Dempsey's greatness.

at some point, you must save your figurative breath... zealots do not discuss to be persuaded.

 

I guess Im not a historian then because I dont think the facts have ever been explained by anyone completely as to the Dempsey-Wills fiasco. Had he been exonerated as you say we wouldnt be discussing it. Thats just garbage to say so. The problem is that as far as Dempsey goes you dont have to search long and hard for that "one snippet" that turns logic on its head. Its out there in droves. By your argument Greb would be a womanizing drunkard who never trained and got beat up in a street fight by Mickey Walker and bit off Chuck Wiggins nose. Thats as well documented as the Dempsey legend and about as factual also. God forbid we go back and examine actual accounts by people who were there at the time and report the truth. We wouldnt want to upset the mythology that some people are so attached to. I remember getting ripped to shreds by a Ketchel "biographer" because I had the temerity to point out that Ketchel was never punched in the throat by Papke resulting in his loss. Some people have a hard time letting go of the hero worship. Others are just too lazy to accept that the tried and true pulp fiction thats been printed for years and years, over and over is often time just that: Fiction.

 

Youre right. Their "truth" has already been "well documented and understood" LOL.

 

How many times do I need to write we all know and I am not disputing Miske was a sick man???? The question is how sick and there is plenty of data that suggests Miske was better...in remission or certainly on the road to remission. Kearns wrote 40 years later he thought Miske was conning Dempsey the way he fought in the first two rounds. There are many many training reports that tell of Miske in training and looking good doing it. Betting was 3-1 a few days before the fight and ended up at 7-1 by fight night. If it was so well known and understood that Miske was critically ill why was the betting this close? Why not 50-1 if it was as bad and understood as you claim?

 

You cannot dispute those that were paid to be great and knowledgeable concerning this sport who saw Dempsey from ringside that stated he was not only a great fighter but the best. To say they all were delusional or they were incompetent flies in the face of reality. If it just was Arcel, Stillman, Bimstein, and Tunney who felt Dempsey was that great that should be enough...four of the most respected people ever to live in the fight game but it's more..much more than just these four. So go ahead and believe what you would like to Believe...twist historical facts by finding that one sentence in an obscure article and blow it up as gospel. Dempseys greatness is understood by those who know boxing history and understand boxing. Dempsey did his very best to make the fight with Wills occur...the evidence is clear and indeed Dempsey was exonerated 90 years ago regarding this. The article Dempsey wrote is factual and it's exactly what he told my father back in the 50's during personal one on one conversations.

 

Dempsey was an overrated fighter. He was good, but never great. Dempsey won his title from a cumbersome hulk in Willard. He beat a broken man in Miske and a comparative middleweight in Carpentier. He couldn't do anything with a brainy fighter like Gibbons. He battered an unschooled, floundering giant in Firpo, and fell when he faced his first real opposition from a man who was determined and unafraid and who could fight as well as box.

 

Sometimes there are press notices sent out, written by somebody involved or connected to somebody involved in promoting/marketing the fight.
Betting odds in those days don't mean much, because the majority of the bettors relied on hearsay or on previous reputation of the fighter, instead of watching him in training.

 

You are correct. Dempsey was a bum. And my dad and all the writers, trainers, boxers of his time were duped and brainwashed. Every fighter he licked was a stiff, and everyone on this site who praises him today know so much less than some worthies on ESB, ninety freakin years after he fought... What so many great boxing figures as Sam Langford, Gene Tunney, Mickey Walker, Jack Sharkey, Max Schmeling ,Ray Arcel, Whitey Bimstein, Damon Runyon, Dan Parker, Frank Graham etc. had to say about
Jack Dempsey is meaningless compared to some posters today on this site... How fortunate I am that before I kick the bucket, I have found that
WISDOM about the real Jack Dempsey, that I never knew before from the
illuminati on ESB...I have been saved...atsch
P.S.Little red, thank you for your insight that Jack Dempsey "couldn't do anything with a brainy Tommy Gibbons ", except winning a unanimous decision from a great defensive fighter never kod in over 100 fights...WOW.

 

