Dempsey's "Loaded Gloves" v Willard

This is the Willard statement released to the press after the fight.

"I was fairly and thoroughly beaten. Will I try to recover the championship? I will not, because I could not. Dempsey is a great fighter. I know that now. I congratulate him and wish him luck."

A few years later Jess believed the gloves were loaded.

Does anyone have the "farm in Kansas" remark in a primary source. The first time I heard this quote was when Bert Sugar started using it after the turn of the century, well after everyone present was dead.

Suspicion about this fight went much further back then 1964. Here is Dan Daniel from Ring Magazine, May, 1945:

"There persists the notion that Jack Kearns, Dempsey's manager, sprinkled Plaster-of-Paris over Jack's bandages and that this hardened into the consistency of concrete. This writer holds to the belief that Dempsey struck Jess with two chunks of concrete."

 

willard was really concerned with the wrapping of dempseys hands ,for some reason and his corner felt and inspected dempseys hands.and there was also a bolt rumor started,dempsy supposobly had a railroad bolt clenched in his glove,but yet on the tape dempsey repeatingly grabbing the ropes with both hands thruout the fight.it just goes to prove that people even still today try to explain this 190 pound mans extreme power by false accusations-monte cox wrote a detailed tory about the subject i recomend it to all that wonder

 

http://coxscorner.tripod.com/dempsey_gloves.html

no they werent. Otherwise how the hell did Willard manage to speak after the fight?

 

Fascinating subject, some great input guys

Guess we'll never know????????

The extent of Willards injuries interests me though, if they are overhyped then the loaded glove theory loses some credence. Appears to me that the the 2 go hand in hand

 

Kearns just tried to discredit dempsey because of their fallout

 

Not questioning what Willard might have said, but to me the metal object theory is a bit far fetched.

Most accounts of the fight state that Dempsey broke Willard's jaw with one of his first punches, a left hook. He knocked Willard down seven times in the first round and hit him with huge punches for two more rounds. When Willard didn't come out for the fourth round, he had four teeth missing, his eyes were closed, his nose was smashed and two ribs were cracked. Plus the broken jaw.

Most opponents wouldn't have stayed on their feet long enough to cop a hiding like that!

As far as the steel in the glove goes:

1/ How distorted would the glove have been after having a steel object inside it?

2/ Depending on the shape of the steel object, how much damage would it have done to Dempsey's hand?

3/ Somewhere, someone mentioned that a screw was found in the ring. If someone had carefully inserted a metal screw into Dempsey's glove they would also have also carefully removed it and stuck it in their pocket after the match. The chances of it being found in the ring would have to have been very low. More likely someone in the crowd has tossed something in there.

 

The scary thing about Dempsey is that he busted up some of his sparring partners nearly as badly as Willard while wearing 16 oz sparring gloves.

He once hit an oponent in the head so hard that he broke his ankle.

 

I think Jacks hands would have been seriously injured as well with plaster of paris in his gloves

 

I was just relaying the story. It was from the book by Ferdie Pacheo "13 greatest Rounds of Boxing". That was Kearns' claim that the gloves were loaded. Pacheo refrained from commenting on the subject.

1) You would think a piece of metal would tear open a glove.

2) Good point. What would it have done to Dempsey's hand? Possibly have broken his fingers???

Addendum: 3) That what the allegation was, some type of spike...But think about it...a spike would cause punctures. Not the blunt force trauma, Willard recieved. A spike would cause stab like wounds.

Doesn't really sound like a feasible conclusion, does it?

 

Agreed.

Both fighters wore only 5 oz gloves too. Haven't seen or worn gloves that light, but they'd be more like winter gloves than boxing gloves. The knuckles would certainly be more damaging to the head, and visa versa, compared to the heavier, more padded gloves worn these days.

 

I don't believe any of the theories to be honest, but I've seen Dempseys gloves from the Willard fight and they are large enough to hide a brick in!