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EPISODE: Episode 1
In this episode of Ring Talk with Lou Eisen, we dive deep into the historic 1921 heavyweight title bout between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier at Boyles Thirty Acres in New Jersey. Discover how this epic showdown not only captivated the world but also attracted the Mob’s attention, leading to their influence over the boxing world. Join us as we relive this iconic moment in boxing history and explore its lasting impact on the sport. Don’t miss out on this thrilling tale! ? Subscribe to our channel for more boxing insights and stories from Lou Eisen! ?
#JackDempsey #GeorgesCarpentier #BoxingHistory #HeavyweightTitleBout #RingTalkWithLouEisen #BoylesThirtyAcres #BoxingLegends #MobInfluence #1921Fight #BoxingStories
Transcribed
[, Music, ] foreign talk and and the photo you saw at the beginning of George carpanche curled up in the feet of position July, 2nd 1921.
.
It was at Boyle’s, 30 Acres, um, uh Stadium, boxing Stadium, George Jack Dempsey had just demolished him.
In fact, I think in the first I think it was second round he hit down.
He dropped dancing with the right hand, Dempsey got up immediately, but of course, carpentry broke his hand in four places.
Uh Dempsey used to soak his chin in beef brine for seven.
Eight hours at a time, so it was very tough skin he’d soak his hands and uh.
He was just unbeatable.
At this point he was much bigger than George carpanche and this is an interesting fight.
It’S a Salient point in boxing history, because it’s the fight that we’re that way.
This is the fight where the mafia, boxing organized crime, looked at boxing as another Racket and thought we’re going to take control because the money’s worth it now.
Previous to that um there had been other fights uh that where the outcome had that this fight was not fixed, but there had been fights where the outcome was fixed or it was dubious or someone hadn’t told one of the fighters and the judges and the referee Were paid to score it a certain way so for for – and you see this on, my sub stack blue eyes and Dot substack.
com, I’m doing a four-part series called uh the mob unboxing, and the thing here is uh, for instance, in um I think 1889.
It was uh Buffett Timmons, it became the light heavy the heavyweight champ.
He was also light heavyweight in middleweight Jim, but he became the World level 8 Champion uh when he knocked out years later.
James J Corbett, however, he’s finding a guy named sailor, Tom Sharkey, another heavyweight who was wasn’t that skilled but was skilled with using his head and and budding in that, and it was supposed to be legit fight, Carson City Nevada.
The referee was wider, the famous Marshall, who was never of Grace by a single bullet in his entire life, unbeknownst to Fitzsimmons uh Dan Long, the manager of um Tom Sharkey sailor, Tom Sharkey it.
What happened was uh.
He went to to Herb or the Herb claim that never happened, but there were witnesses there because it happened in the lobby of the hotel um offered herb instead of whatever he was getting 300 or 200 to referee.
The fight offered him something like 2500.
If he would disqualified Fitzsimmons in the eighth round, so what happens is they’re fighting that Simmons is just beating the hell out of a Sharky Fitzsimmons was, I think, six one and six two Cherokee was five.
Seven.
Five, eight and Fitzsimmons used his Long Reach, and you know Fitzsimmons from the waist down was like a bantamweight and the way he stopped.
He was a heavyweight, he was like a stevedore, and so he he was pounding in broken Sharky’s nose knocked out.
His teeth dropped him several times.
He was playing with them at this point, didn’t like each other and fitzsim is thought rather than knock him out I’ll just play with him and make him suffer I’ll, punish him and in the eighth round he was moving backwards.
He had double jab hit a right hand to show up.
He right on the chin and Sharky went down and as he went down, he rolled over grabbed his groin and wired up while time went to the corner, spoke to both corners and said, I’m disqualifying for Simmons for a low blow.
Now the audience went nuts because it wasn’t a low blow like it was a long distance right hand clearly on the jaw, and everyone wanted to get in the ring the terror apart and then he pulled back his jacket, revealing his uh six shooters on each side.
On in his holsters, at which point the audience quieted down, so that was that had nothing to do with the mob that was Sharky’s manager, fixing the fight in favor.
It was a fighter.
There was another fight in San Francisco around that time.
Between Barbados, Joe Walcott, the world welterweight, champ and George kid Levine and Levine was an all-time great fighter and they fought many times and one fight.
His ear almost came off, that’s a badly wall cut, beat him, but in this fight they’ve been told by local criminals and gamblers in San Francisco, They said Walcott’s going to go down grabbing my coffee uh for good in the 11th round and gamblers made that decision, Because Walcott was a favorite, so they bet on Levine and they figured they could fix the fight.
But during the fight Walcott said to his manager, uh Tom O’Rourke, who also man, was George Dixon, we’re not I’m not going to give in to this to hell with them.
One of the gamblers walked up to uh O’Rourke during 11th round put a gun in his ribs, pulled back the cocked the trigger and said I’ll kill you right now I’ll tell you know I’ll blow your stomach out and I’ll blow your brains out and him this Guy goes down, this is uh during the 11th round.
He doesn’t fight another minute and after the round O’Rourke climbs up and says, listen the guy pulled a gun on me.
He’S going to kill us both and immediately Walcott says I broke my arm.
I can’t continue and Levine wins to fight.
