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EPISODE: Episode 5
Lou discusses July 4, 1919 which saw Johnson crush Jim Jeffries in one such “Fight of the Century,” while July 4 saw Dempsey destroy Jess Willard to become the heavyweight champion. This fight remains one of the most brutally one-sided prize fights of all-time.
Discussing the greatest boxing controversies throughout history, Lou Eisen offers his opinions and insights in this fantastic live-streamed series of episodes. Watch live on TalkinFight.com every Sunday at 2pm ET.
#TalkinFight #RingTalk #LouEisen
Transcribed:
[ Music ] good afternoon.
This is ring talk and i’m lou eisen your host well summer is here and speaking of summer.
We should talk about one of the greatest summer, fights of all time, one of the top greatest fights ever in the history of boxing.
I know i say that every week, but this really was uh we’re talking about the famous fight between world heavyweight champion, jess willard and the manasseh mauler jack dempsey, the man who was absolutely a force of nature um.
I would say that the dempsey willard fight along with the second smelling lewis fight in 1938, those two fights smiling and willard, took the worst two beatings and lived that i’ve ever seen a fighter take in my life and when i say in my life, i’m talking About boxing films, i’ve watched from the 1880s until today, including fights, live fights i’ve been at i’ve, never seen a fighter.
Take a beating the way willard took that beating um back then in boxing there was a belief.
This was an actual belief that that, irrespective of a man’s skill set and how strong he could punch the actual size of the fighter decided who was they’re gon na win the fight so willard, who was six seven? You know 264 pounds for the dempsey, fight and dempsey was six one one one eighty i was going to say 189, but it was an 80 pound.
It was 184 because uh willard had an 80 pound advantage going in no one same when ali fought listen.
The first time no one gave dempsey a chance.
They thought basically on size alone, that willard would kill him.
In fact, about half an hour before going into the ring, a promoter tax record made jack dempsey, sign um a clause, an addendum to his contract, indemnifying him from any responsibility, indemnifying releasing rickard from any responsibility for when willard killed dempsey in the ring.
That’S how scared people were people hadn’t, looked at the fact that dempsey had scored something like 12 first-round knockouts in the previous year against good fighters.
He had annihilated them.
Dempsey always did well against men that were that much bigger than him.
He knocked out fred fulton.
The rochester plasterer, also known as the rochester giant any guy well over six feet was the giant jess willard was the potawatomi giant because he was born in pottawatomie kansas and then you had the oklahoma giant carl morris, who dempsey knocked out and despised, but it was The fred fulton fight that got dempsey the title shot with billy because he not falten out in 18 seconds and fulton was six.
Six fulton was a big big man who could really fight and dempsey, walked through him.
Like a hot knife through butter, jack dempsey, i mean i i’ll readily admit that muhammad ali is my favorite fighter and athlete and uh person on the planet but and always will be, but uh.
No one has been more enduring to me and more fascinating to the world and enduring than the great jack dempsey the manasseh mahler he’s born in venassa, colorado, 1895 um to mormon parents.
Although his father was a converted mormon, his father actually was jewish, because dempsey always mentioned his paternal grandmother.
Rachel solomon, who was jewish, so nebsy, had, as he said, jewish blood.
He had.
He had first nations blood.
He was a polyglot.
He was a typical american.
He was part of the melting pot and he grew up tough dempsey.
He had a lot of sisters and brothers and his father, as he said later, was just mentally ill and couldn’t really do much.
So his mother opened the boarding house where dempsey worked, and i guess around from the age of 16 to 18.
He set out on the road to become a prize fighter, in fact the little schooling he had when he would write something in school when they asked him what he wanted to be.
He said world heavyweight champion and he practiced at it from the age of like seven or eight on he was trained originally and showed his brother showed him uh, the brother bernie.
Really he was the one who showed dempsey.
All these great moves.
Dempsey was very smart when he would meet older fighters and tank towns.
He would just apply them for information, and then he would whatever they would tell him.
He would get up in front of them and show it and do it until they said yeah.
That’S how you do it so dempsey knew what he was doing in the ring.
