BoxRec

We know he beat Jack Dempsey.
The same Dempsey who had not fought a serious fight for over three years previous and got that infamous long count the next time he fought him.
Dempsey was just not the same ferocious fighter he was in his younger days when they fought, he also lost to a middleweight and had trouble with him in the following fights also(apart from the last one).
So how good was he as a heavyweight?

tonyevs wrote:Dempsey was just not the same ferocious fighter he was in his younger days

Like when he got KO'd in ten seconds by someone who wasn't even a journeyman?

The ten second KO was before Doc Kearns had him.
When Dempsey and others earned as much to sometimes lose a certain fight as to win it. And he did KO the same bloke a short while later.

Tunney has always rated very highly in my book. How good was he as a heavyweight? I say very good! He could box, punch, and take a punch. On top of all that he was smart inside the ring as well. I also maintain that Tunney could have given Joe Louis a good go around since Louis always had trouble with the boxers ( i.e. Conn and Walcott). Would have been a very interesting fight indeed!

As far as the Long Count is concerned, we will never know if Tunney could have gotten up or not, but you never here folks mention that Tunney put Dempsey on the canvas in the following round.

Still underrated I think.

THE DANCING MASTER wrote:As far as the Long Count is concerned, we will never know if Tunney could have gotten up or not, but you never here folks mention that Tunney put Dempsey on the canvas in the following round.

Still underrated I think.

Nice post but due to the fact that the count was ridiculously long and the allegations of mafia tinkerings and massive side bets, that is bound to get overlooked.
I mean strictly speaking 14 secs to administer a ten (well nine as he got up) second count is pretty damning (in actuality latter analysis makes it to be nearer 17 secs which is even worse) and Tunney effectively should have lost to the aged Manassa Mauler.
However the counter allegations were that demspey didnt go to a neutral corner which gives the whole thing an alibi.

However you tend to feel that there is an inclination to side with Dempsey and that he was robbed and its a stigma that Tunney hads never really got rid of, he also didnt fight for long enough at World Heavyweight level to be fully gauged. A great fighter through the weights I dont know how highly you can rank a boxer who only defended the title twice as a heavy when gauging the all time greats.

Watch both of those fights against Dempsey and what you see is boxing brilliance. Make all the excuses for Dempsey you want. Tunney simply took him to school. Unfortunately, a smart fighter doesn't raise eyebrows the way a slugger does, especially in the heavyweights. And any fighter who defeats a legend will always have detractors. Tunney would have done well against any era's champ. I think he could have taken Louis, Marciano, Walcott. He was really a cruiserweight and he compares favorably to anybody at 190.

I agree (just for clarity) my post was neither siding one way nor other.
Fact remains though that he should have been counted out but I agree its a shame a man of such obvious talent will be remembered at heavweight anyway for his part in the night of the long count.
I mean he did indeed show superior boxing skills but still should have been counted out. If tyson had hit lewis in their contest and sparked him in the eighth round instead of the other way round we wouldnt have all been saying but Lennox gave him boxing lesson would we?...(being a bit contentious there I know but you catch my drift)

I don't think Tunney should have been counted out. Yes, he was popped, but by the time the ref finished ushering a confused Dempsey to the right corner, Tunney was clear-eyed and waiting to get up, which he did. He got right back in the fight and decked Dempsey the next round. I think out of the 20 rounds they fought, Tunney took 12 to 15.

i`ve got one of those boxings greatest knockouts video`s from years ago, you know, the one where larry merchant and a young mike tyson have a look at knockouts throughout the years and they do a piece on the fight of the long count.
they superimpose a clock over the action and tunney although down for fourteen seconds is ready to get up from the count of seven.

J wrote: due to the fact that the count was ridiculously long and the allegations of mafia tinkerings and massive side bets, that is bound to get overlooked.
I mean strictly speaking 14 secs to administer a ten (well nine as he got up) second count is pretty damning (in actuality latter analysis makes it to be nearer 17 secs which is even worse) and Tunney effectively should have lost to the aged Manassa Mauler.
However the counter allegations were that demspey didnt go to a neutral corner which gives the whole thing an alibi.

