BoxRec

90 years ago today !
Sesquicentennial Stadium,Philadelphia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rkwNb4IQXY

Damn! That was 90 years ago! Wow!

Thanks for posting this ........... A treat to watch two all time greats in a classic match up (albeit Dempsey was past his prime).

From what I remember there are several extanct 35 mm nitrate prints of this fight but none are compleat and most are damaged.
They also have footage of this fight from Kodack 16 mm and Pathe 9.5 mm film stock
which was also sold to private collectors back in 1926 usually from camera shops for home viewing.
It looks like some of that footage may be from that too.

enjoyed watching it. thanks.

That was interesting to watch. Dempsey just didn't seem to be able to let his hands go. He would bore in, but seldom threw anything. Tunney was very accurate and kept clipping him as he came in, and then clinching. It was the same thing over and over.

what about the claim that Dempsey was "poisened" by some bad olive oil that he drank before the fight ?
I think someone could have gotten to it before one of his cornermen gave it to him before the bout (for his digestion).

That would be one of those lame excuses that we don't need.

When he wasn't following Tunney around Dempsey was catching 4 & 5 punch combinations. Tunney looked like Ali in there. Dempsey could tag Tunney with one good shot but couldn't follow up.

Great film.

I read somewhere that Gene Tunney had Dempsey out on his feet in the first round with a right cross
or Jack Dempsey had Gene Tunney out on his feet with a left hook in the first round (or possibly both)
can you spot which punch(s) those may have been ?

Caractacus wrote:what about the claim that Dempsey was "poisened" by some bad olive oil that he drank before the fight ?
I think someone could have gotten to it before one of his cornermen gave it to him before the bout (for his digestion).

The min-series back in the '80s played on the poisoning thing - they had Dempsey, just before the fight, doubled over with his seconds ready to call off the fight, but Dempsey insists it go on . . . very Hollywood - there is also a mention of a disappearing sparing partner whom everyone suspects - then after the fight the series continues and it is never mentioned again . . .eh!

who were Jack Dempsey's sparring partners for that particular fight anyway ?
(one was Tommy Loughram)

- Jeez, where to begin in this morass of muddles.

First off, Dempsey one of the all time great short punchers in history as we saw in his KDs of Firpo. Tunney wouldn't have locked him up all night had he not been getting hit as his noggin jerks back. Case in point: in the 4nd round Jack catches him on the ropes to stumble him, Gene only preventing the KD from grabbing the top rope, usually a called KD in modern boxing. Later he catches him again, freezing him in shock as he viscerally checks to see if his teeth are still intact. Don't think they wore mouth guards back then though some like Jeffries used a big wad of gum to clamp on.

Post fight Film graphics obviously biased against Dempsey much like modern announcers who shape the action for simple oafs where "expert"suggestions take root. Jack was on the bad side of Rickard and Kearns for leaving them. Dempsey won the fight if scored where offense rules, but lost the gambler's decision that Arnold Rothstein leveraged his huge 4-1 bet with. Jack forced the action while Tunney desperately clinched until he took flight late in the fight. The old Dempsey would have finished Tunney off the two times he was frozen in place, but then again they were competing in the aftermath of a chilly rainstorm with Dempsey rusty, so that yet another unforeseen factor not in his favor.

As to being sick, plenty folks get food poisoning to this very day and die. Hard to say if he was betrayed, but again, Rothstein, see the 1919 Black Sox fix, ect, ect.

In the 2nd fight Gene fights better using a proto young Clay jab and run style, but Jack flattened Tunney with the most beautiful combo in heavy history for a 14 count by the biased ref. As to the neutral corner rules by Queensbury, rules that Jack is supposed to have ignored in previous fights, WRONG! The fighter is supposed to return to his own corner and the victim to his scratch line in his corner, so Willard, Firpo, Tunney would have been KOed anyway since they couldn't do so. I don't recall any filmed fight starting with Fitz/Corbett in 1897 enforcing Queensbury corner rules until the neutral corner rule ended up as the standard with this first Dempsey/Tunney fight. Even so, years later Baer stood over KDed Primo waiting to catch him on the way up a dozen times, and see Ali/Liston one where he tussles with Walcott who has to wrestle him to the neutral corner and near every Ali fight where he scored KDs like Bonavena, so blame boxing, not Dempsey who was unfairly made into the dirty Hollywood draft dodger so the clean Gene the Fighting Marine could take over the division. Problem was Gene quickly abandoned such a dirty sport for better things that lead to the dirty era of the early 30s until Joe Louis took over.

And, yeah, laughable that anyone would use testimony of dirty Chicago or Philly officials to support that these were legit results. We have eyes and many have looked at various claims over these years. Chicago and Philly still in the middle of a 300 year reformation. Films don't lie, people do, especially in boxing and especially with Dempsey since the depraved, dishonorable here have always hovered around to soil themselves as they bend over to crack their windage, so why should we expect any more from them.

Dempsey deserved to go at least 1-1 in this series, but regardless, nobody did more to make boxing such a magnificent spectacle as Dempsey. How many spectators had heart attacks in the Firpo fight and died?

I remember reading an article back in the 