Why is Dempsey vs Firpo highly edited film?

How much was Dempsey helped back into the ring? Its easy for me to believe that they gave him a push off of their typewriters but I highly doubt anyone got up and physically guided him back into the ring. If that were the case then Firpo would have knocked him cold. Dempsey not only survived the rest of the rd but gave a pretty good account of himself in the time following his return to the ring.

Klompton, a noted historian, has shared that he has a friend that attests to seeing the unedited Dempsey-Firpo footage and that Dempsey was out of the ring for no longer than 10 seconds. This is also corroborated by a June 1945 rd by rd account of the fight.

Where are you getting that Dempsey took 20 seconds to get into the ring?

He didn't beat Sharkey because of the low blows, he beat Sharkey with a left hook. Sharkey notoriously wore his trunks pretty high in that fight. Had he worn them at the normal height then those blows wouldn't have been low.

Dempsey's gloves weren't loaded for the Willard fight. This has been debunked countless times.

A fight with Wills or Greb would have been great but it wouldn't have told us much about Dempsey's skills. Wills wasn't that great of a fighter. Greb would have been out muscled and caught by Dempsey before the 10th rd.

The decision losses to Meehan were 4 rdrs. No way Meehan would have beaten Dempsey over 15. Meehan had a style pretty much designed for 4 rdrs and even got the better of Sam Langford at one point. I don't put much stock into those fights.

 

Firpos claim to fame was a devestating clubbing right hand he tended to throw in a downward motion. He did not have much of a left hand.

 

It's called exaggeration.

 

Hyperbole, I know. But it is used to indicate a predisposition in this case that would indeed make his victories appear far more difficult for him than if he was a more versatile ambidextrous fighter.

 

In boxing when we say two handed fighter we mean that the fighter can punch well and has good skills with every punch from either hand.

When we say a guy is one handed it means he relied mainly on one hand to score knockouts and wins. Like Joe Frazier. He's pretty much regarded as a one handed fighter even though he used his right hand in every fight.

Firpo was a one handed fighter in regard to his right hand. He scored his knockouts with it and pretty much based his entire game around that overhand right.

Make sense?

 

Thanx for the detailed explanation. But I understood you perfectly the first time. I was merely going along with the hyperbole by using hyperbole myself and assumed you would understand it that way. In the rhetorical area, it's called going along with the context.

 

Here are relevant excerpts from an interesting article from the New York Times November 21, 1923 off an AP report from Buenos Aires-----

Defending himself for failure to protest the alleged violation of the rules governing the contest by Jack Dempsey during Dempsey's recent fight with Luis Angel Firpo at the Polo Grounds in New York, Horatio Lavelle, Firpo's chief second, in a statement printed by La Nacion today, declares that during the first round he attempted to enter the ring to lodge a protest, but that he was forcibly prevented from doing so by two members of the boxing commission.

Continuing the statement said that when Firpo knocked Dempsey out of the ring the referee did not begin to count immediately, and that eighteen seconds elapsed before Dempsey was on his feet again.

(later in the article Willam Muldoon replied)

"These reports concerning Lavelle, I think, are ridiculous. It strikes me as funny that neither Firpo nor Lavelle nor anyone connected with the South American entered any complaint on the bout, its conduct, or any feature of the match, either during, immediately after, or the day following the bout."

"On the matter of the count when Dempsey was knocked out of the ring we must stand by our referee. He was appointed by the commission, and the commission, in making such an appointment, assumed full responsibility. Possibly the referee made mistakes in handling the bout. I do not deny that possibility. But the accuracy of the count cannot be questioned since an official knockdown timekeeper attends to this according to the evidence of a certified timer's watch."

*Lavelle's reason for not protesting was because of "The laws existing in the United States which provide severe punishment for a statement which might injure the interests of an enterprise."

 

My own take

1----this article does show that in Argentina there was controversy way back in 1923.

2----Lavelle doesn't impress me as all that credible. Sounds like the usual excuses.

3----It is interesting to me that Muldoon does not mention any 20 second rule. I would deduce from this that such a rule was not in effect at this time in New York State. Otherwise Muldoon could point out that Dempsey simply made it back into the ring in time and Lavelle didn't know the rules. Instead he relied on the timekeeper.

 

The highlighted piece was not in the rule book when the Dempsey Firpo fight took place neither was a 20 count allowed before or after it had been amended in NY State. source Randy Roberts and Nat Fleischer! The amendment to the rule stated clearly'
" Any boxer who is knocked out of the ring is required to return within ten seconds under his own power."

Apart from the tear in his anus for which he later had a small operation, Dempsey hurt his hip on a table as he struggled to get upright and this plagued him in later life when he could be seen using a stick to get around. I repeat, Dempsey was back in the ring, on his feet at the count of NINE. Later reviewing of the You Tube clip provided shows Dempsey back in the ring at3 ,on his feet fighting back at 4!

 

I can see from that film that there's absolute continuity between the close view and long view. The referee and Firpo are in exactly the same position and motion.
Nothing's missing. Nothing edited out.
Dempsey got straight back in.

 

Fripo? lol. Dempsey was back in the ring on his feet at the count of 9 according to Randy Roberts.
Roger Kahn says 3 or 4,film suggests Kahn is right!

Article 4 of the Queensbury rules says,"If either man falls through weakness or otherwise he must get up unassisted" There was no provision for a fighter being knocked out of the ring.
The newsreel cameras were focused on the ring not the ringside seats.

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The stick you wanted to beat Dempsey with just broke!"

 

Yes they are!