However you tend to feel that there is an inclination to side with Dempsey and that he was robbed and its a stigma that Tunney has never really got rid of, he also didnt fight for long enough at World Heavyweight level to be fully gauged. A great fighter through the weights I dont know how highly you can rank a boxer who only defended the title twice as a heavy when gauging the all time greats.

************

Don't forget that Dempsey was out of the ring for more than 10 seconds after the first round of the Willard fight, and he was allowed to get away with it because Willard didn't have a manager to demand that the referee count Dempsey out.

Also, many people who were there stated that Dempsey was out of the ring for more than 10 seconds during the Firpo fight when Firpo unceremoniously punched him out of the ring altogether. Also, of course, many people definitely thought that Dempsey should have been disqualified because he was assisted back into the ring. Also, many people felt that he should have been disqualified because he was punching Firpo (and Willard) before they even had a chance to get up - including at least one time when Firpo definitely was still down. Again, because Firpo also didn't have a manager, no one was loudly protesting and demanding that the referee disqualify Dempsey.

This doesn't even include all of the rabbit punches and low blows and other fouls that Dempsey was ALWAYS allowed to get away with.

The allegations of mafia involvement were for Dempsey's friend, Al Capone and Dempsey - not Tunney. The Illinois boxing commissioners and judges decided to wait until the last minute before deciding and announcing a referee so that none of the mobsters could attempt to bribe or THREATEN the referee. Dave Barry was NOT the referee that Tunney would have prefered because one of Tunney's men had a problem with Dave Barry in the past, and Tunney was concerned that Dave Barry might retaliate against Tunney because Barry was still upset with Tunney's cornerman.

Dempsey did not become confused or forgetful regarding the 'neutral corner rule.' The referee immediately tapped Dempsey on the chest and pointed to the neutral corner as soon as he saw Dempsey head directly behind Tunney - instead of heading toward the opposite corner. Dempsey was standing only 5 feet behind Tunney, and the referee started yelling for Dempsey to go to the neutral corner, and Dempsey was heard by a number of witnesses - including Nat Fleischer - to say: "No, I stay here."

The referee actually had to take Dempsey by the arm and FORCE him to go to the neutral corner. Dempsey was so used to getting away with clubbing his opponents before they had a chance to get up and rabbit punches and hitting below the belt and everything else, that he presumed that the referee would let him get away that time, as well.

How many fighters can be clobbered with 7 heavy punches to the head by someone with the reputation of Dempsey (who was the 'giant killer' who broke the bones of Willard and knocked out his teeth) and still get up within SECONDS to completely recuperate and outmaneuver Dempsey with back-pedaling and ring-generalship and composure and courage? I think that very few boxers in history could have done it.

Tunney defended his title only twice (against Dempsey and Tom Heeney) because he had the chance to marry a young, beautiful, extremely wealthy woman, and because the fans were booing him instead of cheering him and the sportswriters were lying about him and denigrating his character. Why should he risk his life and limb to satisfy the blood lust of fans and reporters who were booing him? He proved his point - that he was the heavyweight champion of the world.

Tunney also did an excellent job against Tom Heeney, but no one gives him true credit for that.

Tunney was involved in the long count because he had a blind spot due to a sparring partner thumbing him in the eye right before the 2nd Dempsey/Tunney fight. Another sparring partner also butted him in the head causing amnesia for 3 days right before the 2nd Dempsey/Tunney fight. Tunney stated that they were both accidents, but they sound a little suspicious to me. If it hadn't been for the thumbing incident, Tunney would have been able to see the obvious punch that Dempsey threw (which he had been throwing throughout the fight, and Tunney had been avoiding easily), and the long count would never have occurred.

By the way, how many people remember that the long count was the FIRST and only time that Tunney had even been knocked down in his entire career?

He only lost once (to Harry Greb which he avenged 4 times) and he was only knocked down once - for the long count.

It's a shame that the boxing fans and sportswriters didn't appreciate him back then because I'm sure that he would have continued to fight (for at least a relatively longer time) because he genuinely enjoyed boxing.

Thanks to those unappreciative fans and sportswriters, it's a loss to boxing fans throughout history.

