historical footage - extremely clear dempsey -tunney

Dempsey and Kearns worked out a specific strategy for the second fight. Dempsey would fade away from Tunneys right side trying to better avoid the right hand and in tandem hope Tunney would reach to land giving Dempsey an opening. So what you see is Dempsey doing just that at the round one opening bell.

 

I read an interview with one of Tunneys trainers years ago who was alive into the Liston era. He said that during Tunneys time his right hand was "just as feared as Listons".

 

As this was "The Battle of the Long Count", the use of that second timer under the slow-motion film clears up for me how long the long count was.

On the film Tunney goes down at about 17:52. The referee drops his hand for one at 18:09. It then takes him until 18:37 to drop his hand for the count of eight. And if you follow the clock, four seconds on this slow-motion film goes by for each count. As the count of one should have been reached at 17:56, one second in real time after Tunney went down, but was reached instead at 18:09, we know it was not five seconds, but only three seconds which went by as the referee was getting Dempsey to go to a far corner.

Tunney is badly hurt but seems to recover quickly and looks at the referee at "three" which would be about the count of six.

My conclusion is that the long count ran about twelve seconds (or at least by the ref counts) and my other conclusion is that Tunney would have beaten the count if it had begun immediately.

I'm wide open for suggestions as to what my reasoning mistake is on the point about the length of the long count.

 

"Kearns"

Kearns was advising Dempsey in 1927?

Whoever devised this strategy, it wasn't a good idea. Dempsey simply did nothing effective the first four rounds until he tossed aside the circling idea and began going straight at Tunney.

 

"er he had to have won at least one rd, the 7th rd in Tunney 2

There was a reason tunney didn't step on the gas, Dempsey was still a dangerous guy cos of his power. Why go into the danger zone when you are winning the fight, by running.
The most damage by Tunney was a ONE ct KD , after landing countless rights.

 

The KD of Tunney has been very accurately timed. He was down 14.50 seconds.

My mistake mentioning Kearns. Dempseys strategy to make Tunney reach to land his right hand and to better avoid that right hand was developed by whomever was training Dempsey at that time. Dempsey did not have the reflexes and Tunney was too quick for Dempsey to capitalize in 1927. However the KD in round 7 was due to an initial overhand right....the blow he was trying to lure Tunney into earlier in the bout.

 

Perry

"The KD of Tunney has been very accurately timed. He was down 14.5 seconds."

Isn't the film the best timing?

The film certainly does not appear to have splices.

I am just comparing the amount of time on the film (or the number of frames if you prefer) between Tunney going down and the count going from one to eight.

Your argument hinges on the ref not being a good standard for what a second is, or more accurately for the count, but if his count is slow, longer than one second per count, the time should be significantly higher than 14 or 15 seconds,

it should then have reached something like 17 or 18 seconds.

just on comparing the percentage of film it took from the ref to start the count after Tunney went down to the amount of time it took him to go from one to eight.

*The bottom line is that to the degree the count is long, the factor which made it so long would have to be a slow count by the referee much more than his starting the count late.

 

in his biography of Dempsey, Roger Kahn goes over the "painstaking" efforts of Hype Igoe and Benny Leonard to adjust a film in which rounds ran 2 minutes and 15 seconds to 3 minutes. As the film was silent, do they actually know when the bell rang. And what if the timekeeper made a mistake?

*Just a bottom line on what I see here.

3/12 of the time Tunney is on the floor is the ref arguing with Dempsey

another 3/12 is Tunney looking out of it. He appears to come alert at the count of three, which is slightly under 6/12 of the time he spent on the floor.

So to me, it looks like he could have beaten the count.

 

I don't pretend he didn't .. I said he may have been given rounds Mayweather coasted. Floyd was winning so easily from the first round when Manny immediately showed an inability and unwillingness to impose his will. THis was immediately pointed out by the announcers covering the fight. So Floyd paced himself as he always does when facing an opponent, testing him out . To me in this fight Dempsey put up a much better fight and was a far more dangerous fighter .. he also showed even as a badly faded version that he was the real deal talent wise against an outstanding Tunney ..

 

Exactly. Well said and pretty indisputable.

 

And elbows. And forearms. And rabbit punches.

Tunney ran like a frightened rabbit after that knockdown but who could blame him for doing so.

 

Incredible.

Once again.....the film footage WAS ****yzed and timed perfectly based upon known standards. Tunney was down 14.50 seconds. The time of 14.50 seconds for the most part is not debatable.

 

Roger Kahn goes into how the film was ****yzed, mentioning stop watches and the like, and trying to get a 2 minute 15 second film up to 3 minutes.

Is there any source which uses the proper method of judging time from a film? Not guesswork, but simply counting the frames from the frame Tunney went down to the frame Tunney got up, and then comparing that to the frames per second.

A stopwatch isn't what you would use, but it appears the men who did this timing were not film experts but sportswriters.

But whatever, the film shows Tunney appearing alert less than halfway through his time on the floor.