Verified cases of loaded / tampered gloves?

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by Jackstraw, Jul 2, 2020.



  1. CharlesBurley

    CharlesBurley Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    Plaster is what was found in Margaritos knuckpad and Kearns claimed he used water on the wraps and then plaster on the wraps. This is Kearns account of the handwraps:

    Jack Kearns, Dempsey’s manager, came out with his “confession” in the January 13, 1964 Sports Illustrated, in an article titled, “He didn’t know the gloves were loaded.” The SI story noted that Kearns was a “wily trickster and a ruthless opponent when money was involved.” In his confession Kearns said the following:

    “I had bet $10,000, which we could not afford to lose at 10-1, that Dempsey would win in the first round. If he did we would make a $ 100,000 –equivalent to Willard’s guarantee and substantially more than our own $27,500 guarantee. I had schemed and connived for too many years to let anything go wrong with a bet like that, let alone with the championship of the world. The hell with being a gallant loser I intended to win.”

    “My plan had to do with a small white can sitting innocently among the fight gear on the kitchen table. I poured myself a nightcap and picked up the can, grinning at the neat blue letters on its side. All it said was “Talcum Powder”…I had bought another can of powder. This one was labeled “Plaster of Paris”…I placed the plaster of paris into the talcum powder can and replaced the lid. Set back among the fight gear –the bandages, the Vaseline, the razor blades, the cotton –it looked as innocent as any of them.”

    A witness to each camp was to observe the bandaging of hands as insurance against any shenanigans. Willard’s, chief second, Walter Moynahan was in Dempsey’s dressing room to observe the proceedings.

    According to Kearns this is how he loaded Dempsey’s gloves, “I quickly wound on Dempsey’s bandages under Moynahan’s vigilant inspection. After I finished with the wrappings I turned to Jimmy DeForest, my trainer, and pointed to the water bucket. “Give me that sponge well soaked with water”, I ordered, “I want to keep the kids hands cool.” The sponge, dripping with water, made a sloshing sound as I clamped it to the bandages on Dempsey’s hands. In a moment they were drenched through. “Now the talcum powder,” I directed DeForest, and he passed me the innocent looking can. I sprinkled the contents heavily over the bandages.” Moyhanan made no comment. Dempsey, who was entirely innocent of what had happened, stood there in almost a stupor. I had to smile as a call came to enter the ring.”

    That is how Kearns said he loaded Dempsey’s gloves without the fighter knowing anything about it. But is such a thing possible? One must first ask is it possible for Dempsey to have entered into the ring without gloves, which the film and still photos clearly prove, and the referee and principles not noticing the hardening substance on his hand wraps? More importantly is plaster of paris a good and efficient way to load a pair of gloves?
     
  2. CharlesBurley

    CharlesBurley Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    It's proven they used plaster on the knucklepad/wraps. It isn't necessarily obvious that the wraps/knucklepad is hardened by simplying by seeing it.

    Just go and look at Lujan's ear and tell me that's normal - it seems like it won't let me add images but good Lujan's Ear and tell me that's a normal boxing injury
     
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  3. KO KIDD

    KO KIDD Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    lujans is weird but stephen smith got a nasty injury to his ear too vs Francisco Vargas that looked similar or worse

    They found a plaster type type of substance that was "firm hard" not "rock hard" and that was for the mosley fight

    How easy do you think it is to tamper with wraps and gloves? Margarito was in numerous WBO world title fights in several different states with different commissions and overseers. If he was able to get away with it for so long does that lead you to believe it is rampant in boxing?
     
  4. Berlenbach

    Berlenbach Boxing Addict Full Member

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    They did a test with Cleveland Williams and found that it wasn't very effective because the plaster broke apart as he was punching.

    Remember also that Kearns had an axe to grind with Dempsey. His story has been debunked a number of times.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2020
  5. CharlesBurley

    CharlesBurley Well-Known Member banned Full Member

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    It's still a way of loading the gloves, albeit within the rules. It's legal within NYC if the other party doesn't object. The trainer should object and make the boxer re-wrap their gloves to protect his fighter

    Trinidad actually had 1 glove on, nevermind wrapped when Richardson got there.
     
  6. Cecil

    Cecil Boxing Addict Full Member

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    Absolute bull****.
     
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  7. mcvey

    mcvey VIP Member Full Member

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    Kearns was on the outs with Dempsey and suing him in the courts he was full of crap, he never wrapped Dempsey's hands or doctored them DeForest wrapped them ,and Fleischer watched him do it.
    The plaster of paris trick does not work.
    "Boxing Illustrated conducted an experiment to test whether it was possible to use plaster of paris successfully under fighting conditions. The results were reported in the May 1964 issue of BI, pp 20-24, 66. Hugh Benbow and Perry Payne (manager and trainer of Cleveland Williams) used plaster of paris on Cleveland's hands and reenacted what Kearns said occurred in Dempsey's dressing room. After 35 minutes of toasting to reenact the 114-degree heat of Toledo that day, Cleveland Williams hit the heavy bag five times. Benbow examined the wraps and found that the plaster had cracked and crumbled. "This stuff." said Cleve, "wouldn't do anybody any good."