Interesting post, boxingfan2004. I guess the gist is that Dempsey was a fouler who got away with it. Well, yes and no. His actions were not unusual in the pre-neutral corner days. Looking at the Willard fight, there's no beef. Dempsey left the ring after the first round because the bell did not sound properly and his people thought the fight had been stopped. How could anyone even think of awarding that fight to Willard? Dempsey cleanly demolished him.
The Firpo fight, however, I think is a legit beef. Dempsey was helped back into the ring. That bout was just slop, really. I've seen more style at 4AM at the Dew Drop Inn.

crooked nose wrote:I guess the gist is that Dempsey was a fouler who got away with it. Well, yes and no. His actions were not unusual in the pre-neutral corner days. Looking at the Willard fight, there's no beef. Dempsey left the ring after the first round because the bell did not sound properly and his people thought the fight had been stopped. How could anyone even think of awarding that fight to Willard? Dempsey cleanly demolished him.

************

Don't you find it extremely unusual for a boxer to immediately leave the ring because he thinks he just won the Heavyweight Championship of the World? Also, how long would it take him to get back into the ring - unless he was changing his left glove to remove incriminating evidence - that might have helped him to break the bones in Willard's face and knock out some of his teeth?

It wasn't that long ago that I remember enormous praise being bestowed upon Bob Fitzsimmons for his devastating punching power - especially because he was only a middleweight - until it was revealed that he did use plaster of Paris in his 2nd fight against Jeffries.

I know that there have been accusations about Dempsey using something illegal - whether it was plaster of Paris, a metal object, or some other illegal object to enhance his punching power. The fact that Dempsey and Kearns bet $10,000 (which would be worth at least $100,000 today - when the average head-of-household only made $25. per week) on a first round knock-out of Willard also leads me to be very suspicious regarding what Dempsey might have had 'up his sleeve.'

I think that it also makes Dempsey's other 'one round knockouts' suspicious - even though many of them were against people who had no boxing record. I would think that it wouldn't be difficult for almost any professional boxer to knock-out an amateur in one round.

Tunney stayed down for as long as he did because he could. The guy was just a smart fighter--he got his bell rung and he took as long as he possibly could to recover before getting back up. Smart fighters stay down for as long as they can get by with; dumb ones like Zab Judah try to be macho and get to their feet before the cobwebs clear.

Tunney fought a few other fights besides his three championship bouts in which he was well over the light-heavy limit. He hardly ever lost a round as a heavyweight; for that matter, he rarely lost many rounds at any weight class.

It's a shame he didn't fight on, as I have a feeling he would have held the title for quite a few years; probably not long enough to face Joe Louis, but well into the 1930s at any rate.

I guess Dempsey will never get past those "Plaster of Paris" allegations, made by a bitter old Doc Kearns. Every story I've ever read, every film I've ever seen of the Dempsey-Willard fight make it clear that the confusion was caused by a faulty bell. My point is, who cares? Dempsey had for all intents and purposes won that fight in the first round. Willard was ready for the emergency room. And the fact is Kearns did lose his 1-round KO bet, so maybe he should have claimed that the fight was rigged to go beyond one round.

crooked nose wrote:I guess Dempsey will never get past those "Plaster of Paris" allegations, made by a bitter old Doc Kearns. Every story I've ever read, every film I've ever seen of the Dempsey-Willard fight make it clear that the confusion was caused by a faulty bell. My point is, who cares? Dempsey had for all intents and purposes won that fight in the first round. Willard was ready for the emergency room. And the fact is Kearns did lose his 1-round KO bet, so maybe he should have claimed that the fight was rigged to go beyond one round.

********

You still didn't explain why Dempsey immediately left the ring when he thought that he had just become the Heavyweight Champion of the World, or why it took him so long (if his legs were so fast) to get back into the ring?

You also didn't explain how Dempsey could break the bones and knock out the teeth of a giant - when Dempsey did NOT have a reputation for having such devastating fists with much smaller and weaker boned opponents.

