Dempsey's era was truly the wild west of boxing

'In 1915, when I was nineteen, I fought Johnny Sudenberg ten rounds in the wild mining town of Goldfield, Nevada. I was in there with a good fighter, one much better than I was, but I took the fight because I was dead broke and my manager of the moment, Jack Gilfeather, had been able to jimmy a $100 guarantee because Sudenberg's scheduled opponent had taken a runout.

Sudenberg almost kiIIed me. For two rounds it was a fight. For the next eight I was a helpless, bIood-soaked punching bag. It was the worst beating of my life. I don't remember going down once, because I still don't remember the last three or four rounds.

Coldfield was a tough town. A stranger who got his brains knocked out in Goldfield was no rarity. So they dumped me, into a wheelbarrow and some Samaritan pushed me through the hilly streets. He threw me on the bunk in my 'home', a cave in the side of a hill.

I woke up at three o'clock the next afternoon - nearly twenty hours after I'd been wheelbarrowed 'home.' Everything hurt, of course. But I was young, and I was hungry. I stumbled over to the saloon where Gilfeather hung out, to collect my share of the purse. I asked where I could find Gilfeather.

A bartender said, 'He left town last night, kid. He got drunk and blew his wad shooting crąps.' I had been damn near kiIIed for nothing. I was broke and starving. It was the lowest point of my entire life. And, for the first time in my life, I longed for my childhood, tough as it was.'

- Jack Dempsey

 

Getting the crap beat out of you until the final bell, not getting a single dime, and then rematching the same opponent in under a month...? Not even a journeyman desperate for cash would go for that and no sanctioning body would allow it...! Hell if someone even tried to do that today, the FBI would probably investigate.