Kearns was not getting on very well with Dempsey at the time he made this statement. I remember in the mid 1990's when Lelands auction house had(or said they had) the original hand wraps of Dempsey's from the Willard fight in 1919. They got them from the Dempsey family...along with other Dempsey memorabilia to be sold at auction.
Did they interview him in '64? For a prize-fighter at the age of 82 , he seemed to be quite articulate and in possession of his faculties. I wonder what he made of Ali.
They interviewed him in 1964. He was also interviewed for that computer tournament in the late 1960's, but I don't remember if he gave any views on Ali. He did talk about Johnson and Jeffries and alluded to Dempsey and the loaded gloves. He was coherent even in his late 80's.
Louis drove Braddocks teeth through the gumsheild into the lip,according to an interview Braddock gave to pete heller.Louis knocked out several of Paulino's teeth they were gold and on the canvas ,with Paulino,one reporter described them as "looking like a charm bracelet".Johnson knocked out several of Ketchels teeth ,Marciano sheered some of Laynes off.
Thanks OLD FOGEY.Though in fairness to Dempsey,looking at the footage,Jess' memory of that first round can't have been too great...
I thought the comment about knowing the bones were breaking is interesting. I wish someone had asked him what exactly his injuries were and did he see a physician. Willard does look different in pictures taken before and after Toledo. The right side of his face about the eyes seems to have been caved in. He was quoted extensively after the fight, actually. I don't know if these were press releases from a friend or if he was actually talking.
Different film versions of the fight give more detail you can clearly see the bruises and blood on his face in the better versions,plus big welts on his body.The only quote I remember is "I have a farm in Kansas and 100,000 dollars" repeated as a mantra when he was helped from the ring.
It is certainly plausible. Jem Mace used to fight verry much like a fighter of the gloved era, targeting the head with bare fists and finishing his oponents with a right hand to the jaw. He was able to get away with this because he literaly pickled his hands in vitriol, gunpowder and hedgehog fat untill they were like rocks. Tom Cribb purportedly toughened his hands by punching the bark off trees.
Dempsey pickled his hands and face in beef brine,no wonder Estelle Parsons divorced him.I don't recall Dempsey ever suffering hand injuries ,the curse of so many hard punchers.
I think the practice of pickling hands largley died out when gloves were introduced. By that time fighters generaly wanted to have a life outside boxing and it wasnt necesary any more.
You are probably correct,I didnt know that about Mace,you wouldn't want him offering you a sandwich would you?Gunpowder ,vitriol and hedge hog fat! Makes you shudder.
The process turned his hands "blacker than any negros", to quote his own words. His fans could always recognise him on the street because of fis black hands. Later in his career he took to using turpentine.