Jack Dempsey openly stated he would not fight black challengers

Dempsey got $300,000 plus 25% of the movie rights for defending against no hoper Carpentier.
The gate was $1,789,239 it seems a lot of people were happy to pay to see it?
So now we know, Dempsey was a coward.
I guess that means all those who didn't defend against outstanding black challengers were cowards too?
Sullivan ,Corbett,Jeffries,Hart,Willard.At heavyweight.
Zale and Cerdan at middle.
Cochrane at welter.

 

Dempsey shows great movement in this.

 

I think you've put it very well describing describing the questions Dempsey left in his career. He was faded by the time he fought Tunney, victory had defeated Dempsey and he had grown civilized and old. He never faced the top black competition of the era. He could have been far more active.

I think the reality of any top 10 heavyweight rankings is that the decades between 1960-2000 are the only ones which have a valid claim in my opinion. Reason being as decades progress the dominant and most powerful fighters were larger, more technical, stronger. There's just too many men from these eras with outstanding resumes, especially in the 80's and 90's, that are undervalued and more confident that most of ye ole' timers top 10 rankings.

I love the older fighters, I respect them and am a huge Dempsey fan. But I can easily feel that for his era- he is certainly top 10, but all time? no. It's not even close, and if he had fought without a color barrier, more frequently, he might have been in shape to defeat Tunney and continue a long reign. apologies for the long response lol

 

On a different note. For all the "Size Kings" On the site that insist
and have the uneducated opinion of their were no big athletic
heavyweights during that era, "Big" Bill Tate would disagree.
All 6'6" 230-240 lbs of him..... Though this film is only a
light sparring session, it's easy to see he was light on his
feet, and moved as well as Fury does today.
And I'm sure if their was one that did get filmed, I'm
positive there were many more that didn't get that
opportunity.

 

Tate lost about as many as he won,I wouldn't use him as an argument against size.

 

I'm sure if most of the fighters of this era
had to take the hard road as I'm sure he
did. Their records would be similar.
A great boxing record can be manufactured
Michael Grant stand up please lol.
Floyd Mayweather Jr?

 

Dodge Wills? Dempsey signed contracts to fight him on 3 different instances. Wills side failed to come up with the advance demanded to secure the fight. NY commission also wouldn’t allow the fight. Dempsey got tired of having his time wasted with bad checks, Wills lawsuits, and shady promoters. In fact, after several of Wills attempts to sue Dempsey, Jack finally insisted he would never give him the fight. Wills was tailor made for Dempsey. He was slow, had poor defense and was a dirty fighter. Dempsey could have beaten him rather easily, especially by 1926. Wills got schooled by Sharkey, ducked Tunney and was knocked out by Uzcudun. His greatest wins were against much smaller fighters who he leaned on and wrestled his way to victory.

You are holding Dempsey to the standard of today’s climate. To suggest he was a coward shows your inherent bias of hatred towards him.

 

Wow, if you were going for a post in which you got pretty much everything wrong you nailed it. Kudos to you. Otherwise you need to get your "facts" straight.

 

I half expected a snarky response. What I posted was indeed factual and well documented. You can cherry pick whatever sources you want to come to your predetermined conclusion, but anyone who knows anything about boxing will tell you Dempsey was all wrong for Wills.

 

Here are some reports by Time Magazine on Dempsey and Wills:

4-28-1923------"It is generally accepted opinion that Harry Wills is the only man in the game who can stand at Dempsey's level. There is vague talk of a fight between the two at the Polo Grounds on Labor Day."

6-4-1923--------Jack Kearns, "Dempsey will defend his title against either Willard, Firpo, or Wills. It is a case of first come, first served."

7-30-1923------In coverage of the Leonard-Tendler match at Yankee Stadium. "Noteworthy was the arrival of Harry Wills, logical candidate for a chance at Dempsey. He was cheered every step of the way from the entrance in center field to his seat near the ring."