Levine wins the fight difference between this and mob fights between those two fights is these were local criminals, local people that didn’t have National Power difference between that and the mafia.
Controlling boxing was the mafia was a criminal multi-multi-national, conglomerate, criminal organization that controlled the sport from coast to coast and north and south.
They had enough mobsters and killers, and people and promoters and Fighters, and managers and trainers, and not so much trainers.
But you know, officials from each state commission and also referees and judges under their thumb where they could do what they want, because these people weren’t going to challenge them.
Their word was law now before 1921, before the Dempsey, carpanche fight um.
The Mamba considered doing this, but it wasn’t worth their while guys were making.
You know.
Tommy Burns got what 30 grand, which was a lot then for beating Jack Johnson, but then the mob.
You know the feeling of guys are getting 15 or 30 grand as a heavyweight champ to fight the effort, we’re going to put into hiring the muscle and the people to intimidate them and to look at after the deal it’s going to come out costing us more Than we’re actually going to make it’s not worth it at this point.
So at this point the Czar of boxing is still in prison.
Only Madden only imagine still in prison hasn’t come out to 1923, but he’s Allied himself with Frank Costello and the capital of the tuticapi uh Lucky Luciano and mayor Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.
You know and they’re talking they come to visit him and they’re saying you know.
The gate was one million, eight hundred thousand for the Dempsey, garponche fight, plus with the concessions and the booze.
I mean you’re well over 2 million.
At that point, the mob was like.
Well that’s worth it that’s worth stealing the money.
You know for millions of dollars and of course, Dempsey was so exciting after he beat uh Jess Willard he’s exciting.
When he beat Whitley July 4th 1919.
Dempsey raised a limit late.
You know you have the debt ceiling in the United States government.
All governments have that he raised a limit.
There was no such thing as a salary cap with Dempsey came bigger money for everyone.
It didn’t happen again until Ali came by, but with Dempsey the money went up in the heavyweight division, which means the money went up in all the divisions.
So uh Dempsey is the reason for this, and so the mob looks at the fight with carpanche and new thing and how they know what the gate would be.
Well, when the fight is set, I mean Dempsey’s already fought, there’s no one! That’S going to beat him he’s he’s knocked everyone out and text record the promoter.
He sets his fight up and he’s saying to everyone.
Well, you know he’s building it as a war hero, because carpanche was a flying ace in World War.
One Dempsey didn’t fight because he was, he really was the Lone source of money for his entire family, but he was looked upon as a slacker which he wasn’t, and so they had it as a war.
The French war hero against the American slacker – and that was a lot primarily that that angle was built by his manager Kearns, who couldn’t care less about Dempsey.
He just cared about making money.
If Dempsey was the way he was going to make money, then that’s? How he’s going to do it? He took Dempsey to the title, not only by leveraging Dempsey’s knockout power into press to get a more press and more demands for better fights, but also because he knew that you know as he’s moving up, he needed the muscle, the mob muscle in various cities, to Get certain fighters in the ring and we’ll uh current that his whole career with Joey Maxim, Mickey Walker, you know and other Fighters, so what happens is? Is we get this fight made now? In reality, Kar panchay’s chances of beating Dempsey were Slimmer than Twiggy for the Tex Rickard and this fight is they were going to have it originally at Yankee, Stadium or or you know, the Yankee Stadium excuse me.
They were going to have it at Madison Square Garden, which held between 16 and 18 000 people.
But within a week of the announcement, he’s already got.
45 50 000 offers receipts, people are sending money and we want seats.
He doesn’t want to return the money and it keeps going up.
Sixty thousand seats, seventy thousand seats, you know, eighty thousand, and so he realizes I need a big Stadium.
I got ta build it and this is during prohibition.
Now this is prohibition.
Is the stupidest thing? The American government ever did it was a group with small right-wing minority, Republicans and Democrats trying to legislate morality.
It was the best thing that ever happened to the Mob, because overnight the mob went from being a criminal organization operating in various cities.
You know in New York, they controlled the store Club, they control different rackets, they control the unions, but they would also fight for labor during a strike uh.
They control the linen racket, the meat racket, the controlled restaurants, Dutch Schultz, controlled all that and uh with prohibition.
Mary Lansky said years later they were taken aback by prohibition because they thought they’d be making a couple hundred thousand a year.
Instead, each year they’re making hundreds and hundreds of millions, so lanski said it would just stunned us.
We had to op.
We had to organize along the lines of Ford and Chrysler and U.
S steel.
You know with JP Morgan and and and with with uh Esso uh um.
You know with John D Rockefeller, not with them, but organized their company organized a mob to such a minute.
In such minute details because the money was coming in such vast amounts of money, they weren’t prepared to make that much, so they had to hide it in other rackets, and one of them was boxing.
Boxing was easy to take over because there was no Central commission.
You know today, when you look at the NFL there’s a league with a with uh uh.
You know, president.
The NFL president of the NHL president of the NBA Central heck boxing still doesn’t have one Central head anywhere.
They have a series of corrupt criminal sanctioning bodies like the WBC, ibf, WBA WBO all run by criminals, and then you have the State athletic commissions which existed back then and which are just run by paid appointees.
