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

They only arguments you can give here is other people's opinions. I don't mean that in a personally offending way of course, but the fact that several historians think so does not make it so. The facts of the matter say otherwise. Historians are only human beings and not impervious to bias.

Why can you only go by that? Wouldn't you say objective sources, like facts, records, and most importantly, film, is more reliable?

If we look objectively at for instance the rankings of Fleischer, they were almost in chronological order. A person who has access to records and film has no business ranking Dempsey higher than Louis and still call himself a boxing historian (not sure if does, though).

No he didn't. He blasted Fulton out before the latter could land anything significant.

I'd like to know who these boxing historians are who think Dempsey has an iron chin and a much better one than Johnson and Lewis.

 

Demspey did NOT take any of fultons punches.

 

There have been a lot of ringside reports on many fights that indicated they were on the level and they weren't. If these boxing people were a live today, you would hear it from them. As time goes on, people have a different opinion, BUT they never even saw Dempsey box. So who would you go by?

As far as Foreman getting KO'ed by Ali goes, Ali fought the right fight and Foreman was exhausted. Ruddock was a pretty good boxer and Tyson always had trouble with good big boxers. Schmeling stopping Louis, Louis under rated Schmeling, PLUS Louis didn't take the best punch either.

I am going by facts, facts on what people who lived back then stated, not some newcomer. Even a lot of them today feel that the bout was fixed.

I know that all historians are human and they are at times, bias, BUT I have talked to so many of them and they all can not be wrong, BUT maybe they are.

I can name almost any boxing historian back then and they would all say that Dempsey had an iron jaw. I have the old boxing magazines from the early 1920's and they back that up. Up until the early to mid 1960's, Dempsey was rated by most of them as #1, a head of Louis, Johnson, Rocky and all the rest. Then as the oldtimers passed on, they went with Louis, now most go with Ali. They did so because of Dempsey's punching power and his chin, among other things.

 

Here's what Monte Cox wrote:

There has always been a great amount of suspicion over this bout. The first book ever written about Jack Dempsey was a 1929 book by Nat Fleischer titled: Jack Dempsey, The Idol of Fistiana. Nat only wrote one sentence about the Flynn fight, “In the following year (1917)…he suffered a questionable one round knockout to Jim Flynn.” Fleischer had no access to newspaper accounts because of the lack of microfilm issue, but he knew of insider’s talk of it being a fixed fight.

In the Sept 1933 Ring magazine author Harvey Bright wrote of the Dempsey-Flynn encounter saying, “The end came in the very first round.” But Bright didn’t offer any details of the encounter merely saying, “many of the ringsiders were of the opinion it was another one of “those things.” Dempsey’s friends have always insisted that Jack “took a dive.”

Bright inferred that ringsiders were of the opinion that it was not on the level. It is noteworthy that Dempsey was blackballed in the area thereafter. Take a look at his record. Murray, Utah, where the fight occurred, is a suburb of Salt Lake City. Though Salt Lake was a BIG fight town from 1910-1940, and though Dempsey was essentially a Utah native, Dempsey never again fought there.

The most telling piece of research is in a series of articles published by the Chicago Tribune in 1920 when Dempsey was in the first year of his reign as heavyweight champion. The Tribune ran a series of 23 articles running from February 15, 1920 to March 8, 1920. The articles were titled, “The Life and Adventures of Jack Dempsey.” The series opened with the following statement of purpose, “The Tribune assigned Eye Witness (sic), 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 written here a human picture of one of the most interesting and spectacular individuals in modern sporting life. The series will appear daily on the sporting pages.”

Chapter X of the series was titled “The Fight at Murray” which headlined at the top of the article: “Dempsey’s Lone KO Of Career Raw Frame Up.” The sub-headline said “Needed Coin, So Flopped To Flynn.”

The Chicago Tribune’s “Eye Witness” was obviously of the old school of reporters who felt he should get his facts first hand. The reporter interviewed three men who were there that day on February 13, 1917 in Murray, Utah. Those three men were John Derks, sporting editor of Salt Lake Tribune; Hardy Downing, a Salt Lake City promoter of boxing matches who also ran a local gym, and Al Auerbach, who was Jack Dempsey’s third manager.

