey formally draw the color line. It didnt prevent the fight. It didnt make Dempsey admittedly sign fake contracts in order give the perception to the public that he was willing to fight Wills. Dempsey not only willingly went along with all of that but was largely the responsible party. He was quoted drawing the color line by himself. He wasnt being used as a puppet by Kearns and Rickard those were his words. Period. Sure Kearns and Rickard didnt want him to fight the biggest threat on the horizon. They made more money with him as champion. But when it suited Dempsey he fought for promoters other than Rickard and he fired Kearns and continued to avoid Wills all on his own. Those are all indisputable facts to anyone who actually studied this subject. Had Dempsey really been interested in fighting Wills he could have accepted one of the attractive offers by men like Brady or Coffroth and staged the fight somewhere like Cuba or Mexico (both of which were willing and both of which has the facilities to stage it) but its a lot easier to pretend that from 1919-1926 Tex Rickard was the only promoter on the planet, America was the only country, and the American people were so racist that no black man could ever get anywhere near a title. In reality it was a lot easier for a champion to draw the color line to avoid tough fights while appealing to the lowest common denominator than it was to risk a championship. The fact that there was so much demand for Wills to get a title shot in the WHITE press and so much demand by the WHITE public tells you that a far more significant portion of the population was behind Wills than the 10% of the population that African Americans made up of the USA in 1920. But go on pretending that every white person was always racist and that things like the civil war, the 15th amendmant, the various civil rights battles, etc were waged only by the minorities in this country alone. Good luck with that idea. Without white people willing to stick their necks out so that EVERYBODY could be treated as equals those things would have never happened. The problem with your narrative is that Dempsey wasnt willing, as champion, to make such a stand. He wasnt interested in trying to ensure that Wills was treated fairly and got his deserved shot at the title. It was much easier for him to go along with the tide and keep cashing his checks than it was to take a stand and risk losing his title to his greatest threat.

 

Hi Buddy.
There is a line in my fav film ( 12 Angry Men ) where a little old man is very politely trying to make his point, but another jurier keeps shutting him down, telling him he is talking nonsense, the old man turns to the Henry Fonda character and says " he just won't listen " came the reply from Fonda " he can't hear you, he never will " you can do no more, rest up, and relax.....
stay safe hombre.

 

Here's a line from one of my favourite films from Bo Svenson in 1978s Inglorious *******s "Can we have enough of this racial bull****" Their behind enemy lines fighting for their lives when that belter was delivered

Unfortunately we cant ignore America's big problem with racism while discussing Jack Dempsey vs Harry Wills and the biggest prize in sports NOT a middleweight title fight.You conveniently do ignore the race riots and race rally's during his reign which were not solely happening in southern states.Its easy writing on a keyboard today what people should have done 100years ago.There's a good post on contracts you've missed on page 11 too


"On July 4, 1923, an estimated 200,000 Klansmen, women, and children gathered in Kokomo, Indiana, to hold mass rallies. In August 1925, nearly 40,000 Klansmen (mostly Northerners) paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.


During the decade, it even exercised great power at the ballot box, helping to elect governors in Alabama, California, Oregon, and Indiana. An estimated 75 House members took their seats with KKK assistance in the 1920s. They included Earl Mayfield, as U.S. senator from Texas in 1922, and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black from Alabama in 1926.

In 1924, Democrats gathered at New York City’s Madison Square Garden for their national convention. Numerous delegates were Klan members, sympathizers, or people who were simply afraid of alienating the “Invisible Empire.” Anti-KKK forces attempted to pass a condemnation of the organization, but it failed by one vote."

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/...ls-democrats-convention-disaster-in-1924.html
A presidential candidate who banked on support from the Ku Klux Klan. Blunt demands to ban certain religions and races from playing a full role in society. Violence and disorder at campaign rallies.

And a political party that tore itself apart not only over whom it would nominate for president, but also over whether religious and racial bigotry would be visible in its fabric.

Welcome to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, held at Madison Square Garden in New York, when the most powerful bloc in the Democratic Party was the Klan, fiercely opposed by the Tammany Hall Democrats. It was the longest political convention in American history, going 16 days and requiring 103 ballots before a compromise candidate was selected.

