Dempsey v Willard - Were Jack's Gloves Loaded?

THE CHAMPION MAKER * A Series of Articles by Jimmy De Forest * The World’s Greatest Trainer * 1923

ARTICLE XIII.---HOW DEMPSEY WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP.

All the dope on how Dempsey hoped to win the championship from Willard had been that he was going to go right in and rush him. Willard believed this himself as I knew from having watched the champion, through field glasses, boxing in his camp only half a mile away. It was plain that Willard was planning to meet a rush attack with a straight left followed by a smashing uppercut.

There was a surprise coming to Willard. It was planned as Jack and I took an easy three-mile walk on the morning of July 4, the day of the fight.

I felt satisfied that I was behind a champion. I knew he was physically topnotch and ready, in this regard, to put up the greatest fight of his career. He was, besides, displaying not the least nervousness over the coming event. You would think he hardly realized the importance of it to him. I knew he had slept soundly, for I had visited his bedside four times during the night to see that he didn’t toss the covers off and give the lake winds a chance to stiffen the muscles of the shoulders and arms. I knew he had scarcely stirred in his sleep the night long.

PLANNED A SURPRISE.

“Jack,” I said, as we strolled along. “Willard is all set to meet a rush from you. The way to surprise and puzzle him is for you to begin by hitting and getting away. He will be looking to meet a rush with a straight left to the face. Look out for that left Lead and get away about three or four times, till you see that he is puzzled. And just then when he begins to figure you mean to make a long fight of it, go in and take him---the right to the heart, a left cross and then the right hook.

“As soon as we get into the ring, I’ll leave you and go over to Willard’s corner. Don’t let that worry you, because it is my job to give him a good, close looking over. I want to see if his heart is jumpy or beating slow. If it is jumpy then I am going to advise you to go in to beat him in the first round after you have first puzzled him with the hit and getaway, but if his heart is slow and regular, I may I have to change the scheme, because of course he is a big, strong fellow and it may be necessary for you to do the McCoy and cut him to pieces, as I know you can, before going in to finish him.

“All right, Jimmy,” said Dempsey, “whatever you advise me when I’m in there I’ll do.”

MEANT $1,000,000 AND MORE.

“Remember, kid,” I added, “it means $1,000,000 and more to you and more fame than any man could want. Remember to pay no attention to anything that is said to you or yelled at you unless you recognize my voice. Remember there’s only one man in front of you and that’s Willard, and only one man behind you and that’s me.”
Jack slapped me on the back.

“I got that good and straight, Jimmy,” he said. “And we are sure going to fool ‘em.”

“You said it!”

“All the wise birds think I haven’t got the stuff and he’s too big for me. You just wise him up in his corner and give me the right dope to go on, Jim, and I’ll put it over.”

And that is the way he felt when we started for the arena about 2:00 o’clock that afternoon. Jack was sprinting on his way to his dressing room, and when he got his clothes off, pranced all around the place showing off to me in what perfect muscular form he was.


ABOUT THOSE TAPED HANDS.

Soon afterwards I took up the job of tapping his hands. Right here is where I have a statement to make to the public once and for all. The punching power that Dempsey had developed over all his previous battles proved so amazing to many persons when he mowed big Willard down. The crack and the kick of his blows were so forceful that after the fight many of those who had lost heavily on Willard turned detractors at Dempsey and myself. They spread stories which got wide circulation to the effect that I had “doped” the tape on Dempsey’s hands.

Some of them had it that, I had doped plaster of paris between the gauze strips which hardened after Dempsey got his hands into the gloves. Others speculated “tea lead” This is the paper, this lead that comes from tea boxes and has figured in the use of bandages by unscrupulous managers, trainers and fighters.

I have never played the game that way, and for me to have done so in Dempsey’s case would have been sheer idiocy. For what Dempsey most needed to beat Willard was speed. And to have weighed his hands would have defeated his own purpose. It would have made Dempsey’s hands too heavy for fast use and would have slowed him up to the ponderous Willard’s own gait.

