The Great Trainers & Fighters on Jack Dempsey

he grant · Nov 12, 2021

RockysSplitNose said: ↑

****AND HERE'S THE REST OF IT****

Nightmare
Gene Tunney, the great Fighting Marine, was as cool and calculated as any fighter that ever lived, the man who tamed the ferocious Harry Greb. When Tunney dethroned Dempsey in 1926, he beat an ageing warrior who had not boxed for three years and had been living the high life. Yet Dempsey still got into Tunney’s head and terrified him in the run-up to that first of their two memorable battles.
In later years, Tunney recalled, “One night, in a lonely cottage on Mount Pleasant, I had a nightmare. I was in the ring with Dempsey. He was battering me frightfully. I was bloody and only half conscious and he came at me snarling He knocked me down. I got up and he began pummelling me again. The referee stopped the fight. I woke up. The bed was shaking. I was practically out of it. After that, I stopped reading the newspapers and maintained a calm approach to the fight.”
Gene Tunney never did lose his admiration for the grim reaper who had come to claim him in the lonely darkness and who would later become a lifelong friend.
In a 1952 interview with ‘Look’ magazine, Gene spoke of Dempsey thus: “Jack Dempsey, I’m convinced, was our greatest heavyweight champion. In his prime, when he knocked out Jess Willard to win the title in 1919, he would have taken the four leading heavyweights of today – Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Harry (Kid) Matthews and Ezzard Charles – and flattened them all in one night.
“These four men are honest, earnest, capable professionals. If they are not touched with ring genius, neither are they stumblebums. So I do not mean to deprecate them when I say Dempsey would have levelled them all in the same evening as follows: Matthews, two rounds. Charles, two rounds. Walcott, five rounds. Marciano, one round.
“A total of ten rounds. Even then, I don’t consider I’m giving Dempsey any the best of it. He might have demolished each of the four in less than one round. He was eminently equipped to do it. He had many championship gifts, including a great fighting heart and the ability to absorb a tremendous punch and recuperate astonishingly fast.
“He learned his trade the hard way against fighters of all sizes, shape and brands from mining camp, deadfall and dance hall to huge arena and stadium.
“Jack was no wild slugger. He was an extremely clever fusion of fighter and boxer. He fought out of a peculiar weave and bob and was very difficult to hit with a solid punch. In the 20 rounds I fought him – 10 at Philadelphia in 1926 and 10 at Chicago the following year – I never did get a clean shot at his jaw. He was always weaving and bobbing away from the direct line of fire.
“Dempsey was criticised for not being able to knock out Tommy Gibbons – one of the all-time great boxers. Actually, that fight was one of Jack’s most impressive performances. Unable to reach his clever opponent with a knockout punch, he was still a fine enough combination of fighter and boxer to outscore Tommy all the way.
“But it was Dempsey the savage puncher, the scowling attacker, who thrilled the sports world. He was a great hitter. His right hand to body or jaw was explosive. Even more devastating was his left hook to liver and jaw. Weaving and bobbing, he feinted opponents into leads, slipped those leads and jolted home his short punches to body and head. He hurt and stunned opponents. He knocked them down and, eventually, kept them down.
“The most remarkable thing about Dempsey’s fighting make-up was the shortness of his punching. His blows seldom travelled more than six inches to a foot. He had a trick of hooking his left to the body and then to the head in practically the same movement.
“In his fight with Luis Firpo, Jack floored the huge Argentinian seven times in the first round and twice in the second before knocking him out. Yet, of all the punches he threw, only the last – a right to the jaw – was a long one.
“All the others were short, murderous jolts and digs to the heart and the kidney and the jaw. This ability of Dempsey to generate such punishing power over a few inches of swing, without seeming leverage, traced from a quick power inherent in his unusual shoulder conformation, with its high and bulging deltoid muscles.
“Beating Dempsey in his prime probably would have been something beyond them all, including Jack Johnson, Jim Jeffries and Joe Louis. My friend Harry Grayson, sports editor of the Newspaper Enterprise Association, may be right when he says that Louis would go in the first flurry of punches.”
Lou Stillman’s verdict