1-7-1924-------Jack Dempsey, "All this talk that I'm afraid to fight Harry Wills is getting on my nerves. Just get me in the ring with Harry and I'll win in a round or two."
1-7-1924--------Paddy Mullins, Wills' manager, "I've been refilling my fountain pen for four years, hoping Jack Kearns will come to terms."

4-7-1924--------Tex Rickard, "Wills agrees to fight any heavyweight I select, leading up to a meeting with Dempsey." Time commented, "Wills was expected to meet Firpo. If Wills wins, Rickard will let him have at Dempsey in September."

7-27-1925--------"Jack Dempsey reached an agreement to fight whomever Tex Rickard should select--one bout this year, one next. His first opponent will be Gene Tunney, George Godfrey, or Jack Renault. Then, if not defeated, he will face Harry Wills."

8-17-1925--------"Jack Dempsey was introduced from the ring at the opening of the Olympic Stadium in Los Angeles. Booing thundered from the topmost rim of the amphitheater, mixed with a chant of "Bring on Wills." Dempsey turned the color of an embarrassed orchid and crept back to his seat."

10-19-1925-------"Jack Dempsey signed a contract to meet Harry Wills in a 10 round no decision contest in Michigan City, Indiana, in September, 1926. Promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons posted $200,000 as a forfeit. Dempsey got $100,000. Wills $50,000.
10-19-1925-------Tex Rickard, "I have what I consider an ironclad contract for him to box Wills for me."
10-19-1925-------Jack Kearns, "I'll seek to prevent him fighting and proceed against every source of income he has."

What I make of this is that Wills was given the runaround. Note that after beating Firpo in an elimination, Wills somehow ends up behind Tunney, Godfrey, and Renault as a contender. Dempsey getting booed at LA seemed to spur him to at least put on a show of signing to fight Wills. But was Rickard correct? If so, the signing was only a charade.

 

"Charade" Music Henry Mancini Lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

When we played our charade
We were like children posing
Playing at games, acting out names
Guessing the parts we played

 

Post these THREE contracts and then post here what Dempsey actually said about the first one in his autobiography (along with everyone else at the time) and post what his business manager said at the time about the second one. *There were only two.

The only advance money Wills had to post was a forfeit which had been on file for years by the time Dempsey lost his title. You are clearly talking about the advance that was supposed to be paid to Dempsey by promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons in 1925 when Dempsey and Wills famously signed with him. But ask yourself this question. If you are ducking Wills and get your close friend to "promote" a fight between Wills and your friend draws up an unfulfillable contract which allows you to walk away from the fight when the monopoly money isnt paid are you really signing anything tangible? Are you really trying to fight Wills?

The NY commission pursued Dempsey for years to face Wills. By the time Dempsey signed to fight Tunney the NY State Athletic Commission prevented Rickard from staging the Dempsey-Tunney fight in New York due to Dempsey's continued refusal to face Wills which is why it was held in Pennsylvania.

Thats funny. The only person wasting time was Dempsey. He was doing everything he could to run out the clock against Wills. Wills sued to attempt to force Dempsey to actually face him. What shady promoters? Floyd Fitzsimmsons? He was a close friend of Dempsey's and remained so for the rest of his life. Dempsey often flew to Michigan for years afterwards to ref fights that Floyd held to hype the gate and take part in exhibitions for him. The other "contract" Dempsey signed had no promoter. It stipulated only that Dempsey would face Wills at a date and venue as yet undecided for an undetermined amount of money if a reasonable offer was given by a promoter. This allowed Dempsey to simply reject all offers as unreasonable in order to keep ducking Wills. He admitted this in his autobiography. Nat Fleischer did likewise in his biography of Dempsey and most of the major press outlets at the time reported it as a ruse.

Thats convenient isnt it. You wont fight your top contender, he tries to force you to fight him, and you say "I dont like that hes trying to fight me so Im not going to fight him. Its all his fault. He should have never tried so hard to get a fight with me." LOL

Its a shame Dempsey didnt have your confidence. He could have taken the money and run instead of just running. But seeing as how he saw a lot more of Wills than you I think he had a good reason for being scared of him.