Remember, we're not just talking about Kearns' allegations, which hurt Kearns' reputation as much as it hurt Dempsey's, but we're also talking about many other people involved - including Willard, himself. Evidentally, enough people were suspicious of Dempsey that Dempsey was forced to have his hands wrapped in the ring in front of everyone before the 1st Dempsey/Tunney fight when Dempsey was still champion.

Anyone who made any allegations against Dempsey was considered 'bitter' or worse - like his first wife, Maxine, who alleged that Dempsey was a slacker/draft dodger, and a wife-beater, and a pimp, and took a dive, etc.

Jeez, boxingfan, you've obviously got some issues with Jack Dempsey. You forgot to mention that he sank the Titanic and kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.

Look, he beat the crap out of Willard. So what if he left the ring in a hurry? Fact is he returned and beat some more out of Jess. Dempsey was no choir boy and never claimed to be one. He survived in a very rough world.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the whole Shelby, Montana mess. But, do you really think fighters today who are dealing with the likes of Don King are any cleaner? Money still talks, and bu-sheeut still walks.

i've always considred tunney an underrated fighter and actually thought about posting something here, but the last time i checked it has turned into a jackk dempsey thread...and while it's amusing to try to figure out which biography or autobiography the ranters have read it's gotten away from tunney so the hell with it.

I'm more than happy to get the thread directed back to Tunney. He was an all-time great, underrated and underappreciated. In fact, if you look at films from that era, you could argue that Tunney was one of the first if not THE first practitioner of modern boxing. Even today, it's rare to find a heavyweight with boxing skills to match Gene. The only barrier to Tunney being considered top 5 is his lack of size. And I think his retirement as champion is commendable. No fading skills, no disappointing comebacks.

I agree that I would prefer to discuss Tunney. I agree that he was one of the most under-rated heavyweight champions. I've been reading his web site and have been impressed with the fact that many sportswriters have repeatedly called him under-rated over the years. There are 2 whole biographies about him on the web site:

http://www.genetunney.org/enigma.html

and

http://www.genetunney.org/life.html

I recommend that anyone interested check them out. They really give a pretty good overview of his career.

crooked nose wrote:The only barrier to Tunney being considered top 5 is his lack of size.

**********

I don't understand why because he was almost exactly the same size as Dempsey.

Yes, Tunney was about the same size as Dempsey, and I think Dempsey would have had the same difficulty against the big heavyweights - Lewis, Foreman, Liston, even Holmes and Ali. Skill-wise, I think only Ali surpassed Tunney. Tunney did beat Dempsey and I think he could have taken Louis, Marciano, Walcott, Charles and Patterson. Only the size handicap would have kept him from beating the really big guys. Some intriguing match-ups for Tunney would be vs. Max Baer or Joe Frazier. Who would win those?

Tantum wrote:

tonyevs wrote:Dempsey was just not the same ferocious fighter he was in his younger days

Like when he got KO'd in ten seconds by someone who wasn't even a journeyman?

Oh come on, that obviously wasn't Dempsey's prime. That happened when Dempsey was fighting in his hand-to-mouth days, where he was fighting with almost nothing to eat and his wife was working as a prostitute a lot of the time. Many boxing historians also believe that the fight was a fix, that Dempsey took a dive for $500 in that fight. I've also heard that the 10-second KO story is a myth as well, that in fact it happened midway through the round and that Dempsey's brother threw in the towel. Regardless, that is a very ridiculous thing to say. And Flynn was obviously more than a journeyman at the time he fought Dempsey. He was a contender, and had fought for the world heavyweight title twice. Don't let the career record fool you. And by the way, you completely ignore that Dempsey obliterated Flynn in like fashion in a single round in the rematch, when Dempsey was in his prime.

