Georges Carpentier An Assessment.

It truly was huge and of course, the first million dollar gate. A lot of Tex Rickard promoting went into that fight with - as you said - hero v villain. One notable part of the promotion got a lot of attention, which was not complimentary towards Dempsey, which was the infamous 'patent leather shoe' pic. In an effort to quell the draft-dodger handle that Dempsey had picked up, Doc Kearns claimed that Dempsey spent the war years in a defense plant or shipyard and produced a photo of his time during the war years. However, keen-eyed reporters quickly exposed the 'truth' to the pic. It appeared that Kearns simply arranged a quick ad-hoc photo shoot at a shipyard where Dempsey showed up, pulled on a pair of dirty overalls over his suit, took the picture of Dempsey holding a hammer or a torch, and then claimed it was a war-time pic. This was uncovered because Dempsey's still-visible patent-leather shoes were seen in the photo. An item one wouldn't be wearing on the job-site. An embarrassing moment for the Dempsey camp and probably really spiked him as the villain during the promotion.

 

Carpantier doesn't do it for me. Overrated for me. That weird bunny hopping thing he was pulling against Tunney was one of the oddest things I've ever seen in the ring. Had some nice power in his rt hand but that's about it.

 

I wonder what kind of carpenter Carpentier would have made.

If he had come along at a later date, his choice of ring-walk music would have been vast.

Maybe …

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Or he could have just gone with something by the Carpenters …

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(In addition to being a very good vocalist, Karen Carpenter was a heck of a drummer.)