He wasn’t just a walk-in face for slugger.
He was very hard to hit on the inside, although dempsey was knocked down a fair amount of times in his career, but he had a great chin, great balance.
He also had a lot of different punches, and by that i mean he had the regular assortment left hook.
Right hook left uppercut right uppercut, but he had different versions of each.
He had four or five versions of each.
He had a shovel hook.
He had a check left hook.
He would vary the speed on his punches.
You know he he would faint with one shoulder to get you to flinch and then hit you with the other hand, so dempsey i mean which is commonplace, but dempsey put all this into play when he was fighting all these very good fighters on his way up And dempsey took out from he lit out from manassas and traveled the midwest and 16 18 19 and he worked as a hobo.
He wrote the how many of you know what that means.
Very dangerous way of riding couldn’t afford a train ticket, so he would climb, underneath the train hang on to the rods of the train that were moving the piston rods and hold on to them for the trip.
And then you know get off when they reach the next town, which could be 100 miles or 200 miles or less.
But dempsey said he saw.
A lot of people die because they just fell asleep and fell down on the tracks and were crushed by the train, which fortunately never happened to dempsey.
When dempsey was 16-18, he had a very high voice.
He had a girl’s voice and uh his voice.
Hadn’T really deepened yet, and so it’s a funny story.
Roger khan, in his great book, a flame of pure fire about jack dempsey, tells the story, dempsey, told him many times.
Dempsey would go into these hobo villages or mining towns or bars that back then we’re filled.
I mean we hear of fight bar fights today and somebody getting shot or stabbed these.
That was commonplace back then.
These were rough guys, you know in bars and mining towns a lot of them had criminal records, but they were big nasty.
Guys and dempsey wanted to make money extra money on the side.
So he would say how about we have a fight and whoever beats me.
If you beat me, you get the money.
Oh we’ll just pass the hat and of course they would hear that voice like mickey mouse and they would laugh at him.
I mean they literally.
Would laugh for a long time in the bars in the mining, towns, hoba, villages and they said sure kid we’ll we’ll pass the hat.
Okay, great and you know they get in the ring or make have a makeshift ring and dempsey would beat the hell out of him, because dempsey wasn’t just some punk kid wanting to fight who would wrestle and grapple dempsey knew what he was doing, because he was Learning the craft on the way up – and he said you know with all these guys – they’d come at you with these lumbering wide-arm warmth punches and they would miss by a mile and dempsey, would just move to the side, hit them in the liver or hit them In the solar, plexus doubled them up hit them in the chin, and the fight was over.
Pretty quick and dempsey started to make a name for himself.
You know and as he started to do better in boxing he was known as kid blackie when he started so much for the imagination um, so dempsey made his way to new york, which was the mecca of the boxing world and he gets there and he wants To get fights, but he can’t get fights he’s sleeping in central park, which is in and of itself a dangerous thing to do even today, in 2022.
, so dempsey meets this charlatan.
This crook, this manager who’s just a complete, scumbag and and uh rip-off artist in boxing.
How about that so dempsey meets a guy named john, the barber, riesler or risley, and this guy sets dempsey up with fights and makes dempsey sign a contract against his will and when he sets dempsey up with fights dempsey’s winning these fights, but he’s not getting any Money, you know i’ll get you 2500 for this fight and dempsey gets 50 bucks, and then he sets him up for a fight with the greatest fighter to never win a world title.
The immortal, canadian, sam langford and dempsey years later said.
You know, there’s a lie.
Been going on about me for almost 100 years saying i was never scared of any man in the ring.
That’S not true.
You said i was physically ill about the prospect of facing sam langford because he said langford was the greatest fighter that ever lived.
He he destroyed people, he ended their careers and dempsey and langford actually became very close friends after him, and dempsey helped support him later on.
Anyways dempsey, wouldn’t fight langford and barbara john, the john, the barbara riesler, said.
Well then, you’re finished in new york, so dempsey left new york slipped out and started fighting in the midwest and building up his record and started fighting here and they’re all over and he started scoring these dramatic knockouts and jack doc.
