Dempsey's one KO loss

Yeah... right... the 1917 Utah mafia. Lol.

Why would anyone fix a fight between a relative unknown who had just had, by his own admission, an unsuccessful trip to New York that had him thinking he was not cut out for boxing and an aging has-been years past his prime who was losing far more than he was winning in a relative boxing backwater for small purses before a relatively small audience? Fights are fixed for a reason, i.e. to boost someones status or marketability, or to realize a betting coup. Beating Dempsey, who had no reputation, wouldnt have helped Flynn and betting, if any, would have been too light to justify any payoff to make it happen. Its a bogus story that never added up under scrutiny and frankly if you compare the eye witness accounts to the earliest story of a fix the basic details of the fight dont even mesh. Which is besides the point that the story was printed at a time when they were trying to make Dempsey look unbeatable. The author refused to use his own name, publishing under a pseudonym for the story of the fix. It was nothing more than yellow journalism to sell papers building on the backbone of what his ex wife Maxine had recently said in an effort to jab at Dempsey. Dempsey himself, just one month after the Flynn fight, made the excuse that Flynn had hit him when he went to shake hands (a similar story hit the news wires a week after the fight and was probably put out by Dempseys manager) which is totally refuted by the ringside account which states Dempsey tried to avoid the customary handshake but Flynn insisted, causing a delay of several seconds. Why make up excuses for a fight you are trying sell as legit if you arent genuinely embarrassed by getting stopped?? The fight was considered a fiasco at the time but not because of a fix. It was because the fighters held up the promoters for over an hour demanding they get paid up front while making the audience wait. This was a not uncommon practice at the time that often led to fan complaints and sometimes it was believed promoters themselves caused these delays to boost concession sales. To believe Dempsey was so great at this point, and not the still developing prospect he really was, that he would have had to thrown the fight to lose to Flynn you also have to convince yourself that his hairline win over LHW human punching bag Terry Keller was fix, as was his loss to ham and egger John Lester Johnson and other similarly mediocre fighters he had less than stellar showings against at the time in question.

 

The story is that Dempsey was offered $500 to throw the fight. However there is no hard evidence this actually occurred.

 

It could have been a mob fix but so could the rematch.
Dempsey's wife claimed it was a fix, she'd heard it was a fix.

We can't really know which fights were fixed and which weren't, since most the fixes are supposed to go undetected. Then all we are left with is speculation.
Professional gambling mobs don't tend to leave evidence of "funny business".

 

Dempsey said he neglected to warm up,whatever,I think it was probably a legit ko,I can't see a lot of $$$ being generated by bribing 1917 Dempsey.
Flynn lost his next 2 fights ,the second of which was the rematch,so if it was fixed , it could only have been a gambling coup and is there any evidence of the odds fluctuating?

 

In 1917 the mob had barely any control in the united states. A little more than organized street gangs. Moreover they had influence on the east coast, a little bit in San Fran and a little bit in Los Angeles. Not Murray, Utah.

I doubt that there was a fix of any sort. It was a knockout against a version of Dempsey who had low self confidence, wasn't eating right, wasn't thinking right, and wasn't training right. Dempsey knocked Flynn out for the 10 count a year later in the first rd.

 

I take "the mob" to mean organized crime in general, or gambling syndicates with enforcers etc. The term is misleading because there's always been mobs, in the plural. Even the Italian-American mafia or cosa nostra is a number of mobs.

Such mobs existed in the USA in 1917. Such mobs often fixed boxing matches, hence why boxing was considered unworthy of being legalized in most states.

Impossible to say whether Dempsey v Flynn was fixed or worth fixing.

 

I thought it was Maxine Cates, his wife, who brought the story to public light, and in an effort to make Dempsey look bad.

 

She was," a piece of work."

 

I don't imagine Dempsey was quite the saint at that point in his life.

 

Unforgiven: "I thought it was Maxine Cates, his wife, who brought the story to public light, and in an effort to make Dempsey look bad."


Thats why I wrote: "It was nothing more than yellow journalism to sell papers building on the backbone of what his ex wife Maxine had recently said in an effort to jab at Dempsey."

In the same post.

 

No probably not but the epiphets you threw his way in the past, "whoremonger " " breaker in of young girls"," draft dodger ", didn't stick when he went to court.

 

Bribing gold digging ex whores who are the states primary witness tends to make charges go away.

Whether Dempsey broke the same whores he married is up to debate but the idea that he dodged the draft really isnt. You can research these allegations pretty easily and put together a solid timeline in under an hour that paints Dempsey into a corner on this issue.

 

LOL

 

I've read the transcripts of his trial, and I'm not going down that road again!