Hardy Downing said he had a tip that the fight was going to be “on the *****” and he went to the Sheriff’s office in Salt Lake saying, “If this fight turns out to be crooked it will make a (sic) scandal and hurt the whole game around here and I want it stopped.” Downing being a promoter in the area did not want a fixed fight to take place because it would hurt his business. The sheriff stalled and said they didn’t know what they could really do about it. Hardy described what he saw that night. “Flynn came out fanning with both hands and Jack went into his shell”-that means dropping his head and sort of hunching oneself- “dropped his left at the blow and as he fell put his right glove against his cheek and did a little flopping.”

Eyewitness said that throughout his narrative Hardy was very detailed. He even mentioned the figure involved. He said it was $500. Dempsey told Hardy after the fight, “I’ll fight for you for nothing, I want to square myself here. I always had to figure on money for the folks, and probably I done things I ought to not done but when she needed the money I figured I had to get it some way.”

Al Auerbach who was Dempsey’s manager from early 1916 and after Jack’s return from New York in July 1916 recalls, “Jack had dependants aplenty. He’d be training hard between those early fights and then maybe get $25 or $40, and the next day he’d be broke from paying his Mother’s grocery bill.”

Auerbach would not be mentioned in any of the books about Dempsey over the next 80 years. “Now you take the Flynn fight and all the grief it caused,” said Auerbach. “That was the result of a driving need, I tell you. Of course, the boy had never seen $500 of which the family owed most.”

Auerbach was also the bill payer for the Flynn-Dempsey fight at Murray. He recalled his conversation time after that fight when Dempsey told him, “I’ll tell you Al, if I had my life to live over I’d never do that thing again.”

John Derks was also at the fight. “In the first round, indeed, at the second blow, Flynn landed a terrific punch on Dempsey’s jaw” but added that, “the fight was a frame and to distinguish it from other frames it was agreed to end it quickly.”

So, in early 1920, three reputable Salt Lake City men all of whom were present at the Feb. 13, 1917 fight in Murray, Utah, when Jim Flynn beat Jack Dempsey said that the fight was “fixed”, “a fake” and “a frame.” The three men also declared individually to the Chicago Tribune that Jack Dempsey took a “dive” for $500.

The Tribune also reported that after the last prelminary bout to the Jim Flynn-Jack Dempsey heavyweight bout, “the spectators settled themselves back for the main event. Then they unsettled thesmelves, because the main event didn't show up. For 45 minutes the fans who had paid from $2 to $5 for seats waited with noisy impatience.” And now came a very important statement in the Tribunes result report; one that, in later perspective sheds a great deal of light on the circunstances of the bout.

“The delay,” said the Tribune, “it developed later, was due to financial arguments in the box office.” The 2 fight managers and the promoter arguing behind closed doors is compelling. Why a delay (when fans were upset!) caused by a secret conversation when everyone involved was present unless it was to hammer out some detail of a fix? That's great circumstantial evidence. In light of the testimony of the three Salt Lake men who were at the fight it is easy to conclude that the fix was in.

The promoter for the Dempsey-Flynn bout was, as noted previously, Fred Winsor. Winsor was still managing heavyweights in 1924. On November 17, 1924 Windsor matched his latest heavyweight sensation Tony Fuente with the famous Minnesota Plasterer, Fred Fulton whose first round knockout loss to Dempsey in 1918 had propelled Dempsey into his 1919 title match versus Jess Willard. Fuente and Fulton were matched in Culver City, California.

Fulton was on the last legs of his career and was eager for a payday. In less than a minute Fuente floored Fulton 3 times, and scored a very dubious one round knockout. On hand were 4,000 fans, including former world heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries. The fans rose to their feet screaming and yelling, “FAKE! FAKE!”

Boxrec carries the following report: “Fulton "took a dive" 35 seconds after the opening bell, it was later determined. The crowd rioted and threw "storms of cushions into the ring." (AP) It was later alleged Fulton had taken an extra $7,500 to "lie down." His manager admitted to investigating boxing officials that Fulton had warned his friends to refrain from betting on him.”