I can't stand when people just take some stupid tidbit like above and dismiss a great fighter. Many of Dempsey's early fights were not in well-sanctioned programs, many of them were not fought under proper boxing rules(for instance, in one of Dempsey's earlier fights, he and his opponent were told by the sheriff of the town in which they were fighting that if there was a knockout they would both be arrested, and they were made to fight to a draw in 10 cautious rounds. For a rematch, they went to another state, and Dempsey knocked him out in 3 rounds on the level), and for much of his career, Dempsey was a street rat. It wasn't until he was under the management and proper conditions with Doc Kearns that you can consider Dempsey to have been in his prime. And what a prime it was! He was even more devastating than a young Mike Tyson. Dempsey had an eight-second KO of the #1 contender, 6'4", 220+ lbs. Fred Fulton, with a left hook that reportedly lifted him off the ground and broke his jaw. What Dempsey did would be like, in modern terms, if a fighter came through the division right now and knocked out both Klitschkos, Golota, Byrd, McCline, and Rahman, all in the same year and all in one round. It was unbelieveable.

boxingfan2004 wrote:

crooked nose wrote:I guess the gist is that Dempsey was a fouler who got away with it. Well, yes and no. His actions were not unusual in the pre-neutral corner days. Looking at the Willard fight, there's no beef. Dempsey left the ring after the first round because the bell did not sound properly and his people thought the fight had been stopped. How could anyone even think of awarding that fight to Willard? Dempsey cleanly demolished him.

************

Don't you find it extremely unusual for a boxer to immediately leave the ring because he thinks he just won the Heavyweight Championship of the World? Also, how long would it take him to get back into the ring - unless he was changing his left glove to remove incriminating evidence - that might have helped him to break the bones in Willard's face and knock out some of his teeth?

It wasn't that long ago that I remember enormous praise being bestowed upon Bob Fitzsimmons for his devastating punching power - especially because he was only a middleweight - until it was revealed that he did use plaster of Paris in his 2nd fight against Jeffries.

I know that there have been accusations about Dempsey using something illegal - whether it was plaster of Paris, a metal object, or some other illegal object to enhance his punching power. The fact that Dempsey and Kearns bet $10,000 (which would be worth at least $100,000 today - when the average head-of-household only made $25. per week) on a first round knock-out of Willard also leads me to be very suspicious regarding what Dempsey might have had 'up his sleeve.'

I think that it also makes Dempsey's other 'one round knockouts' suspicious - even though many of them were against people who had no boxing record. I would think that it wouldn't be difficult for almost any professional boxer to knock-out an amateur in one round.

Why don't we just say that Dempsey left the ring to collect his winnings from the giant bet? That's an equally plausible story to Dempsey leaving the ring for less than 25 seconds but somehow having enough time to remove rock-hard hand-wrappings and then apply new ones for a fight he didn't even know was going to continue before jumping back in the ring and continuing to fight.

Your conspiracy theories against Dempsey are strangely one-sided and biased. You believe any controversy that reflects negatively on Dempsey, but when there's blatant mafia involvement in a fight where when Dempsey puts his opponent down hard, the referee has to carefully shepherd him to a neutral corner and strangely does not pick up the count with the time keeper which is the appropriate action, but stupidly starts at one, and then when the same thing happens to Dempsey two rounds later, the referee does exactly the opposite and starts counting immediately even though Tunney has not gone to a neutral corner either and is still standing there near Dempsey in the ring, you discount the story and instead focus on Tunney's heart and composure. And this very referee was a last-minute replacement in a very fishy story. This was a blatant instance of unfair refereeing and there were heavy rumors of mafia involvement in the fight right at the time, but you just discount the story and proceed to believe a lot of half-baked stories about various other Dempsey fights in which you find theories that are almost pure speculation(ala your story about the Willard fight and your pure-speculation beliefs about Dempsey leaving the ring to change his glove or whatever else) and argue them to no end.

As for Tunney, I think he was a great fighter, and definitely in the top 25 of all time among heavyweights. I don't feel he had a full-enough career as a heavyweight to be considered a top 10 heavyweight of all time, but he was certainly an excellent heavyweight as well and could be competitive with many of the best heavyweight champions there were.

I just read some more of the posts in this thread. I apologize for stirring up more Dempsey debate, and will cease talking about him as the subject in this thread now.

One last thing, sort of on the Dempsey subject.
Could it really be true he used plaster of Paris on his hands?
My understanding of the stories of fighters doing this is that they would sprinkle the powder on their bandages as they would wrap their hands, when their hands would sweat it would set the plaster. But too much sweat would just cause a squidgy mess and definitely not a rock hard fist, so is this something of a boxing myth? Like the horse shoe in the glove?