Fireman Flynn KO 1 Jack Dempsey

But some seem willing, even desirous, of giving Dempsey a pass here, if not an ersatz victory.

Young fighters get stung, even great ones. It happened to Johnson, Louis, Liston and Waldo. Nothing new here.

 

I give Dempsey a pass, and that's assuming it was legit.
Your second paragraph explains my reasoning.

 

I'm posting this from a street corner.

 

Flynn was rough as they come it's possible he landed some big shots early and got Dempsey out of there although I'd love to find out to it was fixed.

 

For my part the evidence would have to be pretty strong, before I said that a fight was on the balance of probability fixed. This one does not meet my criteria. I do however think that there are sufficient points of interest, to make it a question that has to be asked.

 

I would contest the official resuly of the Lester Johnson fight sooner than this one.

 

What makes you question the official result of the Lester Johnson fight?

 

If you adhere to the draw as the official result. The next day headline in various papers read "Johnson beats Dempsey"

"John Lester Johnson scored another easy victory at the expense of Jack Dempsey in the Harlem Sporting Club last night. Dempsey failed to live up to the reputation that he earned in Salt Lake City and was an easy mark for the local boxer."

 

"who held the career home run until Babe Ruth"

I assume record? No reason to dump on the never-to-be-forgotten Roger Connor.


**just having a little nerdish fun.

 

"Flynn was 1-5-1 in his last seven fights."

w/o looking it up on boxrec, weren't these fights against top men of the time, world champions Levinsky and Dillon, and Fulton, at this point perhaps the top puncher in the heavyweight division?

Dempsey had not yet met anyone of that class.

 

There is one historical issue I would raise.

The reason for a paper like the Chicago Tribune pushing a "fix" story need have nothing to do directly with Dempsey or his reputation.

One aspect of the American Progressive movement of the first third of the 20th century was cleansing society of evils, among which were alcohol consumption, gambling, drug use, and prostitution. Lumped among these evils was boxing. Boxing was outlawed in the majority of states, and in fact was illegal in Illinois in 1920.

I really don't know what the editorial position of the Chicago Tribune concerning outlawing boxing was, but this would be a relevant question concerning their take on whether any given fight was fixed. Dwelling on fixes or insinuating fights were fixed was one of the central tactics of the anti-boxing movement. I would also want to know if any money was paid out by the Tribune to people who gave testimony.

 

The original new york giant. But it was variously attributed to others guys at the time per the BJHBA.

 

My take

I think the ringside reports for several reasons make the fix story rather unlikely.

1--it is stated that the gate was $5000. The fix stories claim Dempsey was paid $500 (per the Chicago Tribune) or even only $300 (Joe Williams)-10% or 6% of the gate. That doesn't seem like much for Dempsey to throw away his future earning capacity by laying down within seconds. A victory over Flynn would have opened up the possibility of many more big pay dates down the road. That Dempsey at this point was that hard up for money doesn't seem to jive with this kind of gate. 25% of the gate-a not unreasonable cut-would have been $1250. I question if it would have been in the interest of the promoter or Dempsey to kill this cash cow by arranging a ten seconds and it's over fix.

2--None of the articles imply Dempsey was not knocked out, and the use of terms such as "brutal" certainly doesn't point to a fix.

3--Dempsey coming out of his knockout fighting seems like a very real touch. It is hard for me to believe Dempsey came up with this idea to sell that he was knocked out. And why bother after flopping within seconds?

4--Cox concludes that the delay was caused by Flynn and Dempsey pre-arranging the fix, but one article says they were haggling over shares of the gate which certainly is logical, especially if the gate turned out to be much greater than Flynn had thought it would be.

5--Flynn's alleged quote--quotes are always dubious anyway as they are subject to the misinterpretation or distortion of the listener. And I could find no footnote in the Tunney book about where this one came from. And I wonder how precisely Flynn expressed himself in his later years considering how many fights he had had and how many times he had been knocked out.