Old SI Article On Loughran Sparring Dempsey

There seems to be a bit of interest on here about Dempsey of late so I thought I'd post a link to an interesting article from a 1979 Sports Illustrated (when they still gave a stuff about boxing).It concerns a sparring session between Jack and Tommy prior to Dempsey-Tunney 1,which I have to admit I'd never even heard about.

Even allowing for a bit of exaggeration on Tommy's part it really raises a few questions about Dempsey's condition and mindset and maybe even takes a little bit of the gloss off Tunney's victory.

Anyway I hope you enjoy:good
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1094862/1/i

 

Great read, thanks Young Griffo.

 

Excellent stuff ,thanks for posting it. :good

 

at work at the minute - don't have time to read it now but thanks for putting this up - I'll read it later when I get home - thanks again :good

 

great great read. Thanks for the post.

 

Was it GPater who said that he had seen footage of this sparring session?

 

I've always been fascinated with that article when Tom describes Jack as a young man and sensed that vicious streak in him .. I have never read anything like it anywhere else referring to Dempsey out of the ring and it is very interesting to me .. wish there was a bit more elaboration to it ..

 

The article is enlightening..It shows how much Jack Dempsey regressed
by 1926...He after a three year layoff was but a shell of the "Tiger" of
Willard and before...Time waits for no one...
Side note= In the mid 40s I was with a young date walking in Manhattan
when I spotted Tommy Loughran waiting for a cab...I told my date "that
is Tommy Loughran " the old fighter, she said to me ,"Couldn't be, that
guy is too good looking to be a fighter " !
Tommy was a handsome guy....

 

what's your opinion on Laughran? He looked like a boxing master from the footage i've seen.

 

Tommy Loughran was a great boxer with a great jab, and a good set of
wheels...He was dead game as witness his fight with Leo Lomski ,where
he was dropped twice in the first round, by the murderous punching Lomski, and survived the round and won a 15 round decision..You can see
this fight on youtube...
P.S. I still take Billy Conn over Loughran in a fight....Billy could move like Tommy, and Conn loved to mix.....

 

yeah i was just watching the lomski fight the other day.

and laughran vs. carnera was quite a site. carnera looked like he could swallow him whole if he wanted to. i read that laughran had his manager put some nasty smelling stuff on his hairline before the fight in anticipation that carnera would try and wrestle him and lay his weight on him. very smart.

 

I'm sure he didn't spray Brute on himself...
Thosevdays many top fighters fought heavier guys than themselves. To make a living they HAD to...Tough times, make tough fighters, they say...

 

Loughran was a great boxer ... top ten at light heavy for sure ...

 

Really great article - love hearing stuff right from the mouths of the men that really know - the fighters themselves who were there and mixed it up with the greats - you can tell from the words about his pre-fight feelings how much fear/respect/admiration that Dempsey inspired in real fighting men - Loughran was one of the great light heavys of all time too!! Hope there is a film of this one out there somewhere - some one try to get hold of Gpater and get him to put it up on youtube if he's got it :happy

 

Yep, I have.

Loughran actually outboxes Dempsey as well as Tunney did although he did it in a slightly different manner. I was actually really impressed with the ease in which Loughran waltzed around Dempsey and got off first before smothering Dempsey's own attacks. The footage I have, I think, shows two rounds of the sparring as well as, possibly, Jack Dillon sparring Tunney, before showing Loughran vs Dillon then Dempsey vs Tunney.