By which time Dempsey was no longer champion. The same Sharkey who schooled Dempsey as well until about a dozen low blows felled him.

The same Tunney who swore he would never fight a black man? The same Tunney whose challenge of Wills in 1926, 7 years into Wills being the top contender, was testified in court by Tunney's people as being a ruse designed to get Tunney's name mentioned in the press alongside Dempsey's top challenger?

Yes when he was almost 40 and Dempsey was no longer champion. At the same age Dempsey was getting his ass handed to him by King Levinsky in an exhibition which told him he better forgo plans for a comeback.

He was a big heavyweight for his era and your criticism is that his biggest wins were against smaller fighters? LOL. Dempsey defended against four men who spent most of their careers below 175 pounds and lost the title to one of those guys in a one sided route. He only defended against two men who were natural HWs. What was that now about fighting smaller men?
.

No Im holding him to the same standards of sportsmanship and competition that existed then as now.

No it shows that unlike people who have done nothing more than read what amounts to decades worth of fan fiction on the man Ive actually studied the era and the sources. Which, as Ive illustrated above, you have no clue about.

 

An abbreviated history of events surrounding this fight goes like this:

On June 11, 1922, Dempsey and Wills put pens to contracts. But the powerful New York Commissioner William Muldoon did not want the fight to take place in New York. To complicate matters further, Muldoon and promoter Tex Rickard clashed over, of all things, ticket prices. Muldoon wanted 40,000 tickets fixed at $2.00 for the “working people.” Rickard refused. In retaliation, Muldoon blocked the Dempsey-Wills fight from taking place in New York, even threatening to halt all heavyweight fights until prices came down. Frustrated, Rickard traveled to several states—even north to Montreal—to find a welcoming venue. None wanted the fight or had the money to host the event. When the contract deadline ran out, Wills sued. From then until 1926, as the legal proceedings dragged on, a potential Dempsey-Wills fight was often in the news as either under consideration, being planned, or “scheduled for next year,” but never became a done deal.

By March 1925, the New York Commission had reversed its position on sanctioning a Dempsey-Wills match. The Commission now declared Wills as Dempsey’s mandatory challenger and threatened to place Dempsey on the ineligible list if he did not comply. The Associated Press reported on July 17, 1925, that Dempsey appeared before the New York Licensing Commission and formally accepted Wills’ challenge. With Kearns now out of the picture, Dempsey was managing himself. On his own, with a new promoter, Dempsey made a genuine good faith effort to be matched with Wills.

Midwestern promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons, who had produced Dempsey-Miske fight in 1920, proposed a Dempsey-Wills fight to be held in Michigan City, Indiana. Dempsey was guaranteed $1,000,000 for the fight with $300,000 due upon signing. Dempsey accepted the offer. On September 28, 1925, Wills, Dempsey, the promoter and investors met for the contract ceremony. The event made headlines. Wills received a check for $50,000. Fitzsimmons told Dempsey he would get his check the following day. The next morning, Dempsey accompanied Fitzsimmons to the bank, ready to receive the down payment. Fitzsimmons handed Dempsey a check not for $300,000 but only $25,000. “It’s all I got right now, but there’s plenty more where that came from,” said Fitzsimmons. Still willing to proceed, Dempsey asked for cash instead: “I want to see this in green…and when you give me the other two-seven-five, I’ll give you the contract. Signed.” As the tellers counted out the cash, the issuing bank was called and reported back that the Fitzsimmons account was empty. The check bounced. Fitzsimmons couldn’t even deliver one dime of a down payment. Dempsey walked. Not only had the fight fallen through again, but now Dempsey was no longer licensed to fight in New York.

