If we switch Dempsey and Marciano, does anything interesting pop up?

And he pretty much right I suppose that Moore and Marciano would beat Willard and Firpo.

 

"Could we perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he sincerely believed in the rankings that he published."

I have no question about his integrity. I would question his judgement on some of these rankings, but it is just opinion one way or the other.

 

Why exactly would they want Dempsey to lose, though? He was the hot young box office draw. You have to admit that doesn't make all that much sense on the face of it.

There is also a point I want to hit harder. The article in the Chicago Tribune is blind. The reporter does not sign his name. The three men he is quoting are about two thousand miles away in an era of far more primitive communications than today. None of them are likely to read the Chicago Tribune. This unnamed reporter could put any words in their mouths he wants and they wouldn't know about it, plus how could they deny saying something to him when they don't even know who he is? Put yourself in a courtroom. A man comes in wearing a hood. He takes the witness stand but refuses to give his name. He was not at the site of the robbery but quotes three other men who are thousands of miles away as identifying the defendant as the robber. Would any judge allow in this testimony? Would any jury take it seriously? All this is the worst sort of hearsay, coming from a state in which boxing was illegal and from a paper which was crusading to keep boxing illegal.

 

Simple betting arithmatic.

If I had known in "exactly" which round Manny Paquiao was going to knock out Ricky Hatton I would never have had to work again.

It wouldnt have mattered if the tickets for the fight had not sold because the money I would have won would have been drawn from a seperate pot.

If you know who will win a fight it is verry valuable.

If you can call the round that they go down it is priceless.

It should be noted also that an early first round knockout is the most likley scenario for a dive.

But then somtimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

The Dempsey-Flynn betting would only have been local. It can't be compared to Ricky Hatton. I don't know how much was bet on this fight, but $500 doesn't seem much to get a rising contender who is drawing ten times that at the gate to throw a fight and possibly jeopardize his future.

 

If the fight was in the national press which would likley have been the case "boxing was endemic back then", there might have been people in NewYork betting on the fight alongside a hundred others.

There are betting syndicates for horse racing in the UK today that will actualy guarantee that you make a profit on yout bets "if you meet the criteria to join".

 

The article hhascup posted said this bout was NOT covered in the eastern press at all.

Also, I wonder if Utah would have been the center of betting at any time. It is one of the few states today in which gambling of any kind is totally illegal. The Mormans are very conservative about such things.

By the way, one weakness of the whole betting idea is that there is no evidence for any betting coups. The proof is no stronger than in any other fight at all. You could argue just as strongly that any old fight, such as Louis-Schmeling, was thrown so that gamblers could win bets.

 

Back at that time, Records were not as important as it is today. Losing a bout here and their wouldn't hurt a career like it does today.

The only one that really knows for sure, would have been Dempsey himself, and he never said he did so. BUT I think that was to save face, it was better to lose then to admit that he threw a fight.

 

"he never said he did so. BUT I think that was to save face, it was better to lose than to admit he threw a fight"

So Dempsey is basically dishonest. Why believe him then when he says he was willing to defend against Wills?

This controversy reminds me of the old Jimmy Stewart-John Wayne movie THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE when the reporter hears the truth but ignores it with the comment "When the legend become fact, print the legend."

The Dempsey legend became fact in the 1920's and a lot of boxing historians are simply printing the legend.

 

I LOVED that movie too and we are dating ourselves by admitting so.

I think Dempsey wasn't telling the hold story when it came to the Flynn bout. As far as Wills goes, he did sign two contracts to fight him BUT both fell through.

Most of the boxing writers that saw Dempsey in action, would tell you he was one of the best ever.

 

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Come on now.

Just think about the issues that a fighter of that period were up against, "throw this fight or retire", "If you visably threw a fight you were black listed" (hence almost starve to death).