In the Ring With Jack Dempsey - Part I: The Making of a Champion

It is certainly plausible given how often he was hit that Willard suffered a broken cheekbone. But this moving bone would mean it was not properly set. Willard would later fight Floyd Johnson and Firpo. Kind of hard to believe he would get into the ring with this sort of situation. I would think that additional breaking would be likely, with the loss of the adjacent eye a concern.

What is the evidence of this moving cheekbone? I don't say it can't be true, but just want to know what the evidence is.

Wikipedia quotes the Topeka Daily Capital of July 16, 1919. A reporter interviewed Willard and wrote that "The ex-champion didn't have any black eye, nor any signs that he was injured in any way."

This interview had to be at the latest the 15th, eleven days after the fight. Hard to buy that he could have had the injuries sometimes reported. Here is one. "Four teeth knocked out. Jaw broken in 7 places. Cheekbone broken in 13 places." Either these injuries are grossly exaggerated, or totally made up, or the Topeka reporter was lying. No way Willard could be healed from that in eleven days.

 

On Dempsey never has there even been more positive press in a contemporary sense on beating an old rusty man who essentlay had no defense? I still Dempsey acted like something was up by running out of the ring after round one as if he was guilty. Did the book give that any cover?

 

It was a metallic bolt. That's what Willard found in the ring and kept it his entire life.

 

When did I say you said Willard was on his way to victory?

No Im arguing with you.

Your exact words: "the talk about Willard being out of shape is fiction ... of course he was 37 and had been inactive but the man trained hard and came into the dight in shape .. was fascinating is the actual description of how he came back from the murderous first round and was pretty dangerous in the second"

No, the man was not in shape. Period. Nothing in the fight suggests he was in shape despite your attempt to reframe it as you attempted to reframe the Johnson-Flynn fight. A 37 year old man who has been largely inactive for 3 years and has had two fights in five years, goes into a six week camp with no preliminary training and loafs throughout the entire camp, doing almost no roadwork, hiring sparring partners who hadnt won a fight in years, some of whom hadnt fought in years, and generally refusing to take the fight seriously does not miraculously appear in shape come fight time even as he exhibits a doughy dad bod. Sorry, but thats a ludicrous assessment.

No they didnt. When the fight was signed Willard was the favorite. By the day of the fight the odds had been bet down to even money. That means that confidence in Willard was eroded. A fighter doesnt get bet down from being a favorite to even money because people think hes looking great in training. LOL.

Really? How many champions successfully defended their title after a three year layoff, a six week training camp with almost no roadwork and not a single sparring partner worth a ****? Name me one.

So I take it you think Will Ferrell looks like a world class athlete as well because thats the same body Willard had when he fought Dempsey.

He was an enormous man. Those guys can absorb punishment. He quit two rounds later on his stool after having not won a second of any of the three preceding rounds. How does that illustrate he was in good condition?

The VAST majority of ringside accounts state Willard brought nothing to the table but size, was never threatening at any time, and gave a pitiful exhibition for a champion. I wont even begin to throw out the laundry list of examples whereby Dempsey cant be trusted. Nevermind that we have the film for all to see and Willard is never threatening.

The results bear out which reporters are accurate and again, throw away every opinion of every reporter and just look at the basic facts. Its indisputable that Willard regularly took days off during training. Its indisputable that Willard routinely cut his training days short. Its indisputable that Willard did almost no roadwork. Its indisputable that to a man his entire training staff was pathetic. Its indisputable that despite his training staff being largely inactive those men who had been a part of both the Dempsey camp and the Johnson camp had more success against Willard during the Dempsey camp despite the fact that during the Willard camp they had actually been active fighters. Its indisputable that Willard was dropped and had both his lip and eye cut in sparring. Its indisputable that his most accomplished sparring partner was 155 pound Joe Chip who was taken off of sparring duty because he was making Willard look bad. Its indisputable that Willard was 37 years old at a time when that was absolutely ancient for a professional fighter. Its indisputable that Willard was coming off a near three layoff. Its indisputable that in five years Willard had had two fights. See, I dont have to argue with Adam. I dont have to refute the OPINIONS of newspapermen. All I have to do is state the facts and anyone with any knowledge of the sport will tell you that all of the above add up to a poorly prepared fighter. Indeed under those circumstances it would have taken a miracle for Willard to have been prepared for a championship fight. Its not like he was defending against a fat, out of shape, Jesse Ferguson type fighter. And its not like nobody in 1919 knew Dempsey wasnt a rampaging attacker.

If his research led you to believe that Willard was in shape for the fight then I'll rest my case.