Who take money to do whatever they’re told to do by promoters, and so this happened back then and Rickard need to build this stadium.
So I’m going to relate this all to one single point.
So Rickard needs to build the stadium.
Well, he’s going to need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars he’s got to get it done in six to eight weeks.
Who’S got that kind of disposable income back then that they would lend to him Ford’s not going to do it Morgan’s, J.
P Morgan’s, not going to look at him and say I’m not getting into boxing you’re low likes.
You know, Roosevelt, wouldn’t do it.
None of them would do it.
No bank would do it who had that kind of disposable income the mob, so you had to borrow mob money and then he also took money from future promoter and a successor, uh Mike Jacobs, Mike Jacobs, was the top scalper in the world and what he did Was he he scalped tickets, not just for boxing, but for baseball for hockey for theater for music, Whatever, Whenever there was an event to be held anywhere? Excuse me, Jacob’s, bought all the tickets and scalped them, so he loaned record money.
The other thing about getting money from the mob was they can guaranteed to be labor Peace, So Boyle’s 30 Acres was built quickly.
We have the stadium there, they have a fight card, they’d see all the money that’s coming in and the mob is thinking.
This is a good idea.
It’S a great idea because now, with the hundreds of millions, hundreds and hundreds of millions were making from from prohibition, we can use that money to take over other rackets.
Boxing was easy back then, to take over who was going to have the guts and the backbone to um to stand up to um um, oh hey Tom, who has the guts in the back I’m going to stand up to the Mob.
I mean who would no one would because the mob didn’t take any prisoners.
They were either going to kill you, you know or beat you up or intimidate YouTube.
It was always a threat of violence that work for them more than violence, but they wouldn’t hesitate to resort to violence.
There’S always that threat that would back them off.
You know people in boxing.
They can’t go to the police.
Please don’t care.
Police are on the mob’s payroll, so are people in the DA’s office who’s going to do anything? No one’s going to do anything so carpanchay fights, uh, Dempsey, carpanche is an interesting character.
Correct ponche’s, Manor manager of Francois DeShawn uh was also connected with the French mob, and so when he beat battling Seiki, you know he had the French mob behind him.
So you look at and then you look at uh Primo carnera years later, where people said you know when it came to the United States, the mafia destroyed him and stole his money right, but the French Bob was stealing off canara and robbing him before he even Got the United States kindera owned only 65 of himself by the time he stepped on American soil? So we get back to this fight.
Dempsey’S managers, Jack doc, Kearns and they did not get along because what would happen is if Dempsey was guaranteed a million dollars or 500 or 800 000.
This is before the depression.
The check would always go to occurrence.
So he’d get the check for 800 Grand and he’d split it with Dempsey, give Dempsey 400 000.
he’d take 400 000.
, but most of the time during the career.
What happens? Well, he’d, give Dempsey 75 and said I’ll owe you the other 325.
because Kearns? What was an addicted gambler and he kept blowing their money and Dempsey had had enough Dempsey just said you know in the real world people like you get killed for this.
You can’t do that, and so Rickard said to him.
You just I’ll just write the checks to you, which is why Kearns eventually left him and Dempsey when they went to court said.
Listen, he’s suing me because I’m not giving him my part of the paycheck, which belongs to me, which is ridiculous.
Okay, panchi comes over to the United States, he’s training in the states, training, there’s women there watching him that are throwing their panties and their bras up into the ring.
When he goes back to his hotel.
He opens the door and there’s naked women that don’t know each other waiting in bed for him, so he was looked at as a war hero and a sex symbol.
All I know is that these women are waiting in bed.
I don’t know what happened next, but I can guess I I’ve never had that experience, because if you look at me, I’m an incredibly ugly man but but it would be hard to imagine any man looking at that and thinking I’m training for a fight.
I can’t do this well, maybe once so carpanche wasn’t unskilled, he was a really good fighter.
He knew what to do and he knew how to fight Dempsey.
He just wasn’t physically big enough to fight Dempsey, and you know when the fight starts.
Carpanche comes out and one of the bad things about the film in the fight.
It’S it’s, they filmed it at a speed back then which no longer exists.
So it’s like yo baseball things where the ball comes picked.
You know the thing and then like that and you’re thinking.
Well, he just ran the bases in under four seconds: that’s not possible, and so you see carpanche get knocked down referees like one two, three, four five, six, seven, eight nine and then he jumps up so kapanche uh is holding his own.
He knows he can’t.
He can’t Dempsey’s got longer arms and he’s powerful and he’s going to come after him.
He can’t fight him from a distance he’s just not strong enough to fight him from distance as strange as it seems and you’re finding a guy.
That’S that much more powerful you’re! Better off closer in because you’re, taking away his room to punch, if you can take away Dempsey’s room to punch, he might have a chance, even if you can move him backwards.
The problem, of course, is he couldn’t move him backwards.
Um Dempsey was brilliant in close and knew how to throw punches in clothes.
Even when people got closer to empty and held his arms, he was an expert at wiggling, free and getting one arm free and hitting you with an uppercut and Dempsey’s fists were like getting hit with anfields.
He was an incredibly strong man and they said Dempsey and samuelist and were the only people that writers ever saw that could hit a heavy bag like it was a speed bag.
