Jack Dempsey and Harry Wills, the timeline

I've been saying this same stuff about Tunney for years

 

I'm not trying to make capital out of anything Im just stating a fact. I've never heard of the book, or Van Every.

 

Lay off Tunney. He said he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

 

And he went on to say, owing to the infusion of white blood, the American negro does have feelings (unlike his African cousins).

 

Ok, I have reason to suspect Tunney was a proper racist, and I'll leave it at that.

 

It has dawned on me within the last few days that Jack Dempsey had not proven to be a truly great gate attraction in his own right until his bout with Luis Firpo during September 1923. Yes, Dempsey's bout with Georges Carpentier resulted in the first million-dollar gate in history during 1921, but Carpentier was an enormously popular fighter at the time, a major reason why the Dempsey-Carpentier bout was such a success at the box office. Moreover, none of Dempsey's previous bouts didn't come close to having such success at the gate.

Starting with his fight with Luis Firpo, Dempsey had four consecutive bouts which drew million-dollar gates. But that was in the future when Dempsey fought Tommy Gibbons in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Shelby, Montana, during the summer of 1923. I have previously stated that it was a terrible idea to stage a world heavyweight championship bout in my native state of Montana, which was a very economically depressed agricultural area and had a population of only about 500,000 during 1923. But I now have even less understanding of why an unproven gate attraction received a guarantee of $300,000. to fight in a state like Montana, especially in a bout with Gibbons who was a virtually colorless fighter and damaged goods due to his decisive loss to Harry Greb the previous year.

- Chuck Johnston

 

This is quite true.

Add the popularity of Social Darwinism in that day combined with Tunney's pretensions to intellectualism and you have some half crocked ideas that become very embarrassing a century later.

 

Is the underlined a commendation?:hey

 

I love that article. Yet Tunney clearly underrates gorillas who are great at slipping jabs and countering with hooks.

Gorillas take to pugilism like bears to wrestling.

 

Yes, Tunney's views were "accepted" in (white dominated) society at the time, but it would be wrong to think everyone would have agreed or held the same views.

History shows most whites of the time went along with racism - sometimes, often or always.
Others, like Tunney, spouted, concocted or repeated pseudo-intellectual racist drivel.

And 1948 (the date of Tunney's private notes on the "negro problem", "white blood" etc.) is getting a little late in the day for Social Darwinism.

Then again, Tunney was only a prize fighter. Despite putting on airs, just another pug in the cauliflower trade.

 

No, but I knew that if I put "Tunney was a racist", 90% sure to have someone jump in with "everyone was a racist in those days!"

.... which kind of happened anyway.

 

Exactly.

 

:goodOnly real problem with gorillas is that have a habit of touching the canvas with their knuckles, leaving themselves vulnerable whenever the 3-knockdown rule is in effect ! :deal