SOAKED HANDS IN BRINE.

It is true, though, that Dempsey went into the ring that day his hands were hard as steel-jacketed bullets, and the reason for that was that every morning and night from the day we began training I had made Jack soak his hands in brine---a strong, sharp brine. It puckered and shrunk the skin until it was cured to the toughness of leather. All the fat and softness was plucked out of them. They were the toughest pair of hands in the United States that day. And all I put on them when we went into the ring was seven wraps of soft gauze and two wraps of adhesive tape. That’s everything that was in Jack’s gloves besides his hands the day he made a quitter of big Willard. I guess I need not go into the details of the fight itself, which is still vividly remembered, same as the intimate things regarding it which have never been published.

As I had told Dempsey, I would go the instant we got into the ring. I bustled over to Willard’s corner and leaned closely over him demanding a last look at the bandages. But I knew these were alright and that Kearns had seen to them. What I was after was a study of Willard’s heart and I was tickled when I saw it was beating so hard it had the flesh on his chest jumping. So I went back to Dempsey’s corner and said;

“He’s ripe for it Jack, fool him a few times by making him think you are going to make a hit and get away of it and then when you’ve got him guessing, go in with what we’ve practiced---the right, left cross and right hook.”

“All set, Jim,” said Jack with a wink and a smile. And it’s history that our plan went through.

CUT WILLARD TO RIBBONS.

By the end of the second round I knew Dempsey would be the new champion, and everybody was beginning to realize it, for Jack’s speed had Willard practically defenseless, and the force of the punches Dempsey was putting over had Willard’s face cut to pieces and his eyes all but completely useless.

In the fatal third, however, there was one blow that Willard landed which almost reversed all he had lost and held the championship for him. It was a last gasp punch, but it was a terrific one---a right hand straight punch that landed near Jack’s solar plexus and nearly crumpled him. If Willard could have followed that up with a hook in the jaw he might have got Dempsey. But when he landed it he was beaten and wild and did not have the stuff left to follow it up. Jack carried a sore spot from that punch for ten days afterward.

“Did you see it!” he asked me, coming back to his corner.

“I did.”

“Well, I felt it.” grunted Dempsey.

“I hope nobody else saw it.”

“I’m pretty sure they didn’t.” I answered. Nor did they, in so far as the newspaper reports I read went, or as the talk I heard afterward.
Back in his dressing room Jack gave me a boyish hug and said;

“Well Jim, we did it!”

And in every read word since Dempsey has given and taken that he has not forgotten who trained him and who was in his corner when he won the championship of the world.

 

Great story, thanks man!

 

I doubt it, but it's certainly possible. As rosy and sacred as the past is sometimes remembered, I think a lot of our heroes were probably thugs, hustlers, and crooks. This applies to boxing as well as other things.

 

The plaster of Paris and iron bolt theory don't really stand up on film, like Jimmy Deforrest says loaded gloves would slow his hands down and actually hinder Dempsey.

I have a lot of respect for old time techniques but any benefit of having hard skin from soaking hands in brine is lost once the gloves go on surely? I imagine this remedy was a hang over from the bare knuckle days?

However, I have always been curious about the punching technique used by Dempsey in this fight after the first knockdown. He isn't holding anything because his hands open and close before any knock downs. But He is not using the knuckle part of the glove either. The first knockdown he used a more correct technique it's the later knock downs where he uses this.

He seems to favour a stabbing motion connecting with the area of the glove between the thumb and first knuckle. Old timers talked of favouring the fore knuckle and I have read about the corkscrew punch as well as Dempseys own training book where he says to aim with the middle two knuckles and this is a different technique. Has any one else wondered about this?

 

Were Jack's Gloves Loaded?

Possibly. Willard found a bolt of metal in the ring and kept it his entire life.

Dempsey had a bet on a 1st round KO. Willard was durable.

