How good was Dempsey's title reign?

are you claiming it never took 2-3yrs to build-up a million dollar gate prizefight?

 

JAB.. You have rubbished the careers of both Jack Dempsey & Gene Tunney as well as every single fighter either of them fought throughout their career's. you have claimed they both ducked almost every single opponent you could possibly think of without any proof whatsoever, every link which has been put infront of you has been rubbished and the Historians you have claimed are "wrong"... The bottom line is that you know very little about the sport of boxing and have a "HATE AGENDA" towards all the great fighters. your posts prove everything i have said about you, yet you make stupid claims that Tommy Morrison is an all time great and accuse anyone who exposes your Hatred as a TROLL.. not once in any post you have made on this forum have you been able to talk or debate the sport of boxing. members have now seen through your agenda and you need banned from this forum... HATE OF ALL BOXERS PRE-2002 IS NOT WHAT THE CLASSICAL FORUM IS ABOUT.. go away you fool.

 

HATER AT WORK.... you sad pathetic little midget

 

People claiming jack dempsey was somehow always universally recognized as the greatest are full of ****. He was always a divisive figure in the sport. In his time and after. Its one of the reasons that Harry Wills legacy is so enduring and such a poster child for being avoided.

Furthermore, some have bashed Wills and tried to put forth the notion that his loss by DQ to Tate somehow hurt his standing as a contender (it didnt) might take note of the following two articles to see just how close one can come to such an occurence, and how being "the man" can pay dividends when it comes to getting out of hot water and having history written more favorably for you:

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Now you compare the description with the actual film that survives today and you can see that it is exactly as described. Furthermore, there are two versions of the Firpo film taken from different angles. Both have the same edits in place. I also have articles by Rickard confirming that the edits were indeed made at his request but denying that he had any nefarious intentions (really? then why make the edits at all?).

Lets not pretend that there wasnt a very active campaign going on to paint Dempsey as anything other than an invincible mankiller. Some of the press bought it hook line and sinker, some of the press were paid to write it and further the notion, and some of the press didnt buy it and fought against it.

I have an audio interview with Dempsey were he admits himself that Rickard well knew that Dempsey would knock Carpentier out and specifically asked him not to do so in the first round. He also admits that he knew Miske was sick and that fight was a favor to Miske (he also later refereed one of Miske's fights to give an added attraction to the gate thereby helping Miske's percentage), and states that Firpo was big and strong but inexperienced. When you admit that three of your first five challengers are basically not up to snuff thats a pretty telling admission.

 

I'll make that claim. They didnt start building up the million dollar gate until the summer of 1920 when Carp was brought over here by Rickard to do a vaudville tour in the USA as a means of acquinting the public with him. The tour met with mixed success and a great deal of skepticism over Carpentiers chances at HW. This necessitated him winning a "major" title (I hesitate to call it that because the LHW title was still not universally recognized in the USA at this point). So Carp was matched with Levinsky in the fall of 1920. Rickard basically purchased Levinsky's "title" for Carpentier. The knockout served as a reference point to show Carp could do something Dempsey could do, and also gave him the title as a springboard to the HW championship. The million dollar gate was not signed until late winter/early spring 1921. Thats when the actual promotion began but yes, from behind the scenes Rickard was actively working on building Carpentier up in the USA as a challenger as early as summer 1920. Carpentier was mentioned as a challenger for the HW title long before Dempsey or even Willard won the championship but simply being tied to the championship in the press should not be mistaken for an actual active promotional buildup.

 

Another correction: Someone said Greb lost to Tunney with the winner to face Carpentier... That simply isnt true. The only time a Carpentier fight was floated to a winner of a fight between Greb and Tunney was after their first fight in 1922. Rickard offered Carpentier $150,000 to face Greb in a ND match in New Jersey and Carpentier flat turned it down in favor of facing Siki for less than $20,000 which absolutely flabbergasted Rickard. When Greb lost to Tunney in December 1923 there was no Carpentier fight on the line and indeed it would be 7 or 8 months before Carpentier and Tunney met.

 

I thought it was the Bill Tate DRAW that tainted Wills' rating, not the DQ loss.

It's common knowledge that Dempsey-Firpo was controversial, not least because of Dempsey's habit of standing over his opponent waiting for them to get up, and hitting Firpo when he may have been "down".

The "doctored film conspiracy" theory is a crock of ****, IMO. It's up there with the loaded gloves/iron bolt Willard fight story.
But if anyone wants to believe it, go right ahead.

I think the Firpo footage shows Dempsey was out of the ring for quite a short count, probably a count of "5" or "6".

When the film cuts from the close view to the longer view the referee and Firpo are in exactly the same pose, with the referee briefly looking back at Firpo, Firpo moving backwards in the exact same part of the ring and the same stride. That's what it looks like to me.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NN0vGHnCLo[/ame]

At 3:03 and 3:04 ..... I'd stick my neck out and say that's an accurate continuation, it's real.

 

Whoa wait, hold on now. You mean you are going to argue with someone who was ringside based on 80 year old footage you are watching in your living room? Doesnt that fly in the face of everything youve been preaching???:nono So a guy ringside says Dempsey was helped into the ring, and that his first KD was won with an illegal punch, points out exactly where these were edited out of a film, that film to this day shows those edits, Rickard admits these edits, and yet you are going to argue? Sounds like you dont really care if some one is looking at film or was actually at the fight, the main thing to you is preserving your precious outlook on Dempsey. Youll grab whatever evidence you can that supports your argument and dismiss any that doesnt.

 

According to that article it says that Dempsey stood over Firpo in violation of the rules. I took this to mean that the neutral corner rule was in effect but Im not positive about that.

 

Of course there was a PR campaign. But how many great fighters didn't benefit from a good press and a favourable relationship with the hype merchants ?

Talking of press being paid off, what can you tell us about the charges against Harry Greb in this regard ?

 

Furthermore, in the film, it cuts from a close shot where dempsey can be seen outside of the ring, to a long shot where the outside of the ring is outside of the film frame masking any help Dempsey may have recieved.