The convulsions of the Democrats in 1924 are, in broad movements, mirrored in the rived and bedraggled pilgrimage of the Republicans in 2016 as they stagger toward their convention behind Donald J. Trump and his rivals.


In 1924, there were fistfights in the aisles and roosters released in the galleys; the police were called to break up the rumbles. Tammany backed the candidacy of Gov. Alfred E. Smith of New York, a Roman Catholic, reviled by the Klan for his religion and his stature as a champion of the newest Americans, and by “dry” Democrats for his opposition to Prohibition. The candidate of the Klan, and many other Democrats, was a California lawyer, William G. McAdoo, the son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson.

During the convention, 20,000 Klansmen attended a rally in New Jersey to denounce Governor Smith. “They beat an effigy of him into a pulp,”

Perhaps Dempsey was in the aisles breaking jaws

 

Now draw me a clear correlation between all of this and Dempsey-Wills. You cant. You can do a quick google search and see that despite your belief that the Klan was all powerful the very election you use as an example here their candidate lost to a more progressive candidate and Al Smith, who was a progressive that was popular among blacks and whites alike, retained his governorship. In fact most would argue that it was McAdoo's wishy washiness toward the Klan that lost him support and the nomination. Not the other way around you seem to think. So I hope you didnt get carpel tunnel syndrome cutting and pasting all of that because it was pointless and had no baring on the discussion above other than to illustrate that there were racists in the United States in the 1920s which nobody disputed. However, as illustrated consistently throughout history they were a minority. A loud minority that gets/got an undue amount of press but a minority nonetheless.

 

I haven't accused Miske 's Doctor' s of any thing I just made the observation that after the Dempsey 2nd fight ,he had a further20 fights without defeat beating the likes of Brennan,Gibbons,Renault . That's pretty decent going for a dying man!
My Wife is a practice manager ,I am familiar with kidney disease
Please provide his Doctors prognosis that he was a dying man when he fought Dempsey?
Let us be honest here.You hate Jack Dempsey's GUTS !

 

I am sure the quote is online somewhere, but i do remember reading it in a book called Jack Dempsey: The Manassa Mauler, by Randy Roberts.
Stay safe yourself buddy.

 

I haven't accused Miske 's Doctor' s of any thing I just made the observation that after the Dempsey 2nd fight ,he had a further20 fights without defeat beating the likes of Brennan,Gibbons,Renault . That
spretty decent going for a dying man!
My Wife is a practice manager ,I am familiar with kidney disease
Please provide his Doctors prognoscis that he was a dying man when he fought Dempsey?
Let us be honest here.You hate Jack Dempsey's GUTS !

 

If you need a signed doctors note to tell you a man who retires of a wasting disease in 1919 and dies at the age of 29 just four and half years later of the same disease then you are dumber than your posts would indicate. So do you really want to sit here and argue Miske didnt have kidney disease in 1919? That he didnt retire in 1919 on the order of his doctors because of that same disease? Jesus. Why dont you ask your practice manager wife about the various stages of kidney disease and the life expectancy associated with those stages. I mean, shes not a nephrologist but Im sure she knows more than some random wanna be know it all on the internet who thinks the medical degree he got by watching ER on television makes him expert enough to tell us that Billy Miske was fit as a ****ing fiddle in 1920 and only retired the year before because he wanted to take a vacation. The fact is that I dont hate Dempsey's guts I just dont swing from his jock strap like you deluded boomers who want to believe all of the roaring twenties rip snorting yarns about this indestructable dynamite punching killer and get your panties in a twist when anyone hints that he might not be too much different from the media created hype jobs of today, i.e. he was a hyped media creation who ducked the two most dangerous challengers.

 

https://flic.kr/p/2okpi8K

Theres your doctors note. July 22, 1919. More than a year before his bout with Dempsey. Miske was ordered out of the ring by his doctors. He didnt fight for a year and only came back when the auto dealership he opened with his life savings went bankrupt. Prior to being forced into retirement by his doctors he had failed to win his previous four bouts. After coming out of retirement his only fight was a stoppage of Jack Moran who had been knocked out in five of his previous seven bouts. After that bout he gets a title shot for the richest prize in sports and its signed IMMEDIATELY after Wills knocks out Fulton in a title eliminator which Dempsey was present for and which he said he would face the winner. Spin that however you like and call me biased, say I hate Dempsey until your tiny little heart feels better but the fact is that if you can twist that shitshow into an excusable situation for Dempsey then its you who is biased and frankly moronic beyond the pale.

