Fireman Flynn KO 1 Jack Dempsey

I agree.

Just pointing out that there isn't any convincing bottom line evidence of a fix here, and Maxine certainly wouldn't be it.

 

I'm not talking about confiding, I'm talking about people shooting their mouths off or gossip getting around. Or people bragging that they bet on a 1st round KO, or some ****, getting back to her. Or her coaxing information out of people, sucking them off, while they spill the beans, as it were.

 

That's right. There's nothing wholly convincing.
But there's not quite enough to dismiss the allegations out of hand either.

 

That's my point. None are credible. I stick to the result.

 

Well, how many men would be part of the fix? What are the odds they just happened to be among Maxine's clientele versus all the other prostitutes in the area?

"gossip" "getting back to her"

Exactly. And that is not knowledge, but hearsay which might not be accurate.

Bottom line--Maxine didn't necessarily know the facts one way or another.

 

I am not certain about your point.

"There's nothing wholly convincing"

I agree. I would say there is nothing particularly convincing at all. The ten seconds and out fight argues to me that the fight was probably on the level, otherwise I would think Dempsey would have tried to make a better showing before taking his dive.

"there's not quite enough to dismiss the allegations out of hand either"

If convincing evidence surfaces it would change things. But all I'm saying is that there is no convincing evidence and so the fight seems to have been on the level.

Even the betting coup idea is without any support at all.

 

I believe he broke her jaw. His story was totally unconvincing ("I woke up in the middle of the night and found Maxine crying on the floor saying she tripped and hit her jaw." :roll: ). But Maxine said a lot of other things prior to that trial and during that were ridiculous and proven to be lies. One that stands out is that she was the sole support of the family. Please. That was a wopper and was proven false. After Dempsey's attorney had hammered that ascertion into the dirt Cates admitted Dempsey contributed. She said Dempsey forced her under threat of violence to marry him because he was being threatened with violating the Mann act. I dont buy that. The impression I get is that both she and Dempsey wanted the marriage and had a whirlwind courtship followed by Maxine getting a quickie anullment from her current husband to marry Dempsey. She also lied about her age big time. She was a drunk and an opium addict and frankly both she and Dempsey were seedy characters in these early days. I think there is no doubt that both told lies. Dempsey to protect himself and Maxine to hurt Dempsey. There is no doubt in my mind Dempsey willfully dodged the draft. But there is also no doubt in my mind that Maxine was a trashy ***** who couldnt keep out of the gutter. She and Dempsey clearly struggled during the marriage financially and I do believe that he tried to get her to settle down but that he couldnt and which led to more than one period of estrangement. By the time she ended up in Cairo, IL (just south of where I live incidently) their marriage was for all intents and purposes over and yet we know for a fact that Dempsey was still helping her occasionally financially (partially to appease her because he had previously used her to avoid the draft and knew she could stir up trouble). This case is fascinating and I would urge people who are interested in Dempsey to study it. There were a couple of procedural moves by the judge which really saved Dempsey's bacon on this one: 1. The judge ruled that any correspondence between Dempsey and Maxine during their marriage was privileged and could not be used against him. That was important because it seems pretty clear that the letters Maxine was using to blackmail Dempsey were pretty damning as to his draft evasion. 2. The judge made the curious ruling that he would not define prostitution as "work" and as such since Maxine was not "working" while she was with Dempsey he had to be their sole support. This is an absolutely bizarre ruling because its pretty clear that while Dempsey did contribute when he had purses he was also leaning pretty heavily on Maxine for financial support while she was whoring. That one ruling made Dempsey look 10 times better in the eyes of the court and basically proved the defenses case on a technicality. I would question what Maxine knew about the Flynn fight for the simple fact that during this time they were off and on at best and not always even living in the same town. She may not have even been present in town when the fight took place.

My take on things is this: Dempsey and Maxine met and started screwing around. He fell for her and she probably fell for him being young strong and handsome. They got married and supported themselves as best they could with their meager earnings (and anyone frowning at Maxine's profession needs to remember that boxing was considered pretty classless as well in those days). I think Maxine liked the nightlife and her drugs and Dempsey was more of a family man. He tried to get her to quit whoring and this combined with their financial problems led to a lot of strife. Finally Dempsey sent her to live with his mother in hopes that it would straighten her out and instead it caused her to become so frustrated with domestic life that she went fully back into prostitution. After a trip to Washington she seperated from Dempsey completely. They stayed in touch though and Dempsey continued to use her as an excuse for support to stay out of the draft. I think this is probably where the letters came in. Finally when the pressure was mounting on Dempsey to join and the war was winding down he got Maxine to wave her dependance and made a show of joining the service. Within six weeks or so the armistice was signed and Within another month or so Dempsey filed for divorce. I think when Dempsey hit the jackpot by winning the title Maxine was pissed. They had scraped and struggled and she had been spreading her legs across the country just to put food on the table and had just missed out on being the wife of the HW champion. Her friend Beulah convinced her to try to extort $40,000 from Dempsey or release his letters. I think Maxine was bluffing Dempsey and never expected it to go as far as it did but she had this friend pushing her. When Dempsey called her bluff she wrote to the newspapers and the whole thing was blown far out of proportion to what she had hoped or expected. She tried to recant but once the government picked up the case it was too late and as a result not only Dempsey but she as well was dragged through the mud.

 

I agree with this statement

 

Amazing post .. where does one even begin to research this sort of topic ?

 

Start with newspaper coverage of the story from January 1920 thru July 1920 and then finish with the trial records. I wish we had access to those letters though.

 

In his first auto biography Dempsey said Maxine was 15 years older than him.He also said his mother hated her .

 

Excellent details.
I would sympathise with her, I can't blame her for wanting a bit of a pay off. Realistically, Dempsey's own finances in 1920 were probably not as rosy as they ought to have been, with Kearns taking his cut and probably 'borrowing' or 'holding on to' most of Dempsey's too.
I agree that, in all likelihood, Dempsey did purposely conspire to avoid the draft, and as late as 1928 Maxine Cates - whose name had been dragged again in to the public - was stating that she had the damning evidence within those letters.

 

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/66570172


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1129204/4/index.htm



http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=87

 

Once again, every source used to substantiate a fix from the above articles is from years later and not a single one jive with the actual ringside accounts. The closest account of a fix to the fight here is Maxine who clearly had an agenda to slander Dempsey while all of the others are taken from years later in second hand sources that are trying to ballyhoo Dempsey and use as their own sources people close to Dempsey.

 

Oh, she stopped trusting me about half a century ago.

She is a smart woman.

And if I somehow decided to engage in criminal activities, I don't think she would actually want me to inform her, thus bringing her into possible prosecution as an accessory.