In front of a crowd of 104,943 that was probably closer to 125,000 by the time the ushers and cops had finished sneaking all their relatives into massive Soldier Field on Lake Michigan's waterfront, Gene Tunney beat Jack Dempsey to retain his heavyweight title. It was the legendary "Long Count" fight, and despite the passage of time, it remains among boxing's most celebrated moments, even though nobody flew into the ring in a machine powered by a fan or bit off anybody's ear. In 1927, the Dempsey-Tunney rematch was a super bowl of sports interest, a Yankees-Red-Sox playoff series multiplied by 10. Dempsey had held the heavyweight title for seven-plus years, from 1919 to 1926, and Tunney had taken it from him 364 days earlier in a fight before an announced 120,757 in a stadium in Philadelphia called Sesquicentennial. According to Mel Heimer's 1969 book, "The Long Count," the gate for the 1926 fight was an unheard-of $1,895,723. A year later, the rematch brought higher ticket prices and a gate of $2,658,660. The rematch drew 1,200 press credentials. Bus drivers around Times Square in New York City sold seats for 50 cents to people wanting to just sit and listen to the radio.
This is when boxing - along with baseball and oddly enough horse-racing - was THE most popular sport in the USA. Now, it is really a "niche" sport, along the lines of hockey or golf. It has many dedicated enthusiasts - like those of us who post on this board, but the general public is not interested, even to the degree they were as recently as the 70s. The only thing that seems to bring massive attention to boxing in the US is a "celebrity" HW like Tyson, who destroys people inside the ring, and does crazy things outside of it. Sad, but true.
Very true, back then it was Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey as the people you looked up too. It seemed back then everybody knew who the champ was, now if you ask someone in the street who holds the belt you might get 1 out 10 who can even name one of the heavywieght champs. While there is certain times were the champ is known by most people in america like Tyson in the late 80s or Holyfield in the early 90s, I realize people dont care about the sweet science as they use to.
The whole thing today seeme to be that if your fellow countrymen aren't in total domination, you say boxing is lousy...but those whose countryman are winning now, say it's as good as ever...same with Tennis..I recall Connors/Smith/Ashe, to name a few, were Americans winning alot, and only Borg was the real threat to the USA players.Today, Tennis is dominated by Euros, and East Euros, so I've noticed that the Newspapers that covered tennis alot back then, do not cover much at all now. Same with boxing...it's not dying, just in USA, because it's not TOTALLY dominated in all weight classes.. :-( :scaredas:
