An additional Dempsey Title Defence

Great find.

I love reading the old "Sport pages".

Note on the same page that Ty Cobb & George Sisler were batting over .400 at the midway season point, and that Willard might take a second fight with Dempsey and "not make the mistake of being out of shape again".

 

A great candidate for the "worst title defense ever" honours then. Darcy was a middleweight.

 

Supposedly the rule was: Anytime the Heavywt. Champ steps in the ring with another fighter in a formal fight, then the title is on the line.

There are no "non-title" fights.

Wasn't Fitzsimmons considered a MW when he beat Corbett?

 

Weight didn't matter much back then. Ketcham comes to mind.

 

The middleweight division limit was around 158 pounds back then. Fitzsimmons weighed around 170 lbs by the time he started fighting regularly at heavyweight. If Dempsey wanted to defend his title against a middleweight, he should have taken on Greb. Apparently it was no trouble for him to take on a 160 pound opponent.

 

And Fitz had only faced 'Heavys' prior to fighting Corbett, well for two years or so anyways IIRC.

And, sorry to start it all up again, but Dempsey clearly wanted nothing to do with Greb.

 

Corbett wasn't much of a heavyweight himself.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...,1044520&dq=bob+fitzsimmons+corbett+167&hl=en

 

No sometimes fights were regarded as over the limit fights: if two guys weighed in at 161 it'd be a middleweight fight over the championship limit. Noone would call it a heavyweight fight.

Like lara and williams, they fought at 155 but it gets classed as lmw fight.

Back to topic; my phone won't let me access the link. What year was this fight?

 

The vast majority of people who would care about such things in 1922 certainly didn't consider Dempsey v Darcy as a title defence, if they even knew of it. It may have been technically under Commission rules, but it wasn't really. I doubt Darcy even reckoned he was in a title fight.

Boxrec do include it.
Boxrec also lists a 1944 4-rounder between Joe Louis and one Johnny Davis as a championship bout too.

 

I don't think many people would have recognized Darcy as champion if he had 'pulled an upset'.
The world's boxing press were almost certainly not present, and the 'bout' had received no significant publicity.
If Darcy had somehow won, it would have been clouded in mystery, purposefully obscured and disputed by Dempsey's people, and would have served only as a really good excuse to build up a real championship bonanza with Darcy as Dempsey's challenger.
The commission would have backed down, and been satisfied with another match to settle things. At most they would have called the title vacant.
Public opinion would have viewed Dempsey as champion, albeit one with something to prove, a mysterious blot to erase.

........ I think.