Kearns one of the most famous names in boxing history, who is a great manager, but also a rogue and a scamp, zod dempsey, and he said this guy’s got the talent and the power and power puts asses in the seats if you’re a knockout guy you’re gon Na go all the way to the top, so he put power into dempsey’s power, he invested money in dempsey and he he started to promote him.
He took clippings of all his fights.
He started to send press releases after each of those fights to hundreds of newspapers throughout the united states and canada all over.
He invest a lot of time and energy in dempsey.
He started to build dempsey’s name up.
You know he wanted to get him in line for the heavyweight title.
That’S where the money was at this time.
If we back up a couple years, you have jess willard, the potawatomi giant who beat jack johnson.
It was a legitimate knockout.
Pete johnson claimed that he took a dive, but he didn’t take a dive.
Uh willard hit him with a a right hand that poll axed him lucky didn’t take his head off in the 26th round of their fight in 1915 in in havana cuba.
The round before william hit him with a left hook to the heart, and you could see johnson his knees, sag johnson, almost went down then and then willard knocked him out.
Willard was was uh.
How do you describe it completely devoid of personality, no personality at all and didn’t like boxing didn’t like the people in boxing, and he did not defend the title didn’t want to.
He just would do wild west rodeo shows he would go on stage and perform in theater, as previous champions had done, except he was so boring.
No one wanted to watch him.
Uh do rodeo tricks which he was good at because he really was a cowboy or on stage, and he just kept the title uh in mothballs, and he made money off of it by making money off of his name and the fact that he was the world Heavyweight champion and people thought because he was six seven and that big 260 with a gigantic wingspan.
You know like a triceratops that no one would want to fight him and it would be suicide for anyone to fight him and so tex record was there and tex rickard the great promoter wanted to get a fight for willard.
He wanted to make money off of willie’s title and he set up a fight between him and dempsey, dempsey.
The fight for between dempsey and willard was created by the fans because of kern’s astute marketing fans everywhere said well.
What about dempsey dempsey should be fighting willard he’s knocked out 10 12 guys in the past year.
Why isn’t this guy fighting for the title? This guy wants to fight, and dempsey was 6-1 184-189.
A lot like rocky marciano, except marciano, was about five.
Eleven five, ten and dempsey was just a destroyer of man.
He he was a uh, an unnatural force of nature.
He was just shining meteor through the fistic firmament.
No one had ever seen anything like dempsey.
He was like a feral animal.
He once that bell rang.
He came out to kill you not knock you out to kill you.
He hit you with everything and back then in those days you know, for instance, last night, if you watched a jermail charlo brian castano fight when gustano when charlo knocked his handle down, charlo immediately knows he’s got to go to a corner, neutral corner.
He has to that rule didn’t exist back then that didn’t come in till after dempsey beat furphone in 1923.
, the rule, or there was or lack thereof.
There was no rule, you could stand over a guy, so you whack him.
He goes down and dempsey would stand over him until the guy got up he’s on one knee and once he gets that second knee off the canvas wham whack him again, and so they set the fight up in toledo, ohio and july 4th american independence day 1919.
.
Now, there’s two main controversies about this fight, which still exists to this day and and some people believe them which is unbelievable to me.
But they actually believe that these things happen.
The first and the main controversy which you may have heard or probably have heard if you’ve read any boxing books that mentioned dempsey, was that dempsey had loaded his his wraps that dempsey had put plaster of paris.
Imagine how heavy that would be on his wraps put him in his gloves and when he and willie believed this to his dying day and hit willard and destroyed him, because he hasten cement.
That did not happen.
How do we know that did not happen? Well, we know several ways.
First of all, in the wonderful book flame of pure fire by roger khan, he’s got photos from the from the prestigious robert shepard collection and it’s a wonderful photo of dempsey getting in the ring before the fight.
And he – and this is who mike tyson, took.
After no robe he’s got his trunks got a little towel over his shoulders and he’s got his hand wraps nothing on the hand wraps.
You see the hand wraps gets in the corner and you see that’s a photo, but you can actually see film of dempsey having the gloves put on and as the gloves are being put on who’s in the corner.
