George Godfrey?

Got any stories of him sparring with Dempsey, Janitor?

 

Dempsey used Godfrey as a sparing partner and purportedly broke his ribs in one sesion.

It is worth noting that Kearns would not let Dempsey spar with Godfrey in thew run up to a title fight for fear of him geting injured.

 

It was in the training camp for the Tommy Gibbons bout in 1923. Godfrey was forced to cancel his own scheduled bout against Jack Thompson on the undercard.

 

If you would like some good information on Godfrey see my book "The Sundowners: The History of the Black Prizefighter Volume 2 Part One" which has a 30 page biography of big George. The sparring sessions with Dempsey are well covered, including some newspaper pictures of one of their tussles. George was used twice by Dempsey as a sparring partner in 1923, for Gibbons and Firpo.

The orginal Godfrey is also covered.

 

I think its hard to evaluate Godfrey,he is popularly suppossed to have had the handcuffs on for a number of bouts,so his true talents may never be appreciated,larry Gains spoke very highly of him ,he was a n awesome physical specimen,Gains said he was a frightening figure to see.

 

In those days those days black fighters couldn’t fight for the title and they had to throw fights. The story is he was threatened vs Canera with his life literally during the fight unless he threw it.