The two fights between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney rank with boxing\u2019s most-storied championship bouts and are among the greatest sports spectacles ever seen in America. Wednesday marks the one hundredth anniversary of their first encounter.<\/p>\n
Dempsey bridged boxing\u2019s old and modern eras and was one of the most charismatic fighters in history. When Dempsey was young, biographer Randy Roberts recounts, \u201che lived in mining camps and hobo jungles, rode the rods, and more than once begged for food. What separated him was his willingness, even eagerness, to work. He accepted any type of employment from washing dishes, cutting lawns, and scrubbing floors to the harder work of coal-mining, digging ditches, and picking fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dempsey had his own thoughts on his origin story: \u201cI was a hobo,\u201d Dempsey said. \u201cBut I was never a bum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting under the name \u201cKid Blackie\u201d, Dempsey had roughly 100 fights in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada from 1911, when he turned 16, through 1914.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re fighting, you\u2019re fighting for one thing,\u201d he later recalled. \u201cTo get money. When I was a young fellow, I was knocked down plenty. I wanted to stay down. I couldn\u2019t. I had to collect that $2 for winning or go hungry. I had one fight when I was knocked down 11 times before I got up to win. I had to get up. I was a hungry fighter. When you haven\u2019t eaten for two days, you\u2019ll understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the ring, Dempsey attacked with unrelenting ferocity. Trainer Ray Arcel likened him to \u201ca saloon fighter\u201d and observed, \u201cWith Dempsey, every part of your body was a legal target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sportswriter Paul Gallico echoed that theme, writing, \u201cDempsey seemed to have a constant bottomless well of cold fury somewhere close to his throat. He had tremendous courage, speed and determination, and good hitting powers. He was never a good boxer and had little or no defense. His protection was aggression. Dempsey never boxed anybody. When the bell rang, he ran out and began to attack his opponent, and he never stopped attacking him, trying to batter him to the floor until the bell ended the round. He had a smoldering truculence on his face and hatred in his eyes. He was utterly without mercy or pity, asked no quarter, gave none.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dempsey said: \u201cTo be a good fighter, you have to have three things. You\u2019ve got to be able to give it. You\u2019ve got to be able to take it. And you\u2019ve got to have a fighting heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boxing was at low tide as America neared the \u201cRoaring Twenties\u201d. There hadn\u2019t been a popular heavyweight champion since James Jeffries retired in 1904. Moral \u201creformers\u201d were attacking the sport as sinful. And their efforts to abolish boxing gathered steam after Jack Johnson emerged as champion in 1908.<\/p>\n
On 5 April 1915, Jess Willard defeated Johnson in Havana. The new champion was poised for stardom. But after winning the title, Willard went on tour with Buffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West Show and other theatrical companies, and defended his title only once in four years.<\/p>\n
Finally, in 1919, Tex Rickard, America\u2019s premier boxing promoter, lured Willard back to the ring with a $100,000 guarantee to fight Dempsey in Toledo, Ohio on 4 July. It was the first major outdoor prizefight in the United States since Jeffries had come out of retirement and been battered into submission by Johnson on 4 July 1910. Willard weighed 245 lbs; Dempsey just 187. After three rounds, Willard\u2019s jaw and nose were broken. Six teeth had been knocked out. There were cuts above and below his eyes. He could fight no more. Jack Dempsey was heavyweight champion of the world.<\/p>\n
A publicity poster for the motion picture of the Jack Dempsey v Gene Tunney fight. Photograph: Screen Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Rickard wanted to make boxing a respectable sport that appealed to all classes. Dempsey\u2019s exciting fighting style and charisma made him an ideal instrument to achieve that goal. Meanwhile, more and more states were legalizing boxing, and religious reform movements had begun to weaken. Dempsey versus Georges Carpentier followed and brought the sweet science to new heights.<\/p>\n
Dempsey-Carpentier was contested on 2 July 1921, in a temporary arena at Boyle\u2019s Thirty Acres on the outskirts of Jersey City. More than 80,000 spectators (the largest crowd to witness a sporting event in America up until that time) attended. The live gate was $1,789,238 (more than double the previous record for a fight and equivalent to more than $32.5m today). The fight was also the first world championship bout to be broadcast live on radio, blow-by-blow.<\/p>\n
Carpentier was hailed as a man of destiny, not just in his French homeland but throughout Europe. He was the reigning world light-heavyweight champion. But more important to his image, he\u2019d served in the military as a pilot during the first world war and been decorated twice for heroism. He was handsome, graceful, intelligent, debonair, spoke reasonably good English, and was regarded by many as the most glamorous fighter ever to step into a boxing ring.<\/p>\n
Dempsey was viewed as Carpentier\u2019s opposite. He\u2019d been indicted and tried (although acquitted) of fraudulently evading the draft during war. \u201cHe was dark complexioned,\u201d Roberts notes. \u201cHis beard was course; his eyebrows were thick; and his face seemed cast in a permanent iron scowl. In the latter part of his career, Dempsey\u2019s reserve in public would be recognized for what it was; basic shyness. But in 1921, his reserve and awkwardness around people were interpreted as the characteristics of a mean conceited man.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, Dempsey-Carpentier was hero versus villain with the foreigner in the preferred role. \u201cThe Frenchman was the hero,\u201d Dempsey later said. \u201cI was the flat-nosed bum.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fight of the Century\u201d captured attention worldwide. On the morning of the bout, legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote, \u201cThe greatest single day in the ancient history of an ancient sport has come at last; a day that has caught the imagination of more people from crowded centers to remote off-lying places than any single contest since the world\u2019s dim dawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Whitneys, and Astors were seated at ringside. The United States Senate and House of Representatives had adjourned in anticipation of the event because 12 senators and 90 congressmen had tickets. The fight was also attended by a significant number of women. Ladies had been present at Willard-Dempsey but were confined to a special section. At Dempsey-Carpentier, they mingled freely with the men.<\/p>\n
As was the custom of the day, the champion was introduced first.<\/p>\n
Dempsey later recalled, \u201cJoe Humphreys picked up his megaphone and bawled, \u2018In this corner, weighing 188lbs, from Salt Lake City, Utah, the heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Dempsey.\u2019 The only response from 80,000 Americans was a little applause and a low murmur. \u2018And in this corner, weighing 172lbs, the challenger from Paris, France, Georges Carpentier.\u2019 The people went wild. It was deafening. It hurt; believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bell for round one rang at 3.16pm. At 3.30, it was over.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarpentier had more charm, more good manners, and more class in his dress than anybody I had ever met,\u201d Dempsey said years later. \u201cBut it was probably the worst mismatch in the history of the heavyweight division.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans in Boston fans gather to listen to the fight. The Boston Globe’s special radio bulletin broadcast was almost simultaneous with the action in the ring. Photograph: Boston Globe\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The New York Times devoted multiple pages to the fight and announced the result with a large-type, three-line headline that ran the full width of page one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI read the stories about the fight in the next day\u2019s papers,\u201d Dempsey said later. \u201cCarpentier was the hero of the hour. Never before had anybody seen such courage. I was just a butcher who happened to win. I was a pretty bitter fellow. No matter what you\u2019ve got, you want them to like you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dempsey v Luis Firpo \u2013 Argentina\u2019s \u201cWild Bull of The Pampas\u201d \u2013 was the next building block for the Dempsey legend. On 14 September 1923, more than 88,000 fans filled the Polo Grounds in New York. An estimated 35,000 more were turned away. Once again, America\u2019s blue-blood aristocracy was at ringside, joined this time by Babe Ruth.<\/p>\n