Jack Demspey "sent Godoy reeling" in sparring, 1940

Mc, I have seen Nat Fleischer and that referee was NOT Nat Fleischer...

 

Actually it WAS Burt, I just looked it up.

 

Cool. :good

I believe it anyway.

 

M, I just watched the Dempsey/ Luttrel "fight' again. And it very well could be Nat Fleischer refereeing in 1940...I once met Fleischer many years later and the aged Fleischer looked so different in 1940...:good

 

I met Dempsey several times, he was a rough, tough old man with hands of steel. He was the first of his kind and the biggest boxing star ever for the time. So being a first mega star he did not really know what would be said about him and how his inactivity on top would effect him. All I could tell you is he was a big strong guy and hard as steel. He was from a rough hard era but even as a child he was determined to be the next John L. Sullivan.

IMO Dempsey was one of the meanest Heavyweight champs ever. Louis and Marciano did it with a smile, Tyson and Dempsey did it with a snarl....Lewis was mean and Big George had a mean streak with a smile. Frazier was business as usual

 

That fight

Even at 45 years old in a joke fight Jack still wants to ****ing kill that bloke

 

his greatest trait might have been his LOVE of fighting...as much as any ****er in history he seemed to just enjoy a brawl

 

True, whilst we might not always be in agreement in Dempseys placing in most HW Top 10's I think you'll get no arguement in placing him at the top of those HW's who just loved to scrap

 

:thumbsup

 

Dempsey still looks like a killer...

 

Dempsey was just a really really strong man with a fantastic punch, a great infighter, underrated defense, and had that special winner's quality that all great champions have. Even at an advanced age he was still a heck of a puncher. One of those guys like Foreman in that you couldn't outpunch him, you had to try to outbox him or you'd have no chance.

 

Dempsey did ko two muggers in his 70's, he was getting in taxi with wife, leaning on his cane, they grabbed wife right in front of him and were taking her purse, he ko'd one, other got hit, fell, got up and ran. Other guy stayed down. They thought he was just some old guy who would not do much.

 

True story and Dempsey was older than dirt at the time.

I said it before, I may not chose Dempsey to win as many fights as others but I will never discount his chances in any fight.

Aggression and power of his sort is a hard combination to dissuade.

 

Look there is no doubt Dempsey was a hard man ... many fighters are nasty in the ring but not "street" .. Dempsey was definitely street .. the guy grew up in hobo camps and mining towns, riding the rods from town to town searching for work and food ... it is romanticized hearing about it today and Dempsey came from an era when this was not openly discussed but for a fifteen year old kid to be exposed to that world is like sending him to prison with adult men .. WTF knows what he saw along the way be it killings, horrible beatings, rapes of both sexes, ect ... it is also glossed over that he bounced at ***** houses and married a prostitute ... again, very cute in the Disney recreation but I'd say he grew up very hard and always had a part of this world in his under pinning .. to me , what is always one of the most fascinating parts of the Dempsey story is his evolution into a gentleman in his post ring career .. how he held it together, never digressed back to what he was exposed to .. no stories of Dempsey being arrested, drunken rages, street fights, beating women , ect ... he really was a real life Horatio Alger story, the rags to riches and this is to his credit ... when we see old TV clips of a well groomed Dempsey in his sixties in a suit it is so easy to forget just how he started out ... maybe it was his Mormon upbringing but he managed to take the good and stay with it ... I guess a huge part was his never ending popularity that kept him in the spotlight even during his roughest times but that failed time and again for others former greats ... there was just something admirable about him being solid and pragmatic and a forward thinker ... who would have thought Dempsey would have been the gentleman and Tunney the drunk ? Maybe something about being true to who you are and comfortable in your own skin ...

 

Ernest Hemingway said when you bedded down in hobo jungles you had to carry a knife ,and know that you were prepared to use it.
I doubt even a teenaged Dempsey needed one.

Lester Bromberg a longtime journalist friend of Jack's was coming out of a boxing show with a cub reporter , Dempsey ,then in his 70's spotted him and rushed over, grabbed his hand without speaking ,and bit it.

They then embraced, later the rookie asked Bromberg about the biting. Bromberg airily said ,"oh he's always been like that, Jack's a "Tiger Man" .


There is another story, recounted by an aspiring young reporter down on his luck who rang Dempsey's restaurant seeking an interview, he managed to speak to Jack , who said," no problem be here around 5,30".


The impoverished reporter turned up and nursed the cheapest drink he could buy for a while. Dempsey duly appeared and sat down with him. Before they could " really get into it",a crowd of Dempsey's friends arrived to eat, they made a fuss of Jack and insisted he eat with them, the young hack got up to go, but Dempsey immediately invited him to join their party. The scribe did so with trepidation as he could not afford drinks and a meal, but was reluctant to pass up the interview opportunity and Dempsey was insistant.

He said Dempsey was grace, and kindness itself, including him in all the conversation and asking his opinion on various subjects.

At the end of the meal Jack gave the kid his interview ,and the lad ,wondering what do about the bill, was relieved to be told by Jack,oh dont worry about that ,it's on the house , it was nice meeting you."
Jack may have had tough beginnings , but he turned out a gentleman , well at least outside the ring,