Walter moynihan willard’s trainer is watching the gloves put on being put on before that.
He was in the dressing room with dempsey and he’s watching dempsey’s raps being applied to his hands and he’s feeling them.
How do i know that? How do you know that lou? Well, when i did the movie cinderella, man, one of the guests, was bud shoulder the great writer who wrote what makes sammy run and on the waterfront and the harder they fall about.
Primo carnera bud.
Shelburg was at that fight.
Now, when i spoke to him he’s in his 90s but clear as a bell clearer than me – and he was there with his father bp, shoulder who was the head of paramount films, they were in debsting’s dressing room because bp shelby was a friend.
He was there to say, hi and wish him good luck and, as the wraps are being applied, walter moynihan, willis trainer is feeling them.
You know he’s feeling the wraps he’s filling dempsey’s hands and he’s saying: yeah, that’s fine! Yep! That’S he’s.
He actually said.
That’S all culture, that’s fine, and so the raps are applied.
He gets into the ring they put the gloves on moynihan’s there again moynihan said later that willard had to claim that, because he was such an overwhelming favorite.
His ego couldn’t withstand the fact that he’d been beaten almost to death by a man that much smaller than him and as charlie goldman once said, and angela dundee.
My mentor mentioned this to me: if he did have plaster of paris on his wraps there’s no way he could have lifted his arms.
You can’t case your hands and cement and then lift them.
It’S not possible and as charlie golden said, if you could and you hit someone you would destroy your hand.
He said you would break your your hand bones into thousands of pieces.
It’S just not feasible.
So that was one of the controversies in the fight.
The other controversy was dempsey was getting 19 grand now this was 1919.
Let’S get 19 000.
10 000 of that dempsey.
Didn’T know this.
That dempsey would knock out willard in one round.
Why not? He knocked out 12 guys in one round.
The previous year was to believe that he’s not going to do it again.
Willard was not a skilled fighter at all.
He was bred to do one thing and that was beat jack johnson.
So when you judge the relative worth or skill of great heavyweight champions, i think it’s kind of unfair to willard to judge him.
You have to judge him on his body of work.
I understand that you do that with all fighters, but willard was made to do only one thing and he accomplished that call.
He beat jack johnson, so you have to sort of look at him in that narrow perspective.
So we have the fight and the fight starts and the crowd is so large in this stadium and so loud that no one hears the starting bell: the fighters, don’t hear it, the fans don’t hear it, but there’s a reason.
They don’t hear it.
It doesn’t ring this is part of the second controversy.
The people that set up the ring – and the bell was supposed to there was supposed to be a line from the bell to the time keeper, where he could pull it and ring the bell.
No one attached that rope or that cord to the bell so he’s pulling it and pulling it problem is when he first pulls it.
He starts his stopwatch when it didn’t ring.
He should have stopped to stop watching.
We started he didn’t he got up.
He blew a whistle a loud marine what’s up and said, start the fight, because you can see the beginning of the tape.
The fighters are looking around like what what what you know we’re here for a picnic what’s going on, so they start to fight dempsey by the way before the fight will um kearns would never let him see willard they did.
They signed her contract separately at separate press conferences.
He would not let dempsey see willard because he thought willard actual height and – and he was a huge guy – would intimidate, tempesty and dancing when he got in the ring and finally looked at well.
They thought – oh, my god, i’m not fighting for the title.
I’M fighting just to save my life, so they get in the ring and the fight starts and dempsey tries some tentative moves against willard and he tries these moves and the moves don’t work.
So so he’s trying and trying he’s trying to figure out how to get inside willie’s reach because he knows with willard’s reach you have to get inside it, take away his reach and hit him on the inside.
So he keeps circling him and circling, and but willard has this attitude as, if he’s somebody of of royalty that he’s regal.
You know that i’m the great jess willard and i’ll just throw out these jabs, and you know before the fight he’s waving to people – and you know like he like he’s a roman emperor and he’s not he’s sort of not making any effort with dempsey.