Dempsey ran out of the ring after round one ended. Why? To hide loaded gloves?

Willard sustained a lot of damage hardly seen in boxing before or since.

The counter to the above someone in Willard camp saw Dempsey's gloves prior to the match. Okay, but did they inspect his wraps, and could someone in his corner have slipped him something? Slipping something in still happens today.

 

Unfortunately for Deforrest three years earlier in 1920 he was quoted by Hyatt Daab in an interview stating categorically that he used a special adhesive tape on Dempsey's hands which hardens over time. He stated it was the same tape he used for Kid McCoy (who also had unusual power for his size). He was being interviewed in the wake of Dempsey's disappointing performance against Brennan.

I dont know if Dempsey's gloves were loaded or not but DeForrest's account is the only one which makes any sense at all because Jess Willard can be seen shaking hands with Dempsey before the gloves are put on, Walter Monaghan was in Dempsey's corner as Willard's representative during the application of the gloves, and Willard's injuries have been greatly exaggerated. So if Dempsey had loaded gloves they wouldnt have been plaster of paris wraps as those would have been easily discernible and it would have had to have been something fairly common (so as not to arouse suspicion) and something that would have taken effect (like the hardening bandages) after the gloves were put on. My personal suspicion is that if Dempsey used loaded gloves then he used bicycle tape, which was very common in this era, under his wraps. This tape was heavy, and could set to make the hands extremely hard. However, as I said this was very common and fairly accepted during this era. As long as it wasnt protested it was allowed. In fact I have a photo in my book of Greb facing Joe Borrell prior to their fight. Borrell has bicycle tape on his hands and was known as a very damaging puncher. Greb didnt raise a word about it as far as I can remember. Its likely that Willard or his handlers knew about Dempsey's handwraps prior to the fight and simply didnt make a fuss about it because Willard was ludicrously overconfident. It only became an issue AFTER Willard lost in that manner and again later when Dempsey didnt exhibit that same power against Brennan. Either way I think the whole issue has been made into much more than it was. Willard was never that good to begin with, he was out of shape and inactive when he fought Dempsey and didnt train properly. He was a massacre waiting to happen against a fighter of Dempsey's type loaded wraps or not.

 

I think he just got overeager and his streetfighting instinct took over. He hammered Willard with whatever he could land with and wasnt thinking about technique.

 

your dead on with everything you just wrote...especially the word "Unfortunately" only thing we can do as historians, fans, etc...is we can take them for their word at that time...and as a researcher we can uncover statements, quotes or even a whole series of articles by the author himself... I can say there is about 50,000 articles in the newspapers on De Forest I personally downloaded researching New Jersey Boxing History...De Forest was one of the greatest trainers in boxing and at one time, for a brief moment in history was Joe Jennette's manager and trainer before Joe left for Dapper Dan McKetrick...anyway, my favorite statement was "was quoted by Hyatt Daab in an interview" that made my day...Hyatt Daab quoted many times on behalf of Joe Jennette...in my research he is in my top ten here is a article about Jimmy De Forest by sportswriter Joe Villa ...

"I fixed Dempsey's hands just as I did McCoy's," he frankly replied.
"I wound bicycle taps around Jack's knuckles and covered it with a substance of my own invention."​

 

Bicycle tape was lethal **** and its remarkable that so many fighters allowed their opponents to use it. It really shows that a lot of these guys really lived the "I'll beat him no matter what he does." credo.

 

Harry Greb & Joe Borrell...two of my Top 10 favorites of All-Time... I went to school with the Borrell's of Cliffside Park...Huge Fan...that's how I found out who Harry Greb was when I was a kid...anyway, did you know that Joe Borrell fought over 300 times...every year the family of Borrell's at the Cliffside Park Hall of Fame displays all his fights...looking for a few great pics out there...I have at least 10 great shots...love that gladiator bicycle tape...these guys could of knocked out Mickey Walker in a street fight...lol

http://www.joejennette.com/JoeBorrell.html