Jack Dempsey and The Color Line...

Perry

I agree with you that the film of the Dempsey-Sharkey fight doesn't show clear-cut evidence of fouling,

but a film is only from one angle,

and the angle here is not the best. We are seeing things from the off side,

so the fact that a judge at this fight was willing to send an opinion to the NYSAC saying he saw foul blows has to carry weight.

 

"which doesn't mean he would beat Sharkey if both were in their respective primes."

Nope. And no one knows he wouldn't have.

What we do know is that Wills was outclassed by Sharkey in 1926 when he was 37,

and Dempsey was outclassed by Tunney in 1926 when he was 31.

Wills was 31 in 1920.

aside--It is interesting that the signing for the Dempsey-Wills fight was for a ten-round no-decision fight. If Dempsey had fought Tunney under those rules, he would have kept the championship.

It is also interesting that Wills is fighting the championship distance, but the champion Dempsey is fighting ten round fights.

"Dempsey took his beating from Tunney and never stopped trying to win"

Over ten rounds. He never got to the thirteenth.

 

Dempsey-Tunney was 10 rounds because Pennsylvania state law limited fights to 10 rounds.
It wasn't until the 1930s that Pennsylvania allowed 15-round championship bouts.

 

There was no foul.

Ref saw no foul.
Doctor examining Sharkey after the bout found no evidence of a foul.
Few weeks after the fight headlines:
"Film of fight show body blows were legal"

As mentioned with ANY event with no instant replays you will have differing opinions of what actually occurred. This is natural. However upon investigation INCLUDING examining of the fight film itself the blows were deemed legal punches.

This is a prime example how an event can be made to look any way a person would like it to look 90 years later. Pick and choose data right after the bout and it's a mixture of what people THOUGHT they saw. Some are right, some are wrong. Look deeper weeks AFTER the event and it then becomes clear. No evidence was found that those three right uppercuts were low. Ref did not deem them low, Doctor examining Sharkey saw no evidence that Dempsey hit low and they looked at the films of the bout and the conclusion was that the body blows were NOT low.

Finally watch the video of the last round yourself. Blows were on the belt line. Add up all the evidence and clearly there is no reason to blame Dempsey. He came back and koed the leading contender for the hwt title with one crushing left hook.

NoW tell me again why you want to believe the blows were low?

What you see with the false retelling of the end of this bout is very similar to those who blame Dempsey for not fighting Wills. In both cases Dempsey was exonerated 90 years ago from blame.

 

I think Illinois also,

but it is still a ten round fight,

and if the Wills-Sharkey fight were for ten rounds, Wills would have done the same as Dempsey. Gone the distance and lost a one-sided decision.

So the difference is what happened in the championship rounds,

which there weren't any for Dempsey-Tunney,

so the comparison is apples and oranges.

 

That's true.
I don't think Wills or Dempsey deserve to be judged harshly for losing those fights, even if they were favoured to win.
We're talking about seriously declined fighters. In a way it's best that Deempsey-Wills championship fight didn't happen in 1926, though of course it should have happened already 5 or 6 years earlier.

 

I just watched a very good film of the fight narrated by Marty Glickman over on you tube.

I noticed something I had never noticed before. At the end of the sixth round, when the bell apparently had sounded with the two men heading for their respective corners, it is Dempsey who taps Sharkey in the face first. It is largely hidden by Dempsey's body, but this film was in super slow motion and you could see it clearly. Sharkey then glances over at Dempsey and responds by tapping Dempsey in the face. That one is at the front of the film and obvious.

Glickman mentioned that Dempsey hit Sharkey first in his voiceover.

I had always thought of this as a rather raw act on Sharkey's part, but I have to say it was really tit for tat.

*I personally never saw a bad foul on Dempsey's part, but I also think that his body shields some of the key punches, making it partially guesswork.

Bottom line--I would definitely not agree with anyone who uses the film to prove Dempsey fouled. It doesn't.

On the other hand, saying it "exonerates" Dempsey is further than I would go. We are only getting one angle and our view is cut off by the bodies now and then.

 

How do you know that Wills "fouled out" as opposed to simply being DQ'd for a foul? He took his lumps for 13 rounds.

Dempsey fouled too in the opinion of Grantland Rice, Sam Taub, Benny Leonard and one of the ringside judges, no less. Even Dempsey's pal Damon Runyon admitted the punches "seemed low". Dempsey just happened to have a more lenient referee.

 

"He took his lumps for 13 rounds."

Yes. Longer than Dempsey did.

And I also wonder how one can be certain Wills wasn't just getting sloppy trying to turn the fight around, rather than "fouling out."

 

If you are subjective the film of the bout exonerates Dempsey. That is a big IF with a few posters on this forum. The last three body blows were not low.

When a fighters gets hit full force in the groin or as some posters claim in the ***** by a fighter as powerful as Dempsey who dropped fighters with singular body blows it leaves signs. The doctor assigned to the fight examined Sharkey right after the bout and found NO EVIDENCE of a low blow being struck. Examination of the fight film (original copies not what we see today) a few weeks after the bout in 1927 shows that the "body blows were legal". Add it up and if you then come to the conclusion Dempsey fouled Sharkey to win this bout you are select few who can call themselves a Dempsey hater. You will need to look at your own phycology to understand why.

 

As mentioned with ANY live event without replays everyone will have their own version of what actually occurred and this is very natural.

The doctor finding no evidence of a low blow, the ref being adamant after the fight that none of those three body blows were low and examination of the fight film all lead to one conclusion. It was a conclusion reached 90 years ago.

 

"If you are subjective the film of the bout exonerates Dempsey."

Yes, but I'm trying to be objective.

"original copies not what we see today"

Did they ever have another angle? There are rather clear copies of this fight out there.

Unless you have a different angle, I don't know how one could judge the last right to the body as Dempsey's body blocks your view.

"Dempsey hater" "look at your own psychology"

Aside--this reminds me of those dictators who send their critics to an insane asylum, as being unhappy about any aspect of their tyranny is taken as a sign of mental unbalance.

Some folks just see things differently and come up with different conclusions about almost every contentious issue.

 

Look at a bright copy of the ko. There are a few on YouTube. Very clear if you watch the sequence that none of those three shots were low. On the belt line. Understand that "belt line" in boxing is an imaginary line that joins the hip bones.

This was the conclusion 90 years ago. "Film of fight shows body blows were legal". Again that's a 90 year old conclusion.

Another question I have for you is...if you have been interested in boxing so long why have you not examined the film of this fight previously? I've had a film of this bout in my possession since 1972. It has been readily available on YouTube for years.

 

I love how some go on about Dempsey being "exonerated" 90 years ago and then proceed to ignore what people were actually saying 90 years ago because it doesn't suit their narrative.

A majority of sports writers whose opinions were reflected in metropolitan newspapers today apparently considered that Jack Dempsey landed a low blow just before he knocked out Jack Sharkey with a left hook to the chin.

The New York Times says "Dempsey's accomplishment was disputed by many who saw the test" and "will hold the opinion that Dempsey should have been disqualified on a foul."

The Herald-Tribune in one account refers to "two foul punches" by Dempsey to which Jack O'Sullivan, the referee, paid no attention, although they were "delivered a good eight inches below the belt."

-- Spokane Daily Chronicle, July 22, 1927