Well that clears it up. Dempsey told you dad back in the 1950s that he didnt duck anyone... :happy . You say Im finding the quote that twists historical facts but Im the one who quoted a plethora of first hand accounts by named authors who were in fact there. How many fights do you think Arcel, Stillman, and Bimstein saw of Dempsey's? Thats the problem that people dont grasp about those experts from yesteryear. You are talking about an era when there was no mass media. No television. No radio for fights until 1921. No internet. Films could only travel across state lines illegally. You do realize that in most cases its entirely likely that you and I have seen more of Jack Dempsey than some of those so called experts? These are the same that used to wax poetic about their heros and then when shown films of them by Jim Jacobs said they didnt know how to box and looked like amateurs. When Jacobs told them it was their favorite fighter they were dumbstruck. Your faith in them is misguided. Just like the stories of Greb. Greb's story has been written by New York newspapermen like Nat Fleischer, Dan Daniel, Ed Van Every, and others. Just how many fights of Greb's do you think they saw? He didnt start fighting in New York regularly until the end of 1921 (AFTER HE WAS PAST HIS PRIME) yet these so called experts based all of their opinions of him on the last third of his career. Like Dempsey he fought the vast majority of his career away from the people whose opinion you, and most other people who never did any research into this era, put so much stock in. You quote the New York times about Miske. The times had nobody on the scene. Very few New York papers had anyone on the scene, most of those that did used a midwestern newspaperman and gave him a byline in their paper. Years later guys like Fleischer pretended to have been everywhere at once but in reality 99% of the time if the fight wasnt in New York or New Jersey they werent there. Frankly they rarely went to New Jersey either and thats just across the river. Nat Fleischer would have you believe he was best friends with Stanley Ketchel and watched Jack Johnson lose to Marvin Hart. I have no doubt that if you didnt know his age hed have tried to convince he watched Cain beat Able. The fact is these guys were in the ballyhoo business, not the truth business. Fleischer was as much a promoter as he was a journalist, and frankly thats the way these boxing writers were in the old days. On the one hand it was great because they kept the sport alive, built up interest, and werent all "another black eye for boxing." like every writer today. On the other hand you have to understand that half of what they said and did (probably more than half) particularly when working on building up a fight or fighter was just promotion. Thats why your wire reports of the Miske training sessions are so suspect and why the numerous first hand accounts from people who were there and knew both men stick out like a sore thumb. But if you really want to go see if Dempsey was exonerated then by all means go read the New York papers (there were a lot more than just one). You wont be able to help but notice he wasnt, even in that era. Read the LA papers. He wasnt. Read the Chicago papers. He wasnt. I could go on and on but the only people Dempsey was fooling were the ones dumb enough to buy into his runaround. He did the same thing with Greb that he did with Wills and often played the two off of each other. But Im sure youll believe the old yarn he told your grandpap that nobody ever made him an offer to face Greb.:roll: Let me give you a little education into the way Dempsey and Kearns worked: In early 1922 Wills and Norfolk were matched in a title eliminator promoted by Tex Rickard. The winner was to meet Dempsey. Kearns said the winner would have to impressive otherwise they would face the winner of Greb-Gibbons which was to be held shortly thereafter and was also billed as a title eliminator to decide Dempsey's best white challenger. Wills won on a two round KO. It was no secret that Dempsey and Kearns were praying for Gibbons to win and win by KO in order to set up a fight with Dempsey. Instead Gibbons lost in lopsided fashion. Dempsey was ringside and stated publicly that it was one of the greatest performances he had ever seen. He said Greb would be a match for anyone. Immediately promoters started clamoring to match Dempsey with either Greb or Wills. Dempsey then left for Europe and stated that when he got back he would be ready to take on either. When he returned he suddenly changed his tune and said that Greb was too small for him. You see Greb did something really stupid that Dempsey didnt like. He kept on winning and doing so in brutal dominant fashion. Ask Tunney. But I guess we cant fault Dempsey too much. Carpentier turned down $150,000 to face Greb only to accept an offer to fight and lose to Siki for less than 1/5 that amount. Johnny Wilson, who had been ducking Greb since he won the title continued to do so for another year. Yet two clubs from Pittsburgh entered into a bidding war against each other for Dempsey to face Greb. Motor Square Boxing Club offered Dempsey $100,000 and 50% of the gate to face Greb. The Pittsburgh Boxing Club matched its offer. Kearns was in Chicago and announced that he had received both offers. John Bell, of the MSBC made it known that in order to build the special arena for the show he would need Kearns' ok soon. He wait and Kearns made no answer. He waited and still no answer. Kearns left Chicago by train and passed right through Pittsburgh but instead of stopping to negotiate the deal he passed right on through, went to New York, and then stated that he hadnt heard a thing from the Pittsburgh promoters. Bell was flabbergasted. He finally ran out of time in which to build the arena before the proposed fight date and basically gave up pursuing the match. Kearns was obviously not serious about it. It became more obvious he was not serious about matching Dempsey with a threat when he listed what he considered to be Dempsey's top 5 challengers in order: 1. Jess Willard, 2. Bill Brennan, 3. Harry Greb, 4. Georges Carpentier, 5. Harry Wills. Now get that. According to Kearns 3 of Dempsey's top five challengers were men he had knocked out, two he had knocked out in one sided fashion and the man universally regarded as his #1 was placed last by Kearns... One wonders how Billy Miske missed the list. This was how Kearns and Dempsey both operated throughout his reign. They would talk high and mighty about this match or that and then ignore all offers for it. Next thing you know they would either announce that they werent going to fight until next year, or pop up in a new Locale and try to get some bum licensed for an easy defense. They tried to have Gunboat Smith be Dempsey's first defense. That got chased out of two venues until Greb knocked Smith out while hunting Dempsey down. They tried for several years to get human punching bag Bartley Madden approved as an opponent until they were told by at least one venue to not come back until they found someone suitable (they never came back). Wills and Tunney finally ended that farce (and it had dragged on for something like 5 years). I could go on and on but whats the use. Youll accuse me of cherry picking and go back to reading Roger Kahn masturbate all over Dempsey. To each his own I guess.