Gruff, strict and taciturn, the legendary and brilliant Lou Stillman ran his famous New York boxing gym with a rod of iron. Like Ray Arcel, Lou could be shy and guarded in giving his opinion of different fighters. One has to remember that such special men – along with the likes of Angelo Dundee, Manny Steward, Buddy McGirt and Teddy Atlas today – are constantly quizzed on which fighter they think was the best. They are so wary of getting into endless arguments on the subject. Many fans don’t react kindly when a trainer’s verdict doesn’t happen to dovetail with their own.
Stillman saw thousands of fighters over a great span of years: champions, contenders, preliminary boys, ordinary men just working out. But one day Stillman saw one thing he never forgot. It was the angry punch with which Dempsey knocked out Tony Galento in a sparring session. The sight and sound of that mighty blow being driven home was hard for even Stillman to believe. Right to the end, Lou maintained that it was the hardest shot he had ever seen and that Dempsey was the greatest heavyweight.
Ray Arcel was also a witness to the chilling incident and recalled that the punch nearly decapitated Galento.
Mike Hunnicut recently told me that the ‘real time’ film of the Dempsey-Willard fight (not the familiar, herky-jerky version by which Dempsey is so often misjudged) remains the most terrifying vision of a destructive fighter he has seen in all his years of studying motion pictures.
Says Mike, “When you watch the films of Joe Louis and zoom in, it’s incredible to behold what Joe could do – fantastic.
“But a real close-up view of Dempsey in real time has an almost surreal quality to it – his incredible animal-like moves and co-ordination, his terrific punch and all-round toughness. It absolutely floors the viewer. These are the qualities that the Lou Stillmans and the Ray Arcels were referring to.
“Jack’s many illustrious opponents were rightly proud of their own toughness and fighting abilities, yet look how many came in praise of him. They would talk of him as a man apart.
“Dempsey’s footwork, his overall boxing ability and his reflexes were genuinely exceptional. You can’t conveniently group that man with anyone else.”
Remarkable
This, then, was the remarkable and unique fighter that was Jack Dempsey. Was he the greatest of all the heavyweights? In this writer’s opinion, yes. But that gorgeous question is always gloriously open to interpretation. The eternal beauty of boxing is its subjectivity, and none of us ever know if we are right or wrong.
But please, if nothing else, let us sweep away once and for all the ridiculous and oh-so-trendy theories of the ‘current’ crowd that the heavyweights of the past would be too small and too lacking in power to compete with the erratic, occasional and often unwilling meat-laden plodders of the present era.
How many perpetrators of these patent falsehoods visit boxing gymnasiums on a regular basis? How many actually phone up trainers, managers and fighters and talk to them at length about boxing technique? How many bother to seek out the ‘real time’ films of the old fighters and study them for hours? I do all these things every day of my working life, because writing about boxing is my profession. My title of ‘boxing writer and historian’ wasn’t cheekily self-applied.
The great rush to embrace anyone and everyone as being ‘great’ is now reaching ludicrous proportions. Wladimir Klitschko was massively found out by Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster, yet is already right back up there as an all-time ace (in the estimation of all the usual suspects) because he pummelled little ol’ Chris Byrd. Funny how size is never a factor when it’s the little guy who’s getting walloped.
The crashing evidence against these ill-researched theories is there by the bucket load for those who want to seek it out and not just look but SEE. Those who don’t are surely just passing through or simply do not want their cosy, pre-set little agendas to be blown out of the water.
The chilling term of ‘man killer’ wasn’t casually lumped on Jack Dempsey in the throwaway manner that nicknames are handed out today. It was thoroughly earned in the toughest schools the fight game has ever seen. It was earned thrillingly, violently and sometimes shockingly by a unique force of nature.
Dempsey was indeed a ring killer of men who could have killed anyone past or present on his best day.
* Mike Casey is a boxing journalist and historian and a staff writer with Boxing Scene. He is a member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO) and founder and editor of the Grand Slam Premium Boxing Service for historians and fans (www.grandslampage.net).
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Great info , wow .. There is a lot of terrific info out there about legendary trainers who were big time bullish on Dempsey .. great to get to read about it ..

