Why is Dempsey vs Firpo highly edited film?

Not many admit to getting it wrong , and not many are prepared to fight the corner in the interests of truth, of a fighter they don't particularly admire. Respect!


If this agenda driven thread has accomplished anything it has made us all examine the circumstances surrounding and the subsequent actions of the participants during that famous event.

However, I think our conclusions must be a bitter disappointment to the thread maker,who has a history of character assassination of Dempsey and of disparaging him at every opportunity . I am gratified the opinions formed from this discussion have been objective and without agenda,[with the glaring exception of the originator,] and I have been motivated to take another look at the fight myself so ,"alls well that ends well".

 

You flatter me ,I'm just a fan,but the rest of your post is the truth.

 

I don't get too invested in the Dempsey threads (or Johnson or Jeffries etc) as there seems to be a lot of vagueness and inconsistency with many of the happenings and controversies and much will never be known to say the least. You seem to know a lot of the facts, a lot of the BS and what may or may not be uncertain. You'd have to be extremely well read to get such a feel for the time.

Knowing that this actual fight brought about a couple of rule changes and the who and why of it was an ace in the hole. Barely anyone would have known this.

 

I knew Dempsey was down 3 times ,the 1st wasn't counted as a KD,in the interests of balance I counted it.
Why are you posting the Queensbury rules yet again? I learned them 50 odd years ago. There was no provision for a man being out of the ring when the highlighted section was introduced .I don't know how many times you have been told this but I'm aware you are very slow on the up take.

What you learned is that your obvious attempt to further traduce Jack Dempsey ended in abject failure.

Which has made it all worthwhile for me!
I look forward to your next abortive effort!

 

On that Argentine article. One confusing point is that Leo Britton is described as the general manager of RKO in Argentina. This certainly is imprecise at best, as RKO was formed in October of 1928, five years after this fight.

It also has Dempsey all but helpless at the end of the 1st round, but the film clearly undercuts that.

A logical weakness is where did they get the 17 seconds from? Even if the film were edited at this point, which it doesn't appear to have been, how could one tell how much was edited out? Who exactly in the heat of the moment pulled out a stopwatch to time how long it took Dempsey to get back? Seems very unlikely to me.

 

"Rickard admitted to having that section clipped"

I don't think so. He is quoted as giving an "emphatic denial" that the film was tampered with.

A question from a reporter ASSUMED that there was tampering--"What happened to the missing link of the picture?"

But I think Rickard implied there was nothing missing. "I understand that the cameraman from a morning paper happened to get in the way of the machine poked the way to take the Dempsey fall."

The way I understand this is that as the motion picture cameraman was trying to swing the camera to follow Dempsey, the camera bumped into a newspaper cameraman who was trying to take a picture and therefore couldn't swing far enough to catch the out of the ring action.

Given the pandemonium of the moment, with everyone excited and jumping about, this is plausible for me. The whole thing was over in seconds.

Why didn't Rickard directly reply to the assumption of editing? Well, that might not have been the exact wording of the question asked. Or he just didn't grasp the implication.

I wouldn't draw the conclusion Rickard admitted tampering when he gave an emphatic denial.

Thank you very much for printing this article.

 

"Flynn had Dempsey down 3 times"

No. Dempsey went down once and was counted out according to ALL the ringside reports. Only Dempsey himself in his various memoirs came up with the three (or I think actually four) knockdown scenarios. The towel getting tossed into the ring also did not happen. Dempsey was counted out about 20 seconds into the fight.

As for your point about Dempsey's defense, I think it worth discussion.

 

McVey

One thing I have to say about his thread. A few days ago I would have considered that the Dempsey-Firpo film was edited at the point in which Dempsey went out of the ring and scrambled back. Now I am pretty certain that it wasn't edited at that point and that Dempsey actually got back into the ring rather quickly, in about 5 seconds.

Also, thanks largely to your input, I tend now to dismiss the idea that the referee should have DQ'd Dempsey for being "helped" back into the ring.

 

I think if Tunney were here today he would certainly disagree with you. In fact he did while he was still alive!

 

Sorry EM you're getting mixed up because of Mendoza's effort to create more controversy,here is my post on this thread and it refers to the Firpo fight.

"I knew Dempsey was down 3 times ,the 1st wasn't counted as a KD,in the interests of balance I counted it."



As far as I am aware Dempsey got tagged by Flynn went down and that was it,thats what the newspapers said anyway.Dempsey remembered it differently in later years, but I'll go with the reporters take on it.

 

Tunney said Dempsey was always well covered around the chin and hard to catch cleanly.

 

I agree ,I don't think anything has been edited John Thomas and others have pointed out the continuity of the action,the referee's arm going up and down, and Dempsey returning to the ring .Dempsey was back in the ring on the count of 3 and on his feet, in fighting stance at 4. This has been a worthwhile debate ,[even though the originator of it didn't get the result he expected or desired.]

 

"Sorry EM you're getting mixed up"

No. My reply was to Mendoza retrograding to Flynn knocking Dempsey down several times and Bernie throwing in the towel, neither of which happened.

Anything you posted at any time was not part of my reply.