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

Yes and it will include details and photos of Rocky's only pro loss, when he fought under the name Rocky Mack. Such a bombshell should be derived sooner, so everyone on his forum can read it.

 

I have been engaging w Klompton for twenty years. He's a good researcher who can be generous with his archives and does have particular areas of speciality. I enjoyed his Greb book and was one of the first to review it on Amazon. This is why I take particular offense at his scummy public slander of Pollack's latest Dempsey book, Adam's ninth (9th) outstanding contribution to the sport, all labors of love done without any anticipation of financial reward. Since it took Klompton twenty years to publish one book , he obviously knows the Herculean effort involved so to publicly discount it without even having read it tells you all you need to know about that topic.

The problem with Klompton is that he's bananas, the epitome of a textbook narcissist. If you disagree with him he short circuits. He cannot rebut an argument without attacking its source. It really doesn't matter if you engage him kindly or not .. He's like a dog that can turn at any time .. He's convinced he wrote ( not published, yet ) every book, is the final source and decision on every issue and the rest of us should count ourselves fortunate he blesses us and this B - board with his brilliance .. a true creature of the web to be enjoyed surgically for profit but should come with a disclaimer warning buyer beware, thick skin required to play.

 

Excellent post. Right on.

 

Thanks man .. I honestly enjoy a lot of your posts.

 

Compton is obviously a smart guy. I've published around two dozen articles of a scientific nature as either author or co author and I appreciate amount of research he did and Pollack does. I've got the Greb book and some of Pollacks books and I enjoy them both.

But he (Compton) comes across as a complete nut case. A bullying, name calling, insulting, Trump like weirdo. Why? Does he get out of bed in a bad mood every day, and feel the need to be a keyboard warrior? It diminishes his worthy achievement.

I won't buy another one of his books. Certainly not any book about Dempsey, and no, Dempsey is not my hero and I don't think he's was Superman. I won't put a dime of profit into his pocket.

 

Right off the bat your post cites Adams follow up/revised copy of the Johnson books, not the original “in the ring with”. The revised copy was undertaken after a heated argument we got into on this forum. In revising his work he emailed me on 12/5/2016 soliciting more information on the race riots. I replied and gave him avenues for research and even added the correction to the ludicrous assertion he made in his first volume that the film of the Johnson-Burns fight had been edited to prevent the white public from seeing a black man knock out/down a white man. Never happened and once again, anyone doing a cursory search of that subject would know that. The film was never edited and indeed was never stopped preventing the viewing of the knockdowns. It was shown in its entirety back when it was originally. The film had merely not survived in its original form like so many films of the era. When Jim Jacobs found the film he found only one surviving reel which encompassed rds 6-10. Jacobs invented the whole narrative about the film being stopped and cleverly edited the film when it was shown on TV in order to give the appearance that he had the whole film and add a narrative flow to it. I was able to illustrate this to Adam using screenshots of the original, unedited copy which I possess and he still pushed back on the idea, clearly clinging to that idea. "Yes, I do not claim in my book that the police stopped the film..." he says, not true. His exact words as written in the book were "either the police stopped the cameras from rolling and then terminated the bout to save him from further punishment and an impending knockout, or the film exhibitors had complete films, but later edited out the ending so as to avoid inflaming racial passions." Neither is true and that fact is very easily ascertained. He also says, earlier in his recap of the film "Most versions do not show the knockdowns, either because they were deleted for political and racial reasons or because it just so happens that those were portions of the films which disintegrated." So then why the pushback in our correspondence and the assertion that "We'll probably never know" despite the fact that I was able to illustrate to him quite clearly none of this was the case?? These types of things are sprinkled throughout his works and may not, singled out, be that big of a deal but when they constantly add up to direct the flow of the narrative you have to question it. So I stand by my criticism. So when somebody makes a dig at the length of time I take to write a book in favor of someone who published every couple of years with a lot of mistakes pardon me if a smirk. Like I said, I much prefer quality over quantity and I wouldnt want to feel the need to publish follow up revisions.


And no, he wasnt a contemporary icon of civil rights. No blacks did not turn their backs on him because of his relationships with white women. They turned their backs on him because of his self serving behavior. Its not hard to find comments in the black press of the day denigrating Johnson's behavior with not a mention of his relationships with white women. Such a deluded comment is just an inverse of the moronic comments that would paint all white people as racists in that era when in fact the majority werent racists. You would have us believe that black society was racist against whites to the point that they rejected Johnson because of his relationship with them. That as well is asinine.