salsanchezfan · Nov 12, 2021

RockysSplitNose said: ↑

****AND HERE'S THE REST OF IT****

Nightmare
Gene Tunney, the great Fighting Marine, was as cool and calculated as any fighter that ever lived, the man who tamed the ferocious Harry Greb. When Tunney dethroned Dempsey in 1926, he beat an ageing warrior who had not boxed for three years and had been living the high life. Yet Dempsey still got into Tunney’s head and terrified him in the run-up to that first of their two memorable battles.
In later years, Tunney recalled, “One night, in a lonely cottage on Mount Pleasant, I had a nightmare. I was in the ring with Dempsey. He was battering me frightfully. I was bloody and only half conscious and he came at me snarling He knocked me down. I got up and he began pummelling me again. The referee stopped the fight. I woke up. The bed was shaking. I was practically out of it. After that, I stopped reading the newspapers and maintained a calm approach to the fight.”
Gene Tunney never did lose his admiration for the grim reaper who had come to claim him in the lonely darkness and who would later become a lifelong friend.
In a 1952 interview with ‘Look’ magazine, Gene spoke of Dempsey thus: “Jack Dempsey, I’m convinced, was our greatest heavyweight champion. In his prime, when he knocked out Jess Willard to win the title in 1919, he would have taken the four leading heavyweights of today – Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Harry (Kid) Matthews and Ezzard Charles – and flattened them all in one night.
“These four men are honest, earnest, capable professionals. If they are not touched with ring genius, neither are they stumblebums. So I do not mean to deprecate them when I say Dempsey would have levelled them all in the same evening as follows: Matthews, two rounds. Charles, two rounds. Walcott, five rounds. Marciano, one round.
“A total of ten rounds. Even then, I don’t consider I’m giving Dempsey any the best of it. He might have demolished each of the four in less than one round. He was eminently equipped to do it. He had many championship gifts, including a great fighting heart and the ability to absorb a tremendous punch and recuperate astonishingly fast.
“He learned his trade the hard way against fighters of all sizes, shape and brands from mining camp, deadfall and dance hall to huge arena and stadium.
“Jack was no wild slugger. He was an extremely clever fusion of fighter and boxer. He fought out of a peculiar weave and bob and was very difficult to hit with a solid punch. In the 20 rounds I fought him – 10 at Philadelphia in 1926 and 10 at Chicago the following year – I never did get a clean shot at his jaw. He was always weaving and bobbing away from the direct line of fire.
“Dempsey was criticised for not being able to knock out Tommy Gibbons – one of the all-time great boxers. Actually, that fight was one of Jack’s most impressive performances. Unable to reach his clever opponent with a knockout punch, he was still a fine enough combination of fighter and boxer to outscore Tommy all the way.
“But it was Dempsey the savage puncher, the scowling attacker, who thrilled the sports world. He was a great hitter. His right hand to body or jaw was explosive. Even more devastating was his left hook to liver and jaw. Weaving and bobbing, he feinted opponents into leads, slipped those leads and jolted home his short punches to body and head. He hurt and stunned opponents. He knocked them down and, eventually, kept them down.
“The most remarkable thing about Dempsey’s fighting make-up was the shortness of his punching. His blows seldom travelled more than six inches to a foot. He had a trick of hooking his left to the body and then to the head in practically the same movement.
“In his fight with Luis Firpo, Jack floored the huge Argentinian seven times in the first round and twice in the second before knocking him out. Yet, of all the punches he threw, only the last – a right to the jaw – was a long one.
“All the others were short, murderous jolts and digs to the heart and the kidney and the jaw. This ability of Dempsey to generate such punishing power over a few inches of swing, without seeming leverage, traced from a quick power inherent in his unusual shoulder conformation, with its high and bulging deltoid muscles.
“Beating Dempsey in his prime probably would have been something beyond them all, including Jack Johnson, Jim Jeffries and Joe Louis. My friend Harry Grayson, sports editor of the Newspaper Enterprise Association, may be right when he says that Louis would go in the first flurry of punches.”
Lou Stillman’s verdict
Gruff, strict and taciturn, the legendary and brilliant Lou Stillman ran his famous New York boxing gym with a rod of iron. Like Ray Arcel, Lou could be shy and guarded in giving his opinion of different fighters. One has to remember that such special men – along with the likes of Angelo Dundee, Manny Steward, Buddy McGirt and Teddy Atlas today – are constantly quizzed on which fighter they think was the best. They are so wary of getting into endless arguments on the subject. Many fans don’t react kindly when a trainer’s verdict doesn’t happen to dovetail with their own.
Stillman saw thousands of fighters over a great span of years: champions, contenders, preliminary boys, ordinary men just working out. But one day Stillman saw one thing he never forgot. It was the angry punch with which Dempsey knocked out Tony Galento in a sparring session. The sight and sound of that mighty blow being driven home was hard for even Stillman to believe. Right to the end, Lou maintained that it was the hardest shot he had ever seen and that Dempsey was the greatest heavyweight.
Ray Arcel was also a witness to the chilling incident and recalled that the punch nearly decapitated Galento.
Mike Hunnicut recently told me that the ‘real time’ film of the Dempsey-Willard fight (not the familiar, herky-jerky version by which Dempsey is so often misjudged) remains the most terrifying vision of a destructive fighter he has seen in all his years of studying motion pictures.
Says Mike, “When you watch the films of Joe Louis and zoom in, it’s incredible to behold what Joe could do – fantastic.
“But a real close-up view of Dempsey in real time has an almost surreal quality to it – his incredible animal-like moves and co-ordination, his terrific punch and all-round toughness. It absolutely floors the viewer. These are the qualities that the Lou Stillmans and the Ray Arcels were referring to.
“Jack’s many illustrious opponents were rightly proud of their own toughness and fighting abilities, yet look how many came in praise of him. They would talk of him as a man apart.
“Dempsey’s footwork, his overall boxing ability and his reflexes were genuinely exceptional. You can’t conveniently group that man with anyone else.”
Remarkable
This, then, was the remarkable and unique fighter that was Jack Dempsey. Was he the greatest of all the heavyweights? In this writer’s opinion, yes. But that gorgeous question is always gloriously open to interpretation. The eternal beauty of boxing is its subjectivity, and none of us ever know if we are right or wrong.
But please, if nothing else, let us sweep away once and for all the ridiculous and oh-so-trendy theories of the ‘current’ crowd that the heavyweights of the past would be too small and too lacking in power to compete with the erratic, occasional and often unwilling meat-laden plodders of the present era.
How many perpetrators of these patent falsehoods visit boxing gymnasiums on a regular basis? How many actually phone up trainers, managers and fighters and talk to them at length about boxing technique? How many bother to seek out the ‘real time’ films of the old fighters and study them for hours? I do all these things every day of my working life, because writing about boxing is my profession. My title of ‘boxing writer and historian’ wasn’t cheekily self-applied.
The great rush to embrace anyone and everyone as being ‘great’ is now reaching ludicrous proportions. Wladimir Klitschko was massively found out by Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster, yet is already right back up there as an all-time ace (in the estimation of all the usual suspects) because he pummelled little ol’ Chris Byrd. Funny how size is never a factor when it’s the little guy who’s getting walloped.
The crashing evidence against these ill-researched theories is there by the bucket load for those who want to seek it out and not just look but SEE. Those who don’t are surely just passing through or simply do not want their cosy, pre-set little agendas to be blown out of the water.
The chilling term of ‘man killer’ wasn’t casually lumped on Jack Dempsey in the throwaway manner that nicknames are handed out today. It was thoroughly earned in the toughest schools the fight game has ever seen. It was earned thrillingly, violently and sometimes shockingly by a unique force of nature.
Dempsey was indeed a ring killer of men who could have killed anyone past or present on his best day.
* Mike Casey is a boxing journalist and historian and a staff writer with Boxing Scene. He is a member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO) and founder and editor of the Grand Slam Premium Boxing Service for historians and fans (www.grandslampage.net).
Click to expand...

