The answer to did Dempsey take a dive ?

Has anyone got the link to Dempsey's online biography? Started reading it but didn't finish

 

The counter evidence is more than enought to muddy the water.

Some of Dempseys critics seem to be in almost indecent haste to validate the outcome of this fight so that they have a stick to beat him with. Im afraid that you can't validate this fight, becuase there has been too much water under the bridge since then.

Under the circumstances the only sensible course is to record an open virdict.

 

Or they don't buy the excuses, every fighter has an excuse for a loss, especially fighters with sycophantic lap dogs and Dempsey had more of those than most, during his reign and after

Knock Outs happen in boxing

 

Since when did second-hand accounts years after the fact count for as much as the first-hand ones given at the time?

Only Dempsey adulation would make them equal.

 

There is FAAAAAAAAR more hard facts pointing to this fight being on the level than Ali-Liston II being a fix. But this forum works differently...

 

I forgot who posted the article but someone here did a while back that stated Dempsey was out cold in the loss and on the floor for over thirty seconds ... if that is accurate or not is an open question but definetly flies in the fact of many Dempsey accounts of a quick three knockdown stoppage ...

 

Something doesn't smell right about the account.

According to all, we're talking about hard times. Other accounts suggest Dempsey hadn't even been able to scrape together enough coins to eat for a couple of days before the fight -- and I'm willing to bet a quarter would have bought a more than decent decent lunch in Utah in that era. Sirloin steak in the U.S. averaged about 30 cents a pound and a dozen eggs averaged 38 cents.

So why in the world would a promoter or manager pay Jack Dempsey, an UNKNOWN, $500 to take a dive against Flynn, who had a reputation and would obviously have been the favorite?

That's a pretty hefty price to get an underdog who wasn't expected to win to lay down.

I don't buy it.

 

The historic revisionism on this one is pretty bad. All primary reports point to Dempsey being KO'd, but biased presentations (see Cox's article) ignore those and rely on vague, second-hand reports to claim otherwise. Pathetic attempt to protect an already great man's legacy by producing lies and trying to re-write history.

I imagine 80 years from now, people will say that Lewis blatantly ducked Bowe, based on second hand reports that never saw the two fight as professionals, and (another classic irrelevant argument) "do you really think it's likely that Bowe ducked Lewis? Naah, can't happen". Some people attempt the same with Dempsey: "There is no way he would've lost to a 37 year light heavyweight". Well guess what, this is boxing, and not everything follows logic. There's also no way Liston loses to a lightheavy or Tyson gets dominated and knocked out by a mediocre contender/gatekeeper.