 

To totally destroy your entire post and I'll leave it there....Fleischer was at ringside when Dempsey koed Willard right up to the long count fight in 27. BTW he was also at ringside during Johnsons bouts with Jeffries and Willard. Nat was known as a world traveler going from location to location to watch bouts. Arcel was at the Firpo bout and both Tunney bouts at the very least. What you don't understand was that NY was the Mecca of boxing back in those days and Fleischer and Arcel were based in NY. Not only did they see Dempsey live at ringside but countless times in training.

Everything you post is based upon looking for one sentence in a single article and then applying this one snippet as gospel in an effort to alter well documented history. All writers do this but not historians. We demand more than this if the result would be to change a well documented history.

Neither Kearns nor Rickard wanted Demosey to fight any black fighter so any list they would come up with would obviously ignore Wills. The reasons for this I've posted already so no need to rehash a third time. The question you need to ask yourself is why no black hwt got a shot at the championship after Johnson lost to Willard until Louis in the late 30's. Louis had to give away a portion of his ring earnings for the rest of his career to get that shot. The reason is far more complex than your simplistic and cursory suggestions.

Dempsey had nothing to do with Wills not getting a title shot in fact he did all he could to make the bout happen even though that was not his job to do so. That's the facts and this has not changed in the last 90 years. Dempsey was exonerated of blame when he was champion and no new facts have been uncovered that change this very well documented history.

 

You are also very dishonest. Fleischer never claimed to be at ringside during Grebs rise to fame. Grebs record speaks for itself more than any other champion. In Fleishers outstanding book...50 years at ringside he documents outstanding fights and fighters he watched...from ringside. He mentions Grebs name on 5 pages within this book and not a single first hand account of any of his bouts. Now that does not mean he could not write a book concerning Greb as any writer could.

Your mention of Jacobs who was not a historian just a film collector showing silent era films of past greats is a well known story. He claimed "Johnson would not get past the first round in an amateur boxing tournament today"...you think that is a credible statement? I don't and I don't know a single historian who would not laugh at that obvious uninformed statement. No fighter looks great on silent era film...no movements are smooth...watch any silent era movie from the teens and notice how the actors walk and move...people don't move that way.

Fleischer was very friendly with both Johnson and Ketchel and he did not take credit for seeing bouts he did not see and I will quote...page 63 50 years at ringside...."I did not see him when he fought his battles with Papke or Thomas but I did cover his thrilling bouts in the east and from what I saw I rate Ketchel as the greatest middleweight of all time". He devoted a full chapter concerning Ketchel detailing specific bouts and personal details as he did with Johnson. Your WAY out of line suggesting Fleischer makes things up when in fact he takes great care not to overstate his relationship with both men.

 

Just throwing a ****** wrench into this, here are a couple of quotes from Time Magazine on Dempsey and Wills

Time Magazine 7-27-1925

"Jack Dempsey reached an agreement to fight whomever Ted Rickard should select--one bout this year, one next. His first opponent will be either Gene Tunney, George Godfrey, or Jack Renault. Then, if not defeated, he will fight Harry Wills."

Time Magazine 10-19-1925

"Jack Dempsey signed a contract to meet Harry Wills in a 10 round no-decision contest in Michigan City, Indiana, in September, 1926. Promoter Floyd Fitzgibbons posted $200,000 as a forfeit. Dempsey got $100,000. Wills $50,000."

and then Time Magazine quotes Tex Rickard

"Tex Rickard--'I have what I consider an ironclad contract for him to box Wills for me.'"

**my question. Was Dempsey under exclusive contract with Rickard when he signed (or supposedly signed) with Wills?

***was this just a charade as the fight would be stopped by Rickard enforcing his contract?

****note also the terms of the fight. All Dempsey had to do was last to the end. If Dempsey fought Tunney under these terms, he would still have been champion after the second Tunney fight.

 

It's a question of what was allowed in that specific state. In Indiana only ND bouts were allowed at that time.

 

Exactly.

So why pick a state with those restrictions?

And one in which the KKK is probably stronger than in any northern state?

Also, was Dempsey contracted to fight two bouts for Rickard?

And if he was, how can he sign with another promoter?