Copy editor! Copy editor!

Jesus H.......

djanders · Nov 12, 2021

Into the 1960's Jack Dempsey was generally considered the greatest Heavyweight who ever lived. I even remember a poll conducted by Ring Magazine that named Dempsey as the all-time great. Nat Fleischer, himself, held the line for Jack Johnson being the best. Later, Murray Woroner's Heavyweight Computer Tournament picked Marciano as the greatest, with Dempsey evidently 2nd. His Middleweight Computer Tournament picked Sugar Ray Robinson as the greatest Middleweight of all, with Ketchel 2nd (if my memory is correct, which it may or may not be).

FrankinDallas · Nov 12, 2021

The Fighting Yoda said: ↑

Ray Arcel about Jack Dempsey:

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Ray Arcel's opinion trumps anyone elses opinion in here by a factor of 10,000.

Greb5000 · Nov 12, 2021

The Fighting Yoda said: ↑

Ray Arcel about Jack Dempsey:

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Click to expand...

The Fighting Yoda said: ↑

Ray Arcel about Jack Dempsey:

This content is protected

Click to expand...

Jack dempsey was considered the greatest heavyweight ever by more great boxers than any fighter in history.
Go to Michael Hunnicutt facebook Branford Conn to check it out

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The Great Trainers & Fighters on Jack Dempsey

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The Great Trainers & Fighters on Jack Dempsey

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