 

It was there lurking (It still is) and you dont have to be a member of that particular group to have support or sympathy for them.Anyone in a powerful position could have had a word in someone’s ear saying dont let it happen.Wills himself said political powers wouldnt let it happen


It took over another decade for a black fighter to have a go at the Worlds heavyweight title.On the internet it says the power of the Klan had gone by 1930 until they rose again during the civil rights era

 

There you go ,off on another rant,insulting all and sundry who might even diffidently disagree with some of your theories .
Inventing and exaggerating others posts so you can march all over them like Germany through the lowlands inWW2.
None of us who may not entirely swallow your take on events a century ago, is a deluded boomer,nor do we neccessarily accept all the tales of Dempsey's rip roaring progress through the country.
Nobody said Miske was as fit as a fiddle,this is what you always do ,insert,attach , and attribute your own narrative to others and then tear it down.
No one has claimed tp be a medical expert on nephrology all I said was I am familiar with the disease, a friend died of it,and we know the condition ebbs and flows in its victims.
You said he was dying and I asked for a primary source for this,whereupon you erupted into a hissy fit.The only person getting their shorts bunched here is you and its so,so predictable.
You seriously need to reign in your ego fella , if you act like this socially it amazes me someone hasn't taken physical exception to your infantile, boorish ,absurdly over the top verbal aggression,and taught you some manners, shown you how to behave around adults.

Actually I would be extremely surprised if you aren't a timid mouse in real life with nothing going for you but your anorak obsession of Harry Greb ,a none entity really.
Your histrionic attacks on others here smack of a deep rooted insecurity ,and we have come to expect your reaction, I even predicted this one.
Many here refrain from replying to you so as to avoid the torrent of abuse that inevitably is returned,but you don't need or require debate, do you? All you need is a platform to propound your own gospel of Klompton. I bet you are a boring little man away from your pc.

I'll continue to read your posts, I'll enjoy and be informed by many of them, and give them a like,its just a pity they are inevitably accompanied by such an overwheening desire to be right and that they are delivered similarly to Moses bringing the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel.Then again I suppose everything has its price lol.

 

Thank you for posting it,but nowhere in it does it say he was a dying man.
The speculation in July was that Miske would not be figting again until "late in the fall",Miske fought Dempsey in September .


Neither do we know to what degree the disease affected him in his run up to the Dempsey fight.
Q. If there were ratings in1919 would Miske have been in the top ten?
A.I believe so.
Q. Would Wills have been the better opponent for Dempsey?
A. Yes nobody I know has disputed that.
Q.Was Miske an acceptable opponent?
A.I think he was.
Miske had "failed to win his previous 4 fights," true but he had drawn 2 of them,with Gibbons and Brennan,and in losing the other 2, to Levinsky and Norfolk by decision ,he was not being beaten by journeymen.
I have never tried to excuse Dempsey for not fighting Wills.
Once again you are employing your favourite tactic, putting words and opinions in others mouths that they have not said and then vociferously attacking them.

 

Well said sir!

 

That article was from July 1919. Let me repeat that again for you: 1919. He didnt fight Dempsey until September 1920. The "speculation" in July 1919 was that he wouldnt be able to return to the ring until the fall WHILE THEY RAN FURTHER TESTS. Those tests showed that he had kidney disease and he was forced to retire which is why he dumped his entire life savings into a car dealership which he hoped would support his family. When that business failed he made the decision to comeback whether it killed him or not in because it was the quickest way to put a nest egg in the bank for his family. Why the **** are we even debating this?? This isnt even up for discussion. These facts are accepted by anyone who knows anything about Miske, by basically everybody around at the time while he was fighting, his family, the Twin Cities press, and even Dempsey who, again, admitted that he knew Miske was dying and thats why he agreed to fight him in order to help him out financially. So you want ignore the weight of all of that in favor of believing Miske was a good choice for a defense. Ok. Good luck with that. But it doesnt take a genius to look up the stages of Kidney disease, how long a person has until IMMINENT DEATH without a transplant or dialysis, look at Miske's diagnosis in 1919 and his death in early 1924 OF KIDNEY DISEASE and draw the conclusion that for all intents and purposes the man had Kidney Disease in 1919 and from that point, given the state of medicine in 1919 he was a dying man with limited time. The fact that anyone would deny this or stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to believe what EVERYBODY, his family, the press, his associates, his doctors, etc at the time were saying is insulting. All because you dont want to admit your hero defended against a sick man. Thats pretty pathetic.