Doesn’T look like he’s he he has any like, he feels he has anything to fear and so dempsey figures.
You know what am i going to do? How am i going to get in this? Reach and dempsey starts bobbing and weaving from side to side and lands.
A series of six punches culminating in his left hook and that first left hook, bang hits willard willie drops and dempsey’s corner will.
His jaw is now broken in, like 13 places, his teeth, bunch of teeth not are knocked out.
You can see people at ringside reaching into the ring to grab willie’s teeth, so willard gets tries to get up, but dempsey’s standing right over him and dempsey pounds him to the mat again and again and again breaks his ribs and it’s brutal because willard’s face is A mask of gore dempsey’s hitting him again and again: willard gets up bang.
You know left hook to the liver right to the chin.
Another left of the broken chin willard goes down again and he’s getting the life literally beaten out of him by this whirlwind, and he knocks him down at the far end of the ring which is adjacent to willard’s corner the last knockdown of the first round and Willard can’t get up, you know he wants to get up because he’s the champ, but his legs won’t.
Do it, and so the whistle blows the round’s over dempsey goes berserk.
Everyone goes berserk, jacked up currents, the audience goes berserk.
We have a new champion and he’s exciting and he’s got personality and he loves to fight it’s everything.
America was about, and, and he runs out of, the ring dempsey and all of a sudden, the referee, ollie picord comes over to jack duck kern, who said the fight’s not over? What do you mean the fight’s not over? The fight ended 10 seconds before i reached 10.
.
The fight the round ended.
Excuse me not the fight.
The round ended before i got to the final count.
If he doesn’t get back in the ring, dempsey within 25 seconds he’s disqualified, so cron’s just screaming at him, and i kept thinking all these years.
I asked bud schoberg, you know, there’s what 60 80 000 people dempsey’s 80 yards away.
How’S dempsey hear him and turn around and come back in the ring, and he said it wasn’t dempsey.
Hearing him, it was fans seeing currents and saying to dempsey.
He’S yelling at you and dempsey, saw it and saw kern, say get back get back and he runs back into the ring and they start the second round.
What happened? Well, as i said before, the round ended at three minutes, but the first 10 seconds they should have started the round over because 10 seconds had elapsed.
The fight hadn’t started because the bell hadn’t rung rather than saying okay, didn’t work.
I’M going to restart the stopwatch and start it now they didn’t stopwatch kept going.
So when dempsey flirted and willard was down and the ref’s counting time, keeper’s blowing the whistle no one’s hearing it in the tumult and willa’s not getting up so people thought the fight was over.
It wasn’t as a lot of people thought the mobster is trying to deny kearns or dempsey of a winner trying to make a big kill on the fight.
There wasn’t really.
The mob was always involved in boxing, but in this fight no one gave dempsey a chance.
As i said, it was like the first ali lisbon fight of a hundred sports writers.
They all picked willie, no one thought temps.
He had a remote chance of lasting one or two rounds, so there was no reason to try to fix the fight fight wasn’t fixed.
It was simply a mistake by the people who were constructing the ring and attaching a cord from the ring bell to the timekeeper.
Should have been tested before yes, but no one thought of it at the time.
So willard is dragged back to his corner by his corner.
Man in sections comes out for the second round, and dempsey just keeps pounding on him, and the ironic thing, of course, is dempsey’s.
Now it’s like when you’re dropping a tree down dempsey is now getting arm weary because he’s landed, hundreds and hundreds of punches and it’s like hitting a heavy bag.
The heavy bag’s not going anywhere so willard goes down a couple more times and dempsey’s starting to breathe a bit heavy.
After expending all this energy, but he keeps pounding him and pounding him and pounding him and willard has to have his cornerman helping back to the uh to his corner after the round.
Well, its face is just completely grotesque.
It’S distorted, broken jaw, broken nose missing teeth.
I mean you, you wonder you wonder why you know he kept continuing.
Well, it’s hard he’s a champion.
He thought he had to the only thing i can think comparable and it’s an odd reference.
You’D have had to have seen.
The movie was the movie casino, joe patchy and robert de niro, and there was that one guy that dinero or that pesce put his head in the vice.