So you agree he tends to be biased for the subject of the book? I mean, trying to paint Johnson as a martyr and rewriting the context of his trial, the Jeffries riots, etc and now trying to ham handedly lay the groundwork for an excuse as to why Dempsey didnt fight Wills by sprinkling his narrative with descriptions of Birth of a Nation, reports from the Red Summer (some of which fold labor disputes into racial strife), and furthering his often inaccurate narrative about Johnson. Please. You are welcome to your opinion but if you meant to say Adam is unbiased I disagree.

Of course you dont. You want to paint Willards performance as that of a well trained warrior who took his beating and went out on his shield. But thats not really true is it. Willard went into camp ill trained, he didnt take his training camp seriously, he paid the price for it in the first round, and just as Dempsey is starting to gas from the efforts of the first round Willard quits on his stool. You want to give Willard credit for this great comeback that never actually happened. All Willard managed to do was stay upright for a couple of rounds and somehow you want to rewrite that as this huge feat. Talk about damning someone with feint praise.

I dont see how I contradict myself. You are right, I have often pointed out how Willards injuries were exaggerated. And Ive often cautioned to keep this win in its proper perspective as opposed to submitting to the hyperbole around it. Im sorry if it bothers you that Im not overly impressed that a 37 year old who hadnt fought in three years, had 2 fights in the last five years, was never really that good anyway, and had a **** poor training camp ended up quitting on his stool after three rounds. Somehow the bar for Dempsey gets lowered beyond belief but when you look through the ballyhoo associated with his career and actually examine it and his credentials in depth its a lot less impressive than the legend that replaced the facts. If you suddenly discovered Dempsey because you read a book and somehow you still adhere to that mythos, then thats all I need to know about the book. If you think Id discover something new by reading the book we can agree to disagree. Ive been working on a Wills/Dempsey book for years. I had a discussion with Adam about his book over a year before it was published and realized quickly the direction it was taking. My views on Dempsey have been arrived at from over 20 years of research into the man. More than a decade of that was spent in depth. I'll stack my knowledge on Dempsey and his era up against anyone in the business.

 

The best thing that can be said about Willard's condition is that he was apparently a fair bit lighter than he'd been against Moran.
He quit after 3 rounds but he did get up six or seven times in the 1st so he showed a bit of heart too.
Can't really fault Dempsey's performance.

 

I

I think you're wrong, period. .. I am looking forward to your Dempsey book .. It's coming out when exactly ?

 

I'm looking forward to klompton's 100% neutral, fair and unbiased Dempsey book too.

 

Its a valid comparison because you have a history of approaching something youve seen and read about for years as if its your first time and then somehow fool yourself rewriting the entire narrative or context of that event.

 

Its funny to me that people routinely accuse me of being biased against Dempsey. Im the antithesis of being biased against him. He was my favorite fighter. Hes the reason I got so interested in sport. He was my dads favorite and my grandfather who boxed was often compared to him and looked like him. The first film in my collection was Boxings Best: Jack Dempsey and I watched it until there was nothing left of it. If anyone was going to be biased in favor of Dempsey it was me. The fact of the matter is that I was unbiased enough to realize, after being immersed in the subject and his era, that Dempsey was a man around which a myth was created. It was a popular, powerful myth. People have a tendency to cling rather jealously to their myths. To those people Im biased. Unfortunately for those people Ive likely forgotten more than theyll ever know about Dempsey and that knowledge has led me to my conclusions, not hatred against him or starry eyed hero worship that drives the idea that he accomplished a remarkable feat when a 37 year old man, poorly trained, who had been inactive for three years quit on his stool against a well trained athlete who had been very active and was over a decade younger.

 

Again , I disagree. I do find it very definitive that you haven't read the man's book but your passing judgement on it .. typical bleacher seat mentality.

 

Me to ... he just presented us with his forward ... read two prior ..

 

O Enlightened One
Forgive us
For we have erred
And worshipped false idols

Dempsey
Our false god
Has bewitched us
Bert Sugar
Has deceived us

We Call on Ye
O Enlightened Klompton
To bring us
Towards knowledge
And away from ignorance
Away from Rickard and Kearns
Dempsey Kool Aid
And towards
The One True God
Greb

 

Lmao!!!!!

 

REALLY LMFAO NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Anyone in the business? That's quite a boast. Better than Mike Hunnicutt who has the best copy of Dempsey vs Willard and better than Eric Jorgensen, who probably has 30 years of research on Dempsey? These two are historians who specialize on Dempsey.

There are a few living historians who meet and spoke with Dempsey.