Even though it has died down a little bit regarding whether Margarito had Plaster Paris in his gloves. Some of these peolpe that are quick to accuse before there is even a verdict are huge fans of Jack Dempsey. My question is are these people being hypocritical? In 1919 June 4th, Jack Dempsey fought Jess Willard for the Heavyweight championship. He won in a very convincing fashion. So convincing that "...By the third round, after having had his jaw broken in several places, his cheekbone crushed, two ribs cracked and four to six teeth knocked out, Willard simply had to give up. By then he was "nothing but a mass of gore." (The Ring magazine, This content is protected issue, p. 24.)*. There were many people in the audience that said they saw a spike fall out of his gloves and others concluded that he also may have treated his wraps with plaster paris. Another thing I would like to point out is when did Dempsey ever do this to anyone else? Dempsey never dished out a horrorific beating like he did to Willard before or after this fight and correct me if I am wrong if he has. I do believe that Dempsey's gloves were loaded in that fight and think it is unfair to Willard's legacy, but then again I can't prove it. Here is a great article on the topic http://coxscorner.tripod.com/dempsey_gloves.html and here is the Boxrec description http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Fight:17600 * thanks to boxrec for providing the link for the ring quote.
All logic points to this legend being bull****. I find it odd you would site that Cox's Corner article, as it seriously contradicts your claim. Only people with little common sense, or people with an irrational bias against Dempsey, continue to perpetuate this myth. Did you even read those articles?
Yes I did and because it counters my argument is why brought it up. Edit: Also no one has commented on the issue that the performance Dempsey dished out on Willard was never performed again throughout his career. 2nd Edit: Another thing, before calling things bull**** and making ad hominem attacks, try arguing against it. Or is that too much work for you?
The article you posted pretty much does the job for me. You can see Dempsey's open glove, nothing there. You can see his hands being wrapped and his gloves being put on on camera. His wraps were inspected by several people. Not to mention the wraps still exist, and no one's ever said anything about plaster. There is no real evidence to suggest his gloves were loaded, you'd have to want to believe it to an irrational degree to continue to buy into that myth. It was Dempsey's absolute peak performance, and Willard was freakishly durable. Dempsey basically had a punching bag in front of him for three rounds. Dempsey broke Bill Brennan's ankle in their first fight, broke George Godfrey's ribs in sparring and put Carl Morris out for four minutes with a single body-shot. Dempsey could do ungodly damage when he landed, and seeing how much he landed on Willard it shouldn't be surprising he was a bit worse for ware afterwards.
Because that makes perfect sense, as no one else Dempsey fought throughout his career was hailed as having as much durability as Willard. EDIT: Also, one of those articles you posted says that the reports of Willard's "injuries" were greatly exagerrated and even unsubstantiated. So in other words, the "loaded gloves" is basically a myth used to explain a myth.
There's nothing that looks unusual at all about the fight. An old, fat Willard was taken by surprise by a fast left hook about a minute into the 1st round and couldn't recover for the remainder of the round. Before the 2nd round, he'd had about 5-10 minutes (who knows?) to get his legs back under him after the fight had been mistakenly declared over. Willard then spent the next two rounds tying up and smothering Dempsey, while all Dempsey could do was hit him with short punches in the clinches. Then Willard basically said " No mas". The crowd and the press denounced him as being a quitter and taking the easy way out. The reports of all his various "injuries" and the claims that Dempsey's gloves were somehow "loaded" were all started by Willard's people to excuse the way he quit, and are unsubstantiated by any other contemporary source. As one of those articles pointed out, the fight mirrors Tyson's fight with Golota. Hey, how come Tyson never dropped Golota again after the first round?? Hmmmmmm... :think
If anyone used plaster of paris on their knuckles to hit an opponent, it would do just as much damage to the knuckles as it would to the opponent. Same with the margarito issue.
