Training Dempsey for Fulton

THE CHAMPION MAKER * A Series of Articles by Jimmy De Forest * The World’s Greatest Trainer * 1923 * ARTICLE X

The second stage of my training of Jack Dempsey is developing him into the world beater who faced Willard at Toledo was when he was matched to fight Fred Fulton.

Fulton, long and rangy, with a terrific blow, a big reach and a heart, had been much talked of as the legitimate candidate for championship honors, and there were negotiations under way to have him to meet Willard. But these fell through. There was big popular demand at that time, however, for a battle of big men, and thus it was that Jack got his chance to go against Fulton, and when he did so to put himself on the map in a most sensational manner as a man to be considered when future heavyweights might be discussed.

Jack had done well in the Middle West but afterwards he had made a trip to his old home and to the Pacific coast, where I had heard he had been holding reunions with his old friends, even some of those whom he had known when riding the blind baggage and tramping the roads as a youth. I had received word that I was to have Jack to work on again, and this news had made me uneasy as to what might have happened to him—fears that he had been having too many good times and would report to my Long Branch camp completely out of condition.

But when Jack arrived all these fears went into the discard. He may have enjoyed himself with his old pals, but not in ways that would knock him out of shape. He was as big, clean, strong and healthy as ever, and while he had not been in hard training was in the best of condition to start in with again.

Taught Finer Tricks of Game.

This time I had a fair chance to work with him and over him and teach him the finer tricks of the game. There were to be six weeks of training and a lot can be done for the right man—a man with championship stuff in him, in that time.

As soon as I got him to work in the gym I found that he had forgotten nothing of whatever I had taught him regarding the straightening, and shortening of his punches, and he amazed me at the speed which he showed in punching the heavy bag. He had nearly become then what he later became, and that is the fastest bag puncher of any heavy that ever lived. He was readier with his left hand than ever.

The big point that I undertook to bring out in him then, and which has proved one of his greatest assets in the ring, was the training of his punches with a strict view to peculiar shoulder development. Jack has not the characteristic shoulders of a boxer. Such boxers as Corbett and McCoy, Fitzsimmons and Johnson had long, sloping, very flexible shoulder muscles.

Has Shoulders Like Wrestler.

Dempsey’s are bulgier and built largely on top. He has the shoulders of a wrestler. But there was tremendous power growing there and he was becoming the master of short hook and swing I put in much time teaching him to work his blows by throwing his body forward while I developed his wrist and forearm muscles.

In accomplishing this I used almost entirely the mechanism I have already mentioned—the wooden upright bar built in three sections like a telescope drawn out. The hands are first clasped around a narrow handle then an upper thicker handle, then around a third handle far too thick for the hand to clasp entirely. The fighter twists and twists at these handles winding a rope that is drawing up a heavy weight.

The result of this was to give Dempsey terrific power in his forearms, and develop a hitting style in Dempsey different than that possessed by any other fighter. Out of it his marvelously swift right to the body, his lightning right hook to the jaw and his always surprising left hook to the jaw—a left hook with K.O. force in it equal to that of his right. Those are his three best punches.

Head Roll Improvement.

Another important weapon I gave him in this second training in my Long Branch camp was not of attack but of defense. It was an improvement on the English head roll. At least I thought it was, and Dempsey will tell you himself of its high value. The idea is never give your opponent a set target at your chin or any part of your face. The English were trained to do it by keeping up a constant circular motion of the face. But my way was to keep my man rocking his head from side to side like the pendulum of a clock.

That does more than merely mystify an opponent. It also means that your head is loosely held and that fact greatly lessons the effect of any blow put on it. It also strengthens the muscles of the neck to resist the shocks of blows. One of the reasons which allowed Battling Nelson to bear the brunt of the heaviest attacks and outwear many abler men in the boxing line was that he carried a heavyweight’s neck on a lightweight’s body. I think he wore something like a seventeen collar.

I found Dempsey unspoiled by promises of greater success in the ring then he had ever dreamed of attaining. I am sure, when he first came as a raw kid into Grupp’s gymnasium and later when I was giving him his first real training when he found a manager in the astute Kearns. It was genuine friendliness that grew up between us and continued to grow that not only helped him but continued to bring out in me the best I had.

Also Developed Body.

It wasn’t only in working in the gym and putting him through several paces by which I added his development, but I carried away with me nights the picture in my mind of the big fellow’s body and studied it at every point see where else a new strength in his physique might lie.

I never worried about his legs, but carry little supercilious flesh and I tried them out and found them to be tireless. Besides that, sometimes when we got on the round he would show off to me the speed he had in them. And I can set it down that when the ring got Dempsey a great runner was lost to that other branch of sport. Jack Dempsey can run like a deer. I never clocked him exactly, but I have seen great runners go and he could have developed to give the best of them the speediest rumbles of their lives.

I turned him out of my Long Branch camp as confident that he was going beat Fulton as if Jack was going to meet a six-month-old baby.