The next day, November 18, 1924 Fred Fulton and his manager Jack Reddy were arrested. Fred Winsor and his fighter Tony Fuente went “on the lam”, and were nowhere to be found. Shortly after Winsor, Fuente, Fulton and Reddy were barred from California.

Dempsey’s first wife Maxine Cates told anyone who would listen, as mentioned in Roger Khan’s book, A Flame of Pure Fire, the truth, she said, was that Dempsey threw the fight. “They offered him more money to lose than to win and he took it.”

Jack Dempsey always denied that the fight was fixed. Most of the books written about Dempsey based their conclusions of what happened on Dempsey’s own words. Certainly Dempsey’s account differed from those of newspaper accounts of the time as well as those of the eyewitnesses. All those who were associated with Dempsey and were there that night believe the Flynn fight to have been a fake. Dempsey, an unknown struggling, hungry fighter at the time, had the necessary motives to accept a payment to lay down.

The likely reason Dempsey never admitted to the fake was that he figured admitting to participating in a fix would be more damaging to his reputation than accepting a loss. One must realize that throughout most of Dempsey’s lifetime he was considered the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. In the 1950 AP Poll he was voted the greatest fighter ever. In a 1962 Ring magazine poll of 40 boxing experts Dempsey was named the greatest heavyweight of all time. His fighting reputation was not hurt by the loss to Flynn and there was simply no need to admit to the dive.

It is unfortunate that in the many books that have been written about Jack Dempsey the truth about what happened that night on February 13, 1917 in Murray, Utah has rarely been told.

 

Might have taken one depending on which acount you read.

Not exactly a stern test.

 

What the people arguing for the fight being legit dont seem to grasp is that however much evidence piles up for the fight being on the level you simply cannot ignore the testimony and circumstantial evidence that the fight was a fix.

It will always be there and it will always leave a question mark against the fight and everybody involved is dead now so I doubt that any decisive evidence is likley to emerge in the future.

Some people are almost arguing for the fight to be retrospectivley recognised to be legitimate. The question you have to ask yourself is this:

If you had bet on Dempsey to win would you be content having lost your money under those circumstances.

If yopu were a bookmaker would you be happy paying out a lot of money to people who had bet on Fly after Dempseys wife testified on in court that he had taken a dive.

If those circumstances surrounded a fight today people with a stake in the outcome would scream so loud that the earth shook.

 

Which are those fights and what is the conclusive evidence that they, in fact, were fixes?

You mean what people THINK they saw several years ago, with no re-play, a possibly bad angle, from a large distance in a cloud of smoke. The human memory isn't reliable at all. Over time, the mind changes events the way we subconsciously want it. This is a pretty well established fact within psychology. Eye-witness accounts from people who think Dempsey is a demi-God several years after the event is not a reliable event.

If you go back a few centuries then you'll also find most scientists claim that the earth is flat. Surely they can't all be wrong?!

The mid 1960's is also the time when film of Dempsey was slowed down to watchable speed and more widely available. Which revealed a lot of things about his opponents. I don't want to insult any of your friends, but any boxing historian who ranks Dempsey ahead of Louis is a moron and can't look objective at their respective records.

Are you telling me that ALL boxing historians pre-1960's did not know how Dempsey never fought the #1 heavyweight of his time, Harry Wills? How he never fought the second biggest threat of his time, Harry Greb? How the heck can one rate Dempsey's lacklustre title reign (with 3 years of inactivity!!) over Louis' active scheme of 25 defenses over 11 years? Everyone likes to join the Dempsey Legend and the giant killer myth, but surely they must have known that Willard was a 37 year old, out of shape, unskilled farmer strong boy who had a grand total of one fight the last four years before he fought Dempsey, and was only given a title shot at Johnson because of the color of his skin? Surely they could've seen that Firpo had a skill level below the average amateur boxer (and i'm not kidding here), and knocked Dempsey down twice when he was illegally helped back in the ring by thirds, something that can get one disqualified?

Dempsey's title reign was so full of inactivity and so void of the ones who DID deserve their shot (his ducking of Wills is a record in boxing history, any weight class)... but people want a hero, especially in the hard times during the 20's and 30's.... and they got Dempsey.