We know it was serious enough that his physicians told him to retire from boxing. We know the only reason he returned to the sport was because he was broke.

What you believe is irrelevent for several reasons. Youve shown yourself to only BELIEVE what you want to whether the evidence is against it or not. Miske didnt fight Dempsey in 1919, he fought him in 1920 and if we are going to apply a modern standard to a fight that took place 100 years ago, which is folly and ignorant, then you also have to apply the standard that if a fighter is out of the ring for a year he gets dumped from the ratings. Furthermore, I dont think 2 losses 2 draws would keep Miske in any top ten ratings particularly when two of those fights were against light heavyweights and the two losses were one sided losses. If somehow he did manage to stay in the ratings he would certainly be low enough that his follow up inactivity would bump him out in favor of more deserving opponents. So no, that was a terrible defense.

How could you?

Im sure you do. Dempsey could have defended against a heavy bag and as long as he knocked it of its moorings you would be delighted.

Gibbons was still less than a year away from having moved up from middleweight and was only 167 when he fought Miske who outweighed him by ten pounds. Levinsky was a light heavyweight and dominated him. Norfolk was 180 and a guy you have numerous times said was not only too small to fight Dempsey but wasnt a legitimate contender for him and yet he dominated Miske as well. Going into the Miske fight Brennan had lost his last three and won just two of his previous eleven fights. So you want argue now that losing a one sided decision to Norfolk, who you dont think was a legitimate challenger of Dempsey somehow keeps him in the ratings? How drawing with a 167 pound guy you outweigh by ten pounds make you a legitimate challenger for the heavyweight title? How does losing a one sided decision to a light heavyweight make you a legitimate challenger to the HW title? How does drawing with a guy whose only two wins in his previous 11 fights were against journeymen at best make you a legitimate challenger for the HW title AFTER YOUVE SPENT A FORCED YEAR AWAY FROM THE RING ON DOCTORS ORDERS BECAUSE YOU HAVE KIDNEY DISEASE??? Youre not that stupid. You may be stubborn and you may not like to lose arguments. But that is simply indefensible.

 

I'm far too old to have heroes.Miske fought Dempsey over a year after his temporary enforced retirement.Presumably he was in decent shape he certainly weighed the same as he had for the first Dempsey fight187lbs.
What I am trying to establish ,and you haven't been able to prove is to what extent Miske's illness impacted on his subsequent ring career.
After being ko'd by Dempsey, Miske went on a winning tear winning21 of 23 fights losing only 1 ,to highly rated Gibbons no longer 167lbs, beating several top challenges such as Gibbons,Renault x2 Brennan x2 Smith ,Weinert,and Fulton, how do you account for this if he was dying when he met Dempsey?
Miske went into 1921 fighting nearly every month not only fighting but winning and he managed some of his best results in1921 and 1922 how did he do that if he was at deaths door?

We are all dying, to what degree Miske was you have failed to establish.
You see from my perspective, you want to believe Miske was dying when he fought Dempsey but you can't explain how he ran up such an impressive series of wins after Dempsey ko'd him! You say Dempsey defending against Miske was inexcusable and in the same breath say he did it to help out a fellow boxer who needed the money?
Many said Dempsey did a charitable thing giving Billy that opportunity ,you see it as cynical exploitation and a cowardly detour around more dangerous challengers.
In short you're a hater.
Calling the defence inexcusable smacks of that line in Dylan's Lay Lady Lay " you can have your cake and eat it too".
If Miske's illness had manifested itself BEFORE the Greb fight I am positive you would be vehemently playing it down and pointing to these very wins on Miske's subsequent record to make the case that it wasn't really anything serious!
Nobody likes being proven wrong, but we all are from time to time,me as much as anyone.
From your posts , I don't think you have ever entertained the possibility that the same may be true of you.
You have written a well received book and I congratulate you on it ,but you are not PUGILISM'S ORACLE.