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

Again, if all you have is ad hominem, you're only making yourself sound more foolish, petty and ignorant.

Pollack presents a far more detailed and compelling argument that Dempsey threw the Flynn fight. The Roberts bio was one of the better out there but is lightweight compared to what Adam has started.

In regards to your life's work studying Dempsey, do you care to share your citations and published works that have resulted from this? Do you really think you are any different than many of this in that regard?

 

And again, you're full o' ****. You are a Dempsey hater. Bet money you never read Roberts book. Lightweight? Excellently researched and documented. Pollack isn't the final say. You hate Dempsey. Why not let those that like him enjoy it and leave them alone? Nothing but a lying instigator. A phony hater.

 

Sorry. It just galled me that someone who always badmouths Dempsey is going on about the book.

 

I think M is a character that can get carried away at times,but one whose heart is in the right place.
Unlike a couple here , he is neither a cynical liar nor an agenda driven spin doctor I cut him slack because he is passionate about the sport and, imo a good guy as is his current protagonist Seamus.
How fortunate are we to have a boxing author with the reputation and gravitas of Adam Pollack as a member?

This content is protected

 

Thk yu and I agree about AP.

 

You bet money I've never read Robert's book? How do I collect? What does that even mean...

Why don't you shell out a few pounds or Euros or greenbacks and buy his book... and then argue with his evidence not some figment of your imagination that you have created around some dude on the internet.

Nice little tantrum, tho.

 

Finished this last night.

Another gem from Adam. Through the first volume, the story holds up right there with his fantastic work on Johnson. He really gives the reader a feel for Jack's development from a somewhat cautious, somewhat roughhewn and lost, but hard hitting, scrapper to a guy with full confidence in his abilities to unleash a two-fisted attack and take the lead in his fights. You can feel the wind in your hair from this astonishing development. Great and thorough quotes provided. Great pics. All the important sub-plots are included: the color line, Harry Wills, Jim Flynn KO, Maxine, early managers, John Lester Johnson, general race conditions... Also, a revealing portrait of Willard and his approach to the sport (I may start a thread on this later)...

If you are a Dempsey enthusiast or even remotely interested in boxing's formative years... this is a must.

 

Surely the only evidence is anecdotal though? It's essentially Chinese whispers and something we'll never know the truth of.

 

Like 75% of history then

 

A displeased wife talking BS is a compelling argument? Dempsey was a nobody back then, who only had a reputation in his state and nobody outside of Utah cared about the result of his bout with ancient Jim Flynn.

 

I saw zero evidence that Dempsey threw the Flynn fight. Somebody, somewhere, said he did months or years later, their story didnt match the eye witness descriptions of the fight, and Dempsey never fought in Utah again... Thats not much of an argument. He never fought in Utah again because Utah was a boxing backwater and Dempsey went where the money was. When a fight is thrown there is a reason for that fight being thrown. What was the reason here? Gambling? To improve Flynn's rep? None of it adds up. The venue the fight was fought at was relatively small even by the standards of the era. Gambling would have been meager making the cost of a dive prohibitive. Flynn was already a has been and his career got no tangible bump from beating Dempsey who was largely unknown at the time. Its often been said that Dempsey was starving etc and thats why he lost. This isnt true either. Dempsey was simply not a polished product at the time and lost to a more experienced fighter that he was apparently nervous about fighting and got caught cold. It happens. Dempsey won just two of his next seven fights. But he did that on the coast where he was able to train with more experienced fighters and trainers and hooked up with Kearns who got him the seasoning he needed and moved him the way a developing prospect should be moved. To me the idea that there is any evidence or any argument that Dempsey threw the Flynn fight is laughable. Its just something Dempsey fanboys latch on to because they cant accept that he could have been knocked out. But the fact is that even though Flynn was a has been he was Dempsey's most experienced opponent to date by far.

 

There's a lot more suggestion than Maxine's in the Pollack book. I don't feel it appropriate to start quoting from a book just on sale but read it and see what Pollack offers. And just as a note, at this point in the narrative Pollack seems to be neutral on the subject.

Either way, the result doesn't speak highly of Dempsey at that time. He was either corruptible or inept at this stage, with a wife who was bitching for more money. He definitely seemed to be in a funk at this stage of his career with his great ascendency beginning in latter 1917 and blossoming into 1918.

 

This content is protected