But when they’re carrying him over to put his head in the vice they’d beat him up with a baseball bat, and the look in the guy’s face was the look that will it had that it, whether it looked like he’d, been mugged by a gang, and it Comes out for the third round and uh currency says you’re gon na have to kill him and dempsey goes out and just keeps pounding him now.
Dempsey’S angry because and he’s taking that on willard, because kern said i bet everything he didn’t.
He bet 10 of the 19 grand he was getting so he’s not fighting him for nothing, but he’s not fighting him for much either after the third round.
Willard goes to his corner.
The bell rings for the fourth round.
Willa can’t get up his legs.
Just don’t work anymore, his corners trying to lift him.
He can’t he just can’t he’s done and you couldn’t ask any more of the champion and the next champion to go out like that was sunny listening when he fought uh ali in their first fight when ali was cassius clay, so listen or listen.
Willard’S in the corner he’s beaten to a pulp and he’s saying to himself he’s concussed.
Obviously i got a hundred thousand dollars in a farm in kansas city.
I got a hundred thousand dollars in a farm in kansas city.
I got a hundred thousand dollars in the fire in kansas city keeps repeating that and repeating that and repeating that you know like i, i’m not a nothing, i’m not a loser.
I have something his coroner said that that’s it walter moynihan says he can’t he can’t fight anymore and of course, dempsey goes over and congratulates them, because that’s what a sportsman does – and this was an epic fight.
No one had seen a fighter like dempsey before the only one that was remotely close was was the bantamweight featherweight champion uh terrible terry mcgovern, who later became lightweight champ too mcgovern was just a force of nature and dempsey went on to have a remarkable career as We know i mean he beat billy misk after that he knocked out bill brennan, he knocked out louis angel furpo.
You know the furpo fight was a very important fight too, because it was the fight.
It was that fight.
It was right after that fight where the rules committee in new york was followed by every other boxing jurisdiction in the world said.
Once you knock a man down, you got to go to the farthest neutral corner.
You can’t just stand over and beat him because that’s not a professional fight, that’s a bar brawl, you know, that’s a mugging and that’s not a sport to do it that way, and so dempsey had to do that.
It was because of him.
The rule was put in he actually later on hired willard during the great depression dempsey made a lot of money lost the title to tony, because he hadn’t fought in three years had a comeback, fight, knocked out jack, sharkey and then lost to tony again.
In the famous battle of the long count, which is the story for another day, and then he opened his own uh restaurant, the famous jack dempsey’s – and it was a depression and willard was broke.
He hired willie this guy, he had beaten, who claimed dempsey’s gloves were loaded, but dempsey looked past that and hired wildlife to work as a bartender and fired willard, because back then they had premium brands of booze.
This was after 1932.
This is after roosevelt, come in and prohibition was gone, but if you couldn’t afford a good premium brand of boost which wasn’t expensive back then, but if you had no money, it was they had dempsey’s home brew, and so somebody said to willard that when he was The bartender hey, what’s dempsey’s homebrew like, and he said it’s like pig, urine and dempsey, said: you’re fired, bye, bye and you know dempsey.
It helped him out this embittered willard, but for the rest of his life, willard thought the fight was fixed.
His gloves were loaded.
He wouldn’t be dissuaded.
A book came out recently a pretty good book on a good book on willie, but and and was mentioning that.
But there was no truth to that rumor.
How did that rumor get started? It got started by jack doc, kearns dempsey’s manager.
Why? Because kearns needed money, he always needed money.
So in 1964 he’s he sold a story to sports, illustrated and then told willard that he had loaded the gloves.
He did it because he needed the money, the gloves weren’t loaded and he knew they weren’t loaded.
This was how doc kearns operated one of the ways dempsey got tremendous publicity.
Aside from his in-ring, exploits prior to winning the title.
Was dempsey got an exemption from fighting in world war one because he really was the sole support of his five six brothers and sisters and his parents.
But in order to look patriotic, they took a picture of him at a coal factory, shoveling coal, so he’s wearing overalls, but he’s also got on patent leather shoes and before the demps before the willow fight, they said come on.