You know so this is a guy with absolutely crushing phenomenal power and carpancha comes out and he’s doing his best and they’re trading punches and he’s landing on Dempsey and before the fight text.
Worker comes into Dempsey’s, dress, room and says to him: don’t kill him, don’t kill him whatever you do.
Don’T kill him.
Okay, there’s a lot of people here, the gates, almost 2 million.
Let the fight go six seven eight rounds.
This was not uncommon.
A lot of Fighters, Sam Langford, George Dixon, Benny, Leonard Jack, Johnson, mostly black Fighters.
But some white Fighters too, had to agree before a fight that they weren’t going to kill their opponent or knock them out early, because the fans paid money and they might ride.
If the fight goes 30 seconds so they’d have to let the other guy win some rounds and then, after a while the manager would say.
Okay, it’s been eight nine rounds.
Go ahead.
You can do what you want.
Dempsey didn’t know any limits in in the ring with sparring partners or with anyone.
So when writers um uh, like I think, Paul gallico got in the ring with him to see what it’s like to get hit by Dempsey Dempsey, said just walk away: don’t come in and try to land a punch because I can’t hold back and he landed a Punch and then Dempsey hit him in the chin and he woke up about two hours later and he had a great story, but he had a sore head.
So Dempsey was just a brutal puncher every punch he landed.
He knew what he was doing.
It was deliberate where he placed it and he did damage he’d hit you in the arm and break bones into your arm.
He break cartilage and he he was just a brutal puncher and a body puncher I mean you, the fight starts and maybe 90 seconds.
In he’s already broke into a carpentry’s ribs, he just leans in and hammers him to the ribs.
He ignores his head and you know, and now carpanchi’s got to bring his arms down to protect his broken ribs.
How does he protect his face? He’S got to keep moving back, he’s mostly grabbing and hugging Dempsey and walking him around the ring and years later watching the fight.
Someone said to him, while you’re hanging on there, you know to survive the round and he said no, I’m hanging on to survive.
My life, I wasn’t in fear of losing the round if someone had said I’ll, tell you what you can live, but you have to lose the round.
I would have said absolutely give him all the rounds.
He said it wasn’t the round.
I was afraid of losing it wasn’t until I got in the ring with him and realized how strong he was that I that I could very well lose my life that That’s How Strong demand was, and you got to give carpentry credit because he’s standing there getting Hammered and he’s thinking well – and this is what trainers always say to their Fighters – he’s beating the hell out of me.
I might as well throw a punch I’m getting paid.
You know why not throw a punch back in anger and he starts landing on Dempsey and you see he’s staggering Dempsey.
At times I mean carpanche was quick, he was quicker than Dempsey, a lot of people were quicker or faster than Dempsey.
Dempsey was quick at recognizing weaknesses, mistakes that a fighter made in capitalizing on them.
That quicker is different than faster.
So and it didn’t matter if you’re faster than Dempsey, because eventually he’d have to land at least one punch and that one punch, he’d land would be all it ever took to get someone out of there or injure them to the extent that they no longer wanted To continue, you know, when Dempsey won, the ring Dempsey started his career fighting four rounders.
He came up from four rounds to six to eight to ten, but he said those were tough times.
He was starving back then, and so he said winning.
If I don’t win, I don’t eat literally no one’s going to give me any money.
You get some money to participate, but it wouldn’t last long and a lot of times it’d be winner.
Take all so.
You know no choice and when Dempsey started, he you know he left his home and from Colorado in Colorado and Manassas the Manasseh he he left there at 16 and so Dempsey had a very, very high pitched voice like Jiminy Cricket, you know or Mickey Mouse.
So he’d go into these hobo jungles, and I’ve discussed this before a miners camps and say who wants to fight when I take all, and people literally would laugh for four or five minutes and they would go and give him money and say that was funny kid.
We needed to laugh thank you, I’m not kidding.
I can beat up any of you bombs and, of course you know if he had 500 fights, he won probably 498 of them because he knew how to fight, but he always from every fight.
He learned something and every town he went to the local boxer, he picked up something and he learned something and he was a master at balance and leverage, and it was Doc currency Psalm during these years and saw what he could be and how exciting he was In the ring at times and turned him into this knockout Giant and uh, his train of Jimmy DeForest had a lot to do with that too, and Dempsey had great balance, great leverage, you know how to balance himself to take a shot, and he knew how to Balance himself to deliver his shot and when you balance, when you take a shot, you Defuse The Power of the shot through your legs.
But when you’re throwing a punch and you’re on balance, you get your entire weight, so Dempsey never weighed more than 186 188.
For a fight, but it’s like getting hit in the head with a 188 pound baseball bat, you know that’ll take your head off.
That could kill you, and so he wins the title.
In 1919 he beats the doomed Billy mesco had kidney disease and um okay.
So Tom says uh how much you like? Would you say, Dempsey and lamado or in fighting styles um? That’S a good question.
Dempsey was different than lamanna.
He was a heavyweight.
Lamada was a middleweight.
As we know, um LaMotta was much more skilled than people gave him credit for, but he he couldn’t fight at a distance because he was too small.
Lamada had to get in close and also the Mata.
Let emotion get into it at times he was angry and hungry and wanted to really injure his opponent, get in there and give him a beating because of all the injustices he had suffered.