 

Ive been engaging with HE Grant for years now and at one time I found him a thoughtful, intelligent, and knowledgeable boxing enthusiast. However I have watched him devolve over the years. Its been bizarre to see. He disappeared for a while and then when he reappeared he began posting facile supposition pieces about well covered subjects which make it appear as if he is both ignorant and discovering those instances for the first time. Posts that standout in this regard are: "Was Johnson Close to Defeat in the Flynn Rematch..." "Marcel Cerdan, educate me..." "What if Foreman was drugged in Zaire..." "How did Ray Robinson nagivate such a gifted path as a pro..." "How Good was Emile Griffith..." I could keep posting these all day but we are talking about a guy who has been following the sport closely for decades to the point that he posts daily on boxing forums for the last 20 years. Yet hes not familiar with Cerdan or Griffith? He thinks Robinson's resume is light? He thinks Johnson was on the verge of losing to a Jim Flynn whose face was literally pounded into hamburger and was so ineffective he had to resort to billy goat headbutts just to land anything damaging on Johnson... Come on. If this guy didnt suffer a severe head injury, a stroke, or something then someone needs to check his meds, or get him on his meds. Now hes crying because I not only criticize his wide eyed wet behind the ears opinions but tries to draw others in to support his argument and I can point out why they dont impress me either. Here is some advice Grant: If you are going to post ignorant tripe suggesting Willard was well prepared for Dempsey despite having had two fights in 5 years and no fights in the 3 years, going through a **** poor training camp in which you hired inept sparring partners and refused roadwork, entered the ring with a cut eye, cut lip, and a Will Ferrellesque dad bod and that he was dangerous in the second and third rounds merely because he was able to not get knocked down, expect criticism.

 

This is another issue that concerns. Some people on here, recounting the telling of Dempsey's fight with Flynn have posted snippets of information from Adams book in regards to this fight. I cant comment on that but I participated in a thread either on this forum or on boxrec several years ago where I laid out categorically why a fix was HIGHLY unlikely. I went into detailing the purses each fighter was paid, what they made in fights after this fight, the attendance at the fight, their career trajectories etc. The bottom line was there has to be some motivation for a fix. Any fix. There is always a reason. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has ever been able to lay out a single reason why there would have been a fix. This was a small fight. The venue was not that large by the standards of the day. Gambling was light. Neither fighter had any appreciable expectation of the outcome of this fight catapulting them into bigger things. Indeed Flynns career continued to flounder after the outcome. Its more suspicious that rumors of a fix didnt appear until after Dempsey became a bigger name. The idea that Dempsey not fighting again in Utah was somehow evidence of a fix is ridiculous. Utah was a backwater as far as the sport was concerned and shortly thereafter Dempsey went to California where there were more frequent, bigger fights, more fighters, better trainers and managers, and bigger purses. His career took off from there and there would have been no reason for him to fight in Utah again unless he wanted to take a backward step career wise. If we are going to believe every negative thing his scorned ex wife said about him then lets also start talking about how he was so dangerous in the early rounds because he took cocaine before a fight. Thats another one of her allegations. We could go on and on. But again, when you ignore opinion and look strictly at the facts they paint a much clearer picture than a Dempsey sycophant 4 years later claiming he had it on good authority that Dempsey threw the fight because thats the only way the indestructible Dempsey could get knocked out.

 

He doesn't seem to realize that insults and troubling claims smear his reputation. In my business, which is science, when you present papers you expect some differing opinions, which are given in a professional manner, and you rebut them in a professional manner. I suppose that because boxing by its very nature is a rough and tumble profession you can't expect people to behave in a decent way, especially in social media like this one.

 

Bingo.

 