That’S a fake photo.
You don’t shovel coal with beautiful patent leather shoes and the american legion said they boycotted the fight, but it was all publicity and kern said: there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
So this pushed the gate up more and it made more money for everyone who started that controversy, kearns and kearns was always in need of money, jack, doug kearns.
He also managed uh, mickey walker and archie moore, the greatest knockout fighter, knockout puncher of all time.
The greatest light heavyweight champion of all time so kearns when he had dempsey and dempsey’s later fights of tax record dempsey would get 500 grand 800 grand a million, and he was getting these huge sums.
But when kearns got the check, damn see we get 50 grand 100 grand cur and currency.
Oh i’ll, i’ll, put the rest away.
I had to pay bills now he’s essentially paying off his gambling debts and it was tax record who said to him uh to to dempsey.
You know i’ll just give you the check and you give him his 15, which is what happened.
Of course, currents went berserk.
It’S my money, it’s my money and he said no, we have a contract, you get 15, i got a million dollars, you got 150 grand.
Why are you angry at me? There’S no reason to be angry.
You got the contracted money, you don’t understand and i drove a wedge between them.
Also, dempsey got married to this actress.
Estelle taylor kearns was very insulted by that he was very jealous and he kept insulting her in front of dempsey, and you know like that.
Guy in the airplane, with tyson, you can only take so many liberties of the world heavyweight champion and dempsey cut him loose.
In fact, during the tunney fight a process server served nancy in between rounds of their first fight, because kearns was suing him.
It drove a wedge between the two men they sort of had a reproachment later in life, but not really.
Um years later, willard would come to the canadian national exhibition here in toronto every summer and he he would have barbed wire, and he would say this was what was in dempsey’s glove when he knocked me out.
Well, no one had ever mentioned barbed wire.
They said it was plaster of paris and, to his dying day, willard had mentioned her and kept believing that you know dempsey’s gloves were loaded.
They weren’t walter moynihan’s trainer said that willard’s eagle was so incredible that he couldn’t accept the fact that he could lose it.
Never occurred to him because of his size that any man on this planet could actually take him and dempsey did the fight still is talked about to this day.
The massacre in toledo, dempsey, i have to say in closing to me – is endlessly fascinating.
We’Re always finding out more things on him.
Uh ken burns and pbs recently did a special on muhammad ali, which was fantastic, but i i really hope they one day do one on dempsey, because dempsey was such a multi-layered person and he was a very smart person.
Business-Wise he was extremely polite and kind, and he was just the right guy at the right time.
They talk about the roaring 20s with big bill, tilden, the tennis player and babe ruth, but really dempsey was the roaring 20s.
He was the one that made it roar.
Jess willard went on basically, i wouldn’t say forgotten.
He was trotted out at times.
He would make appearances at places, but in boxing history he doesn’t really hold a lot of sway other than the fact that he beat the great jack johnson at the tail end of jack johnson’s career, although it was legitimate, beating, uh or win dempsey.
Of course, when you look at dempsey, i mean he has to go down as one of the top five greatest heavyweights and fighters ever to have lived, not just because of his in-ring exploits, but the first five million dollar gates were all dempsey gates.
It was dempsey’s name that that drew people and because of dempsey ricker, was able to build these hundred and fifty thousand hundred thousand seat stadiums and draw three four million people.
You know for the fight uh, for the rematch with tony and for the original fight with tony.
There were over a hundred thousand people like 127 000 people in chicago to watch the fight.
You know the second fight, i mean that’s incredible and dempsey’s name brought them there.
That’S the power of the man, so uh in closing, i just like to say if you’ve never seen jack dempsey.
You know, as ray arcel said to me: if you never saw jack dempsey kid, you never saw the real thing go to youtube.
Watch, dempsey’s fights watch the willard fight.
He threw his punches perfectly.
He was great on the inside.
There will never ever ever be anyone like jack dempsey, look at tyson at his best take that multiply it by a million that was jack dempsey, i’m lou eisen – and this has been another episode of ring – talk.
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