    The Boxing Illustrated test proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the plaster of paris would not have held up after the first punch, it would have crumbled and left chunks in his mitts and every punch thereafter would have been quite painful and there is little doubt he would have broken his hands. The inventor of the product issued a statement as to the impossibility of using plaster of paris without breaking all the bones in the hands. Dempsey’s hands were not broken and he continued to punch with authority with both hands. This alone dispels the idea that Dempsey’s gloves were loaded with plaster of paris."


    "In 1964 heavyweight contender Cleveland Williams tested the theory by coating his bandages with plaster of paris, toasting them for 35 minutes, and punching the heavy bag five times. The plaster of paris had disintegrated."
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2020
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  8. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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  9. Journeyman92

    Journeyman92 I’m become seeker of milk Full Member

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    You hear “he never had another KO” a lot. The last few reasonable years of his career were as you say his most daunting opponents and also all happened to be panzer tanks.
     
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  10. Saintpat

    Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Glove tampering is really hard now that the filling is a foam pad rather than horsehair, which could be pulled out if you created a hole (a la Panama Lewis with Resto). There’s a technique called ‘skinning’ the glove that’s legal — hard to explain but when you are tying the gloves you cross the two laces high up on the glove (toward the knuckles) and then pull back with it indenting into the glove and it helps pull the padding tighter over the striking surface.

    I’ve also seen people knead the padding to try to make it thinner at the fist surface but with most modern gloves it doesn’t work because it’s one pad under the leather and just reverts back to its original shape.

    With hand wraps, it’s best to have someone from your camp to watch the other guy wrap. Pretty much custom for big fights — title fights and main events — but ask to do it for a 4- or 6-rounder and you’ll get laughed at. You go in and he already has his hands wrapped and the official has signed off and they’ll say ‘sorry, the inspector OK’d it.’

    The thing you have to understand is the inspectors in most cases are pretty clueless. They’ve never wrapped a hand in their life. If they work for a state commission, they probably got appointed because they know somebody who knows somebody and the governor or some high elected official is owed a favor and says ‘put my guy Johnny on the commission’ so they do what they’re told. But the good thing is once they sign over the wrap, you can’t put another strip of tape or anything on because if some of that signature (and they use the marker pen to draw all over it) is covered then you’re in a heap of trouble and will definitely have to re-wrap — and probably get fined or have your state license taken away.

    I’ve been in dressing rooms at fights where there are officials from a sanctioning body like the WBA or USBA or whatever there and they don’t serve as corner or wrap inspectors — that’s for the local commission and the boys from the sanctioning bodies are getting a free vacation to go to the fights and they’re just glad-handing with people and want to meet the name fighters.

    So that’s some examples of how it happens and how things can be done.
     
  11. KO KIDD

    KO KIDD Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Great post good insight

    If you dont mind me asking what commission was it that you dealt with?

    I did a brief stint for USA boxing inspecting wraps in nj amateurs was pretty cool wish id stuck it out
     
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  12. Saintpat

    Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    I’ve been in locker rooms around the South mostly but a few other places (including Russia once, although there was no commission presence) and had fighters fight in a lot of states around the country (from California to Florida to the Northeast and Texas off the top of my head) and also in Canada where I didn’t make the trip. It’s all pretty much the same as far few commission reps (inspectors and such) really having great knowledge — that isn’t to say they wouldn’t notice if someone taped a guy’s fists including knuckle area or used tape instead of gauze, but few could actually wrap a hand if they had to.

    Mississippi, during a time when that state was hosting more world title fights than Vegas and Atlantic City/NY combined (with the rise of casinos when those were legalized) was by far the best and most competent commission I ever dealt with. I was at the show there where they made Oscar de la Hoya cut off his wraps and start over because they wrapped before the inspector had arrived in their locker room — his was actually an RV trailer, the kind a family could make a cross-country trip in — and that was an HBO show where I think both Oscar and Roy Jones Jr fought. Someone told them ‘you’d better wait, they’ll make you redo it’ and Oscar’s people kind of laughed like ‘this backwoods commission won’t have the minerals to tell us what to do’ and when the guy arrived he told them they could either cut them off and start over or he wouldn’t be fighting that night, period.)

    Georgia and Tennessee were pretty weak commissions in my experience as far as competence, Alabama was good in the few towns that had regular fights, so was Louisiana, and Florida was just hit or miss depending on where in the state and who you got (never personally went to Miami but I’d bet they were the best in that state just because of having a lot of experience over a lot of years with bigger fights). Outside the South most of my experiences were one-offs so it would be hard to make sweeping judgments.
     
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