This fight was held in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City is and even moreso then was dominated by the Mormon church. Gambling was held to a minimum, illegal, and for the Mormon faith unacceptable. Did it, like other vices, exist within its confines? Yes. But not to the degree it existed in other boxing hotbeds. In fact, the Trocadero Hall where this fight took place was closed down a few years later because in its capacity as a dance hall young couples danced "too close" and the dances were moved to a church venue where they could be better controlled. The concessions peddled at boxing events in the Hall: soda, snacks, and religious trinkets. Aside from the religious angle you rarely ever see odds published for local fights in the Utah papers which was common practice at the time and there were no odds published for Dempsey-Flynn. Does this mean there was absolutely no betting on the fight. No. But this fight was largely ignored outside of Utah and was of very low import so unless you think for some reason gambling houses miraculously sprang up for this fight and floods of outside money came in I think Im pretty safe saying gambling was light. In fact one paper mentions that while there is local interest in the fight there wasnt a lot of interest in the fight heard from the northern part of the state which is was where most of the population of Utah was centered then and now. There is some clue that the gate was not as good as publicized, first and foremost the promoters hanging up the patrons for concessions as detailed below and the Fireman's association which lent its name to the promotion of the event complained that they didnt receive as much as they were guaranteed. The $5000 gate that was advertised would have been considered fabulous for a show of this relatively low import even in one of the greater boxing locales such as Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. It wouldnt be the first time a promoter lied about how big his gate was. Furthermore, what would the impetus be for heavy gambling??? A local fighter described by every local paper as having never fought anyone as good as Flynn who had won 6 of his last 21 fights facing off against the old war horse who hadnt been a factor in the sport in years and who was essentially operating as an itinerate performer??? No. Even if you believe that some men will gamble on anything, true enough, this is exactly the type of fight where anything can happen which typically chills gambling revenue. In a world of infinite possibilities COULD there have been a big bet or a lot of money changing hands. Its possible but incredibly unlikely and once again there is absolutely zero evidence to show that there was an incredibly unusual flow of money for this fight which prompted nefarious parties to fix it. You literally have to make several massive illogical and completed unfounded jumps to reach that conclusion and if you are doing that then clearly you dont want to believe the fight was fought on its merits and Dempsey lost fair and square. Pretending that maybe some single individual with more money than sense gambled a huge sum on the fight AND tried to protect his bet by further fixing the fight... Well, like I said, thats a whole lot of supposition and I dont deal in supposition. I deal in what I know.

Its been surmised by some that the delay in the fight or talk about banning boxing after the fight hints that a fix was known but this isnt true either. The delay, and this was outlined by the papers, was due to the promoters wanting to delay the fight as long as possible in order to drive up concession sales. Concessions then and now is/was often the best way to turn a profit for events. This had been done at other shows locally to the consternation of fans and this was what got people talking about doing away with the sport locally. Holding the fight up for over an hour in order to have the hostage patrons get thirsty, hungry, etc and purchase more concessions hints that the gate wasnt as large as hoped for. The promoters blamed a dispute between an unnamed fighter and his manager for the delay. It wasnt until a hundred years later that people took those events out of context and tried to draw the conclusion that a fix was behind all of that. Some, again, Monday morning quarterbacking decades later, have tried to imply that the dispute between the unnamed manager and the fighter was between Dempsey and his manager about Dempsey throwing the fight. Given that the Firemans Association was stiffed out of part of their guarantee isnt it more plausible that whichever fighter this was had was concerned about his percentage or guarantee if he saw the gate was lighter than hoped for and was demanding his money before he performed? This happened all the time in this era and had nothing to do with fixes. Its a far more likely scenario than taking the little bit of information we have on that scenario and extrapolating that the unnamed fighter was Dempsey and that the delay he was having was caused by wrangling about a fix.

So again, what would the motivation be to throw the fight? Gambling? To revive Flynns career? What? After this fight Flynn had one fight in the following year against ham and egger Bob Devere and lost before facing Dempsey almost one year to the day later and was knocked out. How exactly did winning a supposedly fixed fight against Dempsey positively impact his career? Its not like this fight suddenly got people talking about Flynn and wondering how he would have done against Willard. In fact the Devere fight was already scheduled when he fought Dempsey so Flynns career literally got zero boost between his two fights with Dempsey and Dempsey finally beating Flynn in 1918 registered as little more than a blip on the radar and his ability to say he got revenge and had progressed past the developmental stage he was at in 1917, which of course we know was true.

 

This is exactly the type of comment I find hilarious when directed at ME. Go back and read my interactions on this post. You will see that from my post here I answered calmly, logically, and backed up my posts with facts and first hands quotes. It wasnt until others got hot and bothered that they didnt have an answer for this that things got "heated" 99% of the time this is how these things play out with me here. Yet somehow you and Grant and others think Im the one who flies off the handle and gets mad. Which is really the pot calling the kettle black. I always begin logically, factually and even keeled which you guys hate. You guys get mad and want to take it further and then are even more surprised when I can not only whip your asses in a debate on its merits alone but also dial it up to eleven when you guys want to take it further. So why dont you go back and reread my posts on this message and tell me where I went sideways. You cant. This all started with Grant trying to convince us that Willard was in great shape and dangerous against Dempsey. I pointed out very conclusively, relying on the basic facts, not opinions, why this is ridiculous. He tried to draw Adam into the argument to back him up and tried to draw some false equivalence between his position and Adams work. When I pointed out that I was criticizing HIS OPINION, not Adam's book and why I dont need to rely on Adams book as a backstop to my argument/opinion he got upset, said I was full of ****, etc. In essence he got personal because he couldnt support his own conclusion. If he wants to take it personal Im perfectly comfortable going there but dont pretend Im the one the one that went there first.

 

The very definition of B L A T H E R I N G!!!!!!!!!!!!