How much credit should Dempsey get for his controversial victory over Jack Sharkey?

Sharkey was having his way until Dempsey went low a few times. The foul was clear as day, and when Sharkey complained, Dempsey nailed him.

Sorry, you can not credit Dempsey for a clean win here. You can say he took advantage of a situation where he fouled.

In modern times this is a NC.

 

That's what I mean, and people compare this to Golota ?

I'm prepared to say it was low, but no way does it look like Dempsey caught him square in the nuts or even low enough to threaten the nuts.

 

He should have bolo'd it and won applause like Ray Leonard.

 

I just watched a very clear copy of the film over on you tube,

a very clear film for from the 1920's

and I must say I didn't see any blow at all that I would consider an obvious foul.

There also is an interesting film called "Jack Dempsey come back" which is about 80 seconds long on you tube. It does not include any punching, but cuts in at the point in which Sharkey is on the floor and Dempsey has not yet gone to the corner. It is from an entirely different angle than the usual footage. What is interesting is that Sharkey appears not to be reaching for his groin but bringing his hands back to push himself up.

Anyway worth a look for a different perspective.

 

I'm not sure if people are truly convinced by Sharkey rolling on the canvas holding his groin, or whether they are simply biased so they welcome anything that might discredit Dempsey.

Sharkey holding his nuts looked like an afterthought to me. It doesn't look like the punch landed in the right region. But what do I know ? All I know is the referee was counting him out, and he was trying to get the fight on a foul.

 

On the footage from the other angle, it appears he isn't holding his nuts. Check it out. I would be interested in other opinions.

 

You're right, edward.

It looks like Sharkey's trying to get up or having a fit or something.
There's a brief instance where his hand goes towards his groin, but that's it.
To be fair to Sharkey, he was trying to get up, most likely.
I was wrong to disparage him for not doing so.

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Watch the fight, it's obvious constant low blows throughout Pedroza style. Even if they weren't to 'the *****', which they were, the rule is 'low blow', below the belt. Dempsey hit after the bell too. Constant low blows mean you get a point docked and then another and then DQ'ed. The ref doesn't call a single foul.

Let's call it what it is, using the ref as a 3rd fighter to fix the fight

 

"on the canvas Sharkey can still be seen clutching his *****"

There is a second angle now, and I think moves his hands down his body but also seems to be trying to get leverage to push himself up. "clutching" is a stronger term than I would use.


"he was in severe pain from being hit In the *****"

We can't tell that. There is something called reflected or radiated pain in which you hurt in one part of the body but the actual problem is in another part of the body. The film shows Sharkey taking punch after punch to the torso from the first round on. I'm sure his body was pretty tender and the nerves might have been shooting pain down. I remember Basilio mentioning his leg hurting and being unable to move it after he was hit on the jaw by DeMarco.

I personally had pain in the groin and was worried about cancer and the like, but it turned out to be a disk problem in the back and reflected pain. When an operation fixed the back, the pain was gone.

*so the bottom line for me is that only clear evidence of Dempsey actually hitting Sharkey in the nuts proves Dempsey hit Sharkey in the nuts, and the film does not provide that evidence.

 

I've been watching the fight since I purchased a complete 8mm copy from an organization called Blackhawk films back in the 1960's, have seen it too many times to count, and have never seen a flagrant low blow, or any punch which I can be certain was even slightly below the belt.

I have been critical of Dempsey for not fighting Wills, and for the general level of his competition and especially his victories. I think for decades he was overrated, including by the way by me when I was young. I would have picked him as the greatest until I was in my thirties.

But

on this one I don't buy the foul claims.

The "dirty fighting" I would focus on in this fight would ironically be more the butting, but it isn't just Dempsey, as Sharkey tosses his head around also. They sometimes look like two billy goats.

*the bottom line on this fight is that I think Sharkey fought stupidly, slugging it out on the inside with a slugger whose strength was slugging it out on the inside. He rarely tried to jab and move like he later did with Schmeling in 1932. He should have lost the decision in that one but at least fought a smart fight.

 

Wow, way to jump to unfounded conclusions.

How many of Sharkey's fouls did the referee call ?

 

People can argue back and forth about the amount and severity of the fouls and whether it was Dempsey doing all the fouling - and how much the legitimate body punches were frustrating Sharkey, the competence of the referee, and what not, and form an opinion, and disagreements.

But everyone should be able to see that Sharkey takes his eye off his opponent to whine to the referee, lapse in concentration, and gets nailed with a punch to the head that knocks him down.

Sharkey made a bad error there, a cardinal sin, breaking the boxing commandmant "protect yourself at all times" ... Dempsey capitalized.

 

Did a referee fix the Lewis v Grant fight too ? :think

 

A celebrated example would be the deliberate foul on Ken Buchanan that ref LoBianco didn't see Duran commit. We all know today that it was a blatant low blow, yet Duran is celebrated for that TKO over Buchanan. No one EVER grouses over the low blow thrown and the DQ that should have resulted...or at the very least, the points deducted from everybody's hero Roberto Duran. Likewise, Dempsey gets a historic pass for his actions vs Jack Sharkey....but Jack isn't beloved like Roberto is.