On August 6, 1926, the Evening Independent reported that a Chicago matchmaker, Doc Krone, announced that a $300,000 check was waiting for Dempsey in a Chicago bank. On August 22, the Telegraph Herald reported that Wills’ manager Paddy Mullins tried to bluff Dempsey once more into a contract, and then reportedly “failed to come forward with $150,000” saying, “We’ll post the money immediately if Dempsey will sign to fight Wills before September 23.” It was all too late. The public wanted Dempsey back, and he was in the ring with Gene Tunney three weeks later.

What we do know is that Wills ducked Tunney along with a $250K offer to fight him. Instead he fought Jack Sharkey who punished him. A year later he is knocked out by a relative unknown Italian heavyweight by the name of Uzcundun.

Paddy Mullins avoided a 1922 offer (see link below) by making demands he knew Kearns wouldn't accept -- two in particular: (1) that the NYSAC govern the fight; (2) that Dempsey must accept the highest bidder whether he like the bid or not.

Here is why Kearns would not accept: Tammany Hall politicians owned part of Will's contract and Tammany controlled Muldoon and the NYSAC. Kearns wanted no part of the NYSAC. They tried to strip Dempsey of his crown (but failed miserably).

Second Kearns wanted no part of Tex Rickard promoting the fight and Mullins knew that. By forcing Kearns to accept the highest bidder clause without a right of refusal virtually guaranteed that Rickard would be in the mix; Mullins knew Kearns would say no to both clauses.

Paddy Mullins knew by making those two demands Kearns would back out and then he could go back to pretending Wills was being ducked.

So the challenger was making unacceptable demands, and then announcing he is being ducked. Tommy Gibbons on the other hand said before the Shelby fight [when it was obvious that there would be no gate money for him] that the HW Championship was worth fighting for, "for nothing."

Mullins was setting conditions he knew were unacceptable to a popular champion and would then whine his guy was being ducked; Mullins really didn't want the fight.

It is obvious that Mullins was the one playing games. Maybe he knew his guy didn't stand a chance against the 1922 version of Dempsey, but could garner other good fights by claiming his guy was being ducked by the great Jack Dempsey. Seems like Wills/Mullins were clout chasing using Dempsey's name. It seems it was better for Wills to claim that he was being ducked, than it was to actually fight Dempsey.

Too bad Mullins didn't have the faith in his guy to take the fight in 1922, but that 1922 Dempsey sacred most men.

Read it for yourself! be sure to read clauses #3 and #4 as altered by Mullins. (His claim of 'a fight before the end of the year' as being his motive for not signing, is just more smoke for the press; read the altered clauses #3 and #4.

https://www.nytimes.com/1922/07/09/...unmatched-managers-of-heavyweight-boxers.html

 

So you believe strictly the Dempsey talking points and nothing anyone else at the time had to say on the matter. Got it. Ill defer to Dempseys own words on the matter: "On July 11, a contract was signed with a clause stating the date be "set within 60 days after a reliable promoter undertook to stage the bout." This phrasing, which was Doc's doing, enabled him to get me out of the contract. Despite the fact that the date, place, and terms of the contract were blank, Paddy Mullins decided to accept the agreement, banking on our reputations and signatures." This is how Nat Fleischer described the contract: "It was this shrewd wording of the contract, that left the loophole through which Dempsey wiggled out of the fight." Here is how your precious New York Times described the "contract" "In short, study of the articles reveals the fact that Dempsey and Wills have signed a piece of paper that amounts to little more than a piece of paper." I hate to spell this out for you but I feel I must given your obvious lack of business knowledge: If I sign a contract to lets buy a car and that contract has no price for the car, no monthly payments, no duration of those payments, no bank that I am financing a loan from, and no vehicle information and I walk away from signing that contract without the car did I really sign a contract? No. The game they were playing, and Dempsey did this both with and without Kearns, was to have these contracts written up that couldnt be fulfilled or didnt have any teeth in them in order to have a paper trail in the event the commission formally went after Dempsey. Wills was damned if he did and damned if he didnt. He knew that by signing he wasnt getting anything but he also knew if he didnt sign it would look like he didnt want to fight so he had to go along with these con games in the hopes that eventually the dam would break. Now, any Dempsey fan can look at the mere fact that Dempsey signed a blank piece of paper and say "Oh but he was serious about fighting Wills! He signed! He signed! But anyone with a brain can see through the fact that Dempsey's signature wasnt worth more than that blank sheet of paper and that the one person who continually benefitted from this was Dempsey. As for him looking for other venues thats just bull****. Almost every month a promoter from somewhere was sending Dempsey and Kearns offers to face Wills and they were ignored. Montreal, Paris, Havana, Mexico all ignored and reputable promoters like William Brady and Jim Coffroth among many many others were ignored. I list those two because they huge financiers backing their offers. Coffroth had the financing and could hold the fight across the US border but close enough to a major population center to draw a huge gate and his offer was ignored. We could be here all day if you look at all of the offers ignored by Dempsey to fight Wills while he was actively trying to get promoters to pay him to fight guys like Bartley Madden, Gunboat Smith, Bill Brennan a third time, Charlie Weinert, Jess Willard a second time, Georges Carpentier a second time you name it. Dempsey had no lack of enthusiasm for those bouts that would have been complete mismatches but he had no end of excuses for running from Wills.