Dempsey emotion, never entered into it.
He was calm, cool and collected, and he and he was as good on defenses.
He wasn’t.
Offense and Dempsey looked at it strategically before the fight.
What’S the best way, I can fight this guy to beat him, and so Dempsey would get guys in to mimic the other guys that he was fighting lamada never did that lamada just went in there to beat the hell out of you, but LaMotta was smart.
He knew how to block shots.
Lamada Dempsey had a great gym, but I think LaMotta May and basilio, but maybe lamada had the best chin.
Ever I mean him and chavalo lamanna could take a good shot and you know when you saw Ray Robinson go after him and and their fight 1951 February 14th Robinson hit hundreds of flush shots in the chin and lamada’s knees.
Never buckled.
So la motto is a different kind of offensive fighter too lamada concentrated on the body and he would hold you in place with his shoulders and then bring it up to the head.
Dempsey could do that, but Dempsey could do it from a distance and and LaMotta used short shots to the body and hooks Dempsey also used uppercuts left hook to liver, you know and then he would throw a left, uppercut and or left hook and then a right Hook, LaMotta rarely jab Dempsey, always jabbed his wing in because he knew jab is a great way to disguise the right hand.
Um yes, atlas there.
They just don’t make photos like that anymore.
Dempsey was a Savage yeah Dempsey.
You know, Dempsey really was unlike any other funny because Dempsey, you know today guys will fight and they’ll train five six he’s trained seven weeks and when you look at Dempsey’s early career, you know he’d fight a guy, you know June 2nd, you know 1914.
Then you fight him again June 10th 1914 and he fighted him again June 15th.
1914.
.
He he would just keep fighting and fighting and fighting these guys and when he would train for the bigger fights he didn’t, take the weekends off like some well, it’s the weekend.
So we don’t train this.
We can’t I’ll just rest Dempsey, trained 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, seven days a week for every fight, that’s what he did and he wasn’t going to lose because of conditioning and so Dempsey was the guy.
They would say.
Well, how many, how many sit-ups did James Jeffries do? Well, he would do 150, Dempsey would say well I’ll do 800.
and he would do 800 sit-ups and then he’d do 800 push-ups, and then he do 800 chin-ups and how many miles to Jack Johnson run.
He ran eight or nine miles, good I’ll, run 15 to 20.
and 15.
There 15 back, so Dempsey was in phenomenal shape and he wanted the best Spartan Partners, but Dempsey paid more because Dempsey’s sparring partners knew that Dempsey wasn’t going to hold back.
He was in there to hurt you, you know he was.
He wanted to be fighting in the ring and training like he was in the real world.
You know in a real fight.
Dempsey would soak his chin for hours in beef brine in his hands, and you know when he fought Willard uh Kearns, who needed money later on, lied and said well.
Well, you know he had his hands and plaster of Paris that was complete, BS Angelo Dundee and Chris Dundee told me if your hands are in plaster of Paris.
You know how heavy that is, you couldn’t lift your arms and, if you, and if you grab your arm with your other hand and hit something, you would break your bones into a thousand pieces and, as Chris Gundy told me, he didn’t need plaster of Paris.
He soaked his hands in beef, brine, all the time, hours and hours and hours on end.
He said his hands without wraps or gloves, were as tough as an anfield, and then you add the wraps and of course, for the Willing fight, Dempsey’s or Willard’s trainer.
Walter Moynihan is in the dressing room, watch him get taped and he signs off on it and then he’s in the ring watching him gloved up.
If he’s having something wouldn’t have allowed people to film on her or film it or photograph it and so his hands.
He never loaded his hands, he didn’t need to load its hands when he worked the heavy bag or the speed bag.
He did it with bare hands.
He didn’t need to put special gloves on they existed, but he didn’t need to put them on because his hands were so strong anyways and if you saw him and later life Angelo told me he was an Isis guy he ever wanted to meet.
But when he shook your hand, it was like he was breaking your arm off your body and he wasn’t purposely grabbing it.
He wasn’t really shaking.
It was just a light Shake, but he was so physically, strong and and uh so you’re right.
There was no one like outside.
There was no one like Dempsey, you know he would soak his face in beef brine.
So his face got rough.
If you imagine carpanche, you know who whose hands were taped and he had the glove on hit him solid and the chin, and he broke his own hand in four places.
That’S how tough dense he was.
It was a.
This was a farm guy from from Colorado who was built out of brick.
So Rickard wanted to make it like.
You know everyone cheering for for carpanche, because it increased the gate.
People were paying to see Dem say losing what’s in a popular Champion while he was champion, but in reality carpanchi had no chance yeah, he knocked Dempsey down.
He got, it was a.
It was the prince of quintessential lucky punch, uh soaking them in beef, brine Tom uh hardens your skin and makes the skin like leather.
So it makes it like a catcher’s mitt.
That’S how rare cell explained it to me.
You put it in beef brine and I don’t mean like today.
A guy would do it for four minutes.
You know, and his brother showed him this when he was a teenager so before he was boxing, he wasn’t boxing as often, but even when he was five.
Six hours a day, beef brine leave the hands in and then when it comes out your hands, your skin is shriveled, but it’s tough like an old working, catcher’s, mitt and and tough and strong.