Yes, and notice how NONE of that is a primary source. All of them re-curring eyewitnesses who come out several years after the fight, when Dempsey is already being mythologized. There is no way one can remember the exact finish of a fight several years ago from a large distance from the ring, with no big screen, no multiple-angle replay, no slow-motion replay or anything. One blink and you miss it.

Fact is that the primary sources make no mention of it whatsoever, despite the local big boy going out in a blast.

 

I understand that the testimony at the slacker trial was delivered in the same year as the bout took place.

Not exactly years afterwards and before Dempsy on the title or was anywhere close to being seen as an all time great.

 

When handling these secondary reports years after the fact it's worth thinking about Clay-Cooper. This is a filmed fight with a large media coverage, but still the myth of the five minute break between round four and five is still very much alive. Hell, Ali even goes along with it in his own autobiography. A book that spawned the hard dying myth of him throwing his Olympic medal in the river, by the way.

Legends spawn legends, and this was even more true in the days before the mass media.

 

No actualy I am wrong it was a few years later.

 

Exactly.

What do you make of the fact that Cox's research purposefully ignores the fact that primary sources never make any mention of it, whatsoever?

 

Like I said before, I and a lot of other people, have done a lot of research on this and even talked to a lot of old time historians and reporters, and they all stated that the bout was not on the level, so IMO it was a fix. If you believe otherwise, so be it, I think I will go by what these men told me and what I found out myself. Even most of today's historians say the same because they go by what they were told and by doing research on their own as well.

I can give you 100's of articles on fights back in the 20's through the 60's, 70's and 80's, and you would think they were all on the level, BUT they weren't as some of these fights were in Pro wrestling. I also know of a lot of fights, (boxing) that were not on the up and up either. I knew a lot of former fighters that fought over 100 years ago and many of them were involved in fixed fights that were never written about.

The people that were at this fight that Cox wrote about, never changed their story, even years later they all had the same account on the fight. When you have someone witness a murder, they testify months or even years later too.

As far as rating Dempsey goes, the people that saw him fight, all rated him very high, most had him at #1. Even if you go by the computer that stated that Marciano was the best heavyweight ever, they had Dempsey beating Louis. I still know of some oldtimers that rate Dempsey as #1. Just for the record, I don't.

I think we went over why Dempsey never fought Wills, it wasn't him, it was the times. Even Louis didn't box the best Black fighters of his day either.

 

So why has aaaaaaaall this research never resulted in a significant, hard evidence?

Okay, so give me a few fights that had neutral reports written about them and then clear evidence that they were not?

Yes, and is an eyewitness account enough to convict someone?

It's not and for good reason: the person can either be mistaken in his memory or lying for whatever motive. And the same goes for those years-later interviewed eye-witnesses. In addition to that, the fact that they cannot agree on whether it was one punch, one knockdown or several of those that ended the fight says enough about their trustworthyness.

It's been covered several times and opinions are divided. If he was so willing, then why did they promise him a titleshot if he beat Fulton and Firpo? Managers are all to happy to take the fall, so that people can still praise the fighter. Easy as childsplay. Managers don't have any reputation to uphold. I don't want to start an other discussion about this subject on this thread, but needless to say, far from everyone agrees on the "it was the fault of the times"-point of view. There were several black champions around that time.

 

Just the legendary status Dempsey had is a good reason for me to doubt the "fix". It's not really complicated. A revered champ like Dempsey KO'd in a matter of seconds by someone like Flynn - it just doesn't compute. So a rumour gets started about a fix and soon it's a fact that people swear to. This has happened so many times in history. Hell, religions have gotten started this way.

Just look at probably the only fighter who has exceeded Dempsey as an icon: Ali. His career took place in the age of television and was intently covered by media most of the way, but still you have the Cooper myth, the Olympic medal myth and several other things claimed as fact with very weak support.

A compelling story always has a life of its own.

 

I agree BUT Dempsey wasn't a legend when the stories came out. In fact, some of them hated Dempsey because he didn't serve our country in the War.