 

Complete nonsense. Wills never ducked Tunney and Tunney never made a serious offer. Thats a fact. When Tim Mara sued Tunney all of this was testified in court. That was a publicity stunt. And frankly, after being the top contender for 7 years why would Wills be forced to fight yet ANOTHER elimination match? Fulton was an eliminator, Norfolk was an eliminator, Firpo was an eliminator, Weinert was an eliminator. The worst kept secret was that all of these eliminations were merely in hope that Wills would be eliminated. So here comes Tunney who has been a HW for all of a year and suddenly Wills has to fight Tunney? By that logic Wills was the defacto champion because you are expecting him to fight all of these contenders but not Dempsey, Dempsey can just go along doing whatever he wants. Talk about irony. Wills fought Sharkey AFTER Tunney had become champion. Tunney made it clear he would never defend his title against a black man.

So its your contention that Dempsey absolutely refused to fight under the NYSAC commission and yet he fought Firpo under them in 1923, and desperately wanted to fight Tunney in New York, fought Sharkey in New York, etc? Ok, you try as hard as you can to make that argument stick. AND you want us to believe that a deal killer for Dempsey was that the highest offer had to be accepted? So, what, he wanted a lower offer? He wanted a promoter that he could guarantee his own referee and rules? Oh wait, yeah he did that all the time.

Kearns wanted no part of Rickard promoting Dempsey? Then why did they fight Firpo for Rickard? Why was Rickard a part of this fake contract signing? Your arguments are asinine and completely ignore reality. Furthermore those stipulations arent what killed it as is well documented. What killed it was Dempsey refusing to accept any promoter or any offer as "reasonable."

I wont even go into your conspiracy theory nonsense about Paddy Mullins and Bill Muldoon being owned by Tammany Hall and that somehow this was all some big conspiracy to... what? Im not even clear on that. Later that year Bill Muldoons power was stripped. You do realize that this was 1922, Dempsey had another four years as champion and continually failed to defend against his top challenger. Your laughable conspiracy theory not withstanding this didnt all go down within the vacuum of July 11, 1922. If you or Dempsey thought Muldoon was crooked, or didnt like that he was trying to keep tickets affordable, that situation corrected itself within months. If Kearns didnt want to figtht for Rickard there dozens of promoters willing to stage the fight and Mullins, despite your fantasy, was not reserved to fight only for Rickard. Kearns simply ignored those other offers. And of course he did, by doing so he could simply say that he didnt like those promoters and as such the "contract" never goes into effect.

As for your link, you do realize I hope that two days later the piece of paper you think proves Dempsey was interested in fighting Wills was signed and Dempsey himself said it was smoke and mirrors.