So your hands aren’t going to break you’re not going to get broken Knuckles.
Your skin is tough.
The same with his face.
Dempsey never got cut, he had that strong leathery face and he could take a good shot.
He knew what he was doing.
These were the tricks that have been passed down for hundreds of years to soak your hands in your face in beef, brine and Fighters had tricks like that.
All the time Rocky Marciano would get into water up to his neck and throw punches in the water for hours at a time to the point where he could throw it as fast and water as you could in the ring.
So we got in the ring.
You know he could punch even quicker, so guys had tricks like that, all the time and putting in a beef brine, uh hardens your skin and it, and it makes your hands feel a lot heavier excuse me than they actually are, and it strengthens the skin.
On your face, so you can take a good punch and you don’t get cut um, and this was a common thing.
Yes, I I’m sure John L Sullivan did that I know Sullivan got his eyes closed against Corbett, but he was old and alcoholic at that point.
But I wouldn’t doubt Sullivan did that at John O’Sullivan and in fact, Sullivan probably learned that from Fighters before him, one of my closest friends in in the boxing Fraternity in writing a person who’s editing.
The first chapter of my book, which is edited, and I’m just waiting for the British uh mail post to get the chapter back to me, um uh, Tony G Onna tell you about fighters from the 1700s doing the same thing.
You watch them doing the same thing like running these long distances and doing the push-ups and the sit-ups and all sorts of things to strengthen their body.
In fact, George Dixon, the Canadian who doesn’t have a stamp but should have a stamp I’m getting off topic, but I’ll get back to the topic.
George Dixon was once was was not the first fighter to run Sprint, but he was the first fighter to run 10 miles, stop and then spend a half hour running sprints 10 yards or 20 yard Sprint.
You know or 100 yards Sprint because he knew fights happened.
That way, you know he knew that you’d get into some action for 15-20 seconds and then it would calm down and then a couple seconds later would happen again, so he wanted his body to be ready for the change in action to be able to speed up When he needed it, and that was a seminal turning point in the training of boxers, he also invented Shadow Boxing and and the heavy bat we’re talking about the 1890s.
At this point, Dempsey, when you see him training, it’s unbelievable because the muscles on his back it looked like a bed of snakes.
I mean, as I said, he would hit the heavy bag with one or two punches and it would just be flying.
You know three.
400, pound heavy bag and with the speed bag he’d be hitting it like this and he’d be talking to somebody like this and just doing it, it wasn’t even looking and he was doing it.
Carpanche was the same way.
Karapancha was very smart in the ring.
Yes, they should be Tom, you’re right, a Canadian Boxing Legend stamp collection, and I sent a long letter uh courtesy of my mp uh Marco Mendocino, to the head of Canada, Post or the person in charge of Canada Post, and they said no one would care they Didn’T even read it so it’s all these different boxers going back over 100 years that were world champions and Canadian.
So that’s a story, a program for another day, so carpanche was very skilled, but thank you for bringing it up because it’s near and dear to my heart, um the thing about carpanche is is um.
He he um.
He was a really good defensive fighter, so Dempsey.
He was great at sidestepping guys.
He had great lateral movement.
He depended on his movement.
He was great at creating angles.
The problem for him against Dempsey was next to Joe Lewis, or maybe, along with Joe Lewis.
I should say he was magnificent: at cutting off the ring, Dempsey was smart, he was a thinking men’s fighter, he wasn’t a walk-in face for its brawler Dempsey knew, and he said he learned this from the great who also deserves a snap, the Great Canadian Sam Langford.
How to cut off the ring and Dempsey was supposed to fight Langford in 1914-15 and refused he told his first manager.
Then it was a real crook.
First time dancing was in New York.
I can’t fight him he’s been fighting since I was six he’s the best fighter on Earth.
He’D kill me not beat me, he’d kill me, but he he loved Langford and became close friends with him and when he was on the way up.
Langford took him aside and said: here’s the key to cutting off the ring.
You want to make your opponent take six steps to every two you take and the reason for that is you’re not only instilling fear, you’re tireing his legs out.
So when you cut the ring by moving diagonally, the other guy still got to move four or five six steps to get away.
You’Ve moved two steps to cut them off.
He moves back you, you moved a couple steps that way to cut them off, you’re cornering him.
He can’t get out and the other thing Langford Todd Dempsey was once you get to him and you put the jab out to hide your right hand.
Put your front leg your knee in between his legs that way: you’ve immobilized him now you’ve taken his balance away, so he can’t brace himself for a shot but you’re also not allowing him to move out of the way right now he’s just a stationary Target.
Taking your best shots and Dempsey took that to heart, as I said, Dempsey would listen to a guy like Langford, because you know Dempsey, didn’t see.
Kelly Dempsey looked at him and said this is the greatest fighter that ever lived I’m going to learn something from him.
Now years later, Dempsey signed to fight Harry Wells, another great Black Fighter, but Kearns said no, no, we’re not going to do it.
Don’T want to have any truck with him at all.
We’Re going to fight Gene Tunney instead, there’s more money and, in fact, Dempsey had a sparring partner from Toronto.
Larry Gaines, the great black heavyweight who had to go to Britain to make money, Gaines busted up, Dempsey’s, new nose and Kearns.
Let him go and Karen said Larry, you got two strikes against you: you’re black and you’re Canadian.
I don’t think being Canadian was a strike, but he said if you’re a white man, I dropped Dempsey and manage you because you’d be world champion, but uh.
These were two good Fighters, except that a good big man beats yeah modern you’re right Tom beats a good little man, and that always happens and it’s it’s.
Whoever can impose your will on the other fighter and no one was better in boxing history than imposing his will on other Fighters.
You know: Dempsey couldn’t knock Tommy Gibbons out in Shelby Montana, but he beat the hell out of him Dempsey.
You know destroyed Bill Brennan caught him in the 12th round, Dempsey beat Billy misk, although Billy misk was suffering from kidney damage and there’s two great books, there’s one on Langford by Claymore, a good friend of mine and another one on the Dune Billy Mist by claim Oil, so there’s lots of great books on Jack Dempsey.
You know Randy Roberts, The Greatest Story and wrote one and and uh Roger Khan.
You know flame of pure fire, one of my favorites and, of course, I publisher, a mentor.
Adam Pollock has a two book series out on Jack Dempsey, which is definitive, so Dempsey is an endlessly fascinating character in boxing carpanchi put his own book out in the 1920s, and this was a fight that caught the imagination could a light heavy weight.
Is it always will beat the heavyweight champion of the world, and you know the fight’s going on one round two rounds three rounds and after the third round Kearns just says you know we don’t want to let him get another lucky shot in and drop.
You um he’s getting a bit Brave, take him out, and you know, carpanche comes in and his ribs are busted he’s broken his hand, so he’s a one-handed fighter to fight Dempsey in perfect shape, with two good hands and no broken.
Ribs is a death sentence, but to have two broken ribs and a broken right hand and he’s a right-handed fighter.
You know, carpentry knows he’s on borrowed time and so carpanchi would get knocked down stay down to the camera nine jump up back, then Fighters were smart.
They’D get hit and then they’d take a nun count because the longer you take the more you get your head together today, guys get up at the count of one as if the proves are not hurt, but you’re still groggy.
If you take the Full Count, why not you don’t lose any more points now Tom said Andre Ward was a modern Master of the technique of closing the distance getting hit to hip with his leg legs between a land strong short punching from there yeah the way He took apart, uh kovalev, um Angry Ward was a master he’s one of the greatest first of all he’s a magnificent boxing analyst and very well smoking spoken, but he’s a great.
He was a great fighter and I don’t think people realize how brilliant Andre Ward was.
As a fighter uh at this moment in time, but as time goes by and years from now they look back at him as one of the all-time greats he greats.
He was great.
It didn’t emotion, didn’t enter into it with Andre Ward.
He knew his business well, he was well trained.
He knew he knew what the other fighter was going to do.
He had Perfect Balance, which is rare in any sport, great hands, great sense of anticipation and ring geography, and that was Jack Dempsey.
You know back when Jack Dempsey thought the rules were different, so you could stand over a guy when you knocked him down and how much of an influence did.
Sam McVeigh have in carpanche asks Alice.
There, McVay was a great fighter there.
There were three or four tremendous black Fighters back then uh there is Sam McVeigh, as I’m sure Alistair would know.
There was uh Joe Jeanette.
My friend Joe body wrote a great book on him and, of course, the immortal uh Sam Langford and Jack Johnson um.
They were all great Fighters.
Mcveigh certainly showed carpanche stuff, they were friends and but he showed him what he knew.
It wasn’t that it’s kind of hard to explain.
Um Langford beat McVeigh and so did Jeanette in a classic 49 round fight, but they could only show you the best of what they knew.
Langford was a much more well-rounded fighter than Sam McVeigh and McVeigh was a great fighter, but he couldn’t get anything done in the states he had to go to France.
He was an influence, definitely on carpon, on perpancha, because Kar panchay saw his style, but carpanche didn’t have the ring.
The physical musculature and the raw power of McVay, also McVay, took a lot of shots and carpanche didn’t like doing that.
So he tried to stay away.
So McVeigh was showing him how to get a lot of power behind his shots, how to plant his feet correctly and how, to you know, slip shots and they just wasn’t as quick as carpanche, because kapanche wasn’t as big a man as McVay.
He was a much thinner man and they were both great Fighters and then, if McVeigh was alive today, you’d have to have him as a favorite for world champion.
So all those fighters in France that went to France all these great African-American Fighters.
They definitely had an influence on carpancha, because carpanche started out as a karate as an expert in karate and then moved on to um to boxing, and a lot of that was due to the influence of Sam mcday and Joe Jeanette.
They were the ones that you know were convincing people in France that when they fought there that this was the new coming sport, because karate was thousands of years old at that time.
So, yes, he did have a big influence on him, but carpentry didn’t have McPhee’s power and he didn’t certainly didn’t have his chin.
So he could fight and he was a great light, heavy champ but um and he beat the immortal Ted kit Lewis.
In one round, though, he hit him on the break, but when it came to Dempsey, that was a much taller order and at that point, Tech’s record was really desperate to get anyone to get in the ring of Tennessee to make money and especially an international fight.
Gina Gallant, World War, one hero, good-looking Frenchman and the slacker Jack Dempsey.
Uh thanks McVay versus Joe dinette fight, will make a great topic for another Sunday.
Yes, maybe I’ll do that.
Next week the McVeigh fight versus Joe Jeanette was 49 rounds and they knocked each other down dozens of times until McKay.
Finally, uh couldn’t continue.
Carpanche was lifelong friends with um Jack Dempsey.
They became very close and carpancha was a real gentleman in his old age.
But when you see pictures of them when they’re in the 60s or 70s, you can see even then the physical difference and height and just body mass between Demps and garbanje, you think how on Earth did carpanji think he could win.
Kar panchay thought you know what I’m smarter, which he wasn’t and then quicker, and I can get there first and maybe I have the power to do that.
And I’ve always said this about boxing if you’re not going to take a risk or a chance on yourself.
What’S the point, why be in it at all of that? So it was a good four round fight.
It was part of a long card and uh.
There were 75 80 000 people there and carpanche did his best.
He fought to the best of his ability, but um he just you know, wasn’t able to do it.
Couldn’T pull off against a great Jack Dempsey and not many people? Could Gene Tunney did in 26 and 27, but those were mob, controlled, fights as well and even in America, because his manager, Francois de champ, was con controlled by the month or the Montreal.
The the French mob, you know there was still money to be paid to the American mob and then of course, two years later, in 1923 only Madden comes out of prison and takes over boxing uh completely, and that was just the way it worked and years later, One of the guys who challenged Dempsey Bill Brennan opened a club in New York and to open a bar or a restaurant.
You had to get permission from Doug Schultz and Metropolitan.
You had to join his Metropolitan Cafe and Restaurant Association and Brandon got threatened numerous times by by thugs from Schultz and Dempsey.
Said you better pay him.
That’S just the way, I’m not paying him.
I’M an American I’m legally allowed to open a restaurant and of course he was selling booze under the table, but still he thought I shouldn’t have to pay them up.
That’S not legal! Well! In New York, they ran everything that was one of the rackets and finally, uh Dutch shelves had enough and said get rid of them and a guy walked into his barbs, a 60-foot bar.
Here’S the store up front, you walk in here and there’s the bar facing you, and it goes 60 feet down at the very other.
End is Brennan talking to customers.
This guy noons Albert touches a button on the cash register.
It opens grabs all the money.
Now.
You think the guy doing that would have a gun or run he didn’t put it in, took it all up in his pocket.
Looked up, Brandon smile to Lou actually said Tulu watzo walks out the front turns to his right Brennan’s of rage.
You know, I’m a farmer, I challenge Jack Dempsey.
Nobody’S going to do that to me runs after him and the guy doesn’t move, it should have been a clue and then, when he almost gets to him, the guy runs.
Another two feet runs down an alley and when he gets to the end of the alley, the guy jumps on the ground and then a bunch of gunmet opened fire and killed Brennan and Dempsey.
Said years later, I warned him.
I warned him Dempsey for his restaurant paid the mob tax right up until the 70s.
You did even after prohibition ended, you know because they were in charge of the Food suppliers, The Cutlery, the Lenin, they they own, the waiters unions, the chef unions.
So you you there’s nothing, you can do and Dempsey is Dempsey said I’m one guy.
I can’t stand up to the Mob of my own, and so that was unfortunate um for Bill Brennan and it happened to four or five other Fighters during the that time and then that this fight, because the money was so great, was where the mom thought yeah.
This is worth taking over now and did and from then on control, the sport uh, you know and until the 1970s um, but you can actually see the Dempsey, carpanche fight on television on television on YouTube and it’s a wonderful fight.
It’S uh worth watching.
It’S only four rounds, but it’s uh interesting to see all the fans back then very hot day, an interesting to see how many people you can make out in the corner in Dempsey’s Corner that you recognize when um when Jack Johnson fought Jess Willard.
You look at that and it’s corny see Sam McVay Johnson and they were very close friends.
So it’s interesting when you can pick guys like that out in the background um, I think I I’ve.
I have photos of carpanche together with Gene Tony and Jack Dempsey.
I don’t know if they were actually close or not tiny was was really a private person with his wife, Paulie Lotter, and only came out in public to help his son.
When the sun ran for political office uh, he was close of Dempsey, but I don’t know if he was close to carpentry.
I don’t think so.
Chris carpanche came to the states, rarely he mostly lived in France, but he kept up with Jack Dempsey and the correspondents.
Listen, I hope everyone here has enjoyed the show and it’s been best part for me.
It’S been uh interacting with Tom and Alistair and and uh.
Please tell all your friends if you enjoyed this and next week we will talk about as uh Alistair uh suggested.
I want to thank you out there for and thank Tom, too um, we’ll talk about the Sam McVeigh, Joe Jeanette fight that went 49 rounds.
That’S one of the all-time great fights in the 300 year history of modern boxing.
Today we talked about Jack Dempsey versus George carpanche in 1921, the fight that James foxman forever, because it allowed the mafia to get control of the sport and never leave.
My name is Lou.
Eisen hope you enjoyed ring talk for today.
See you again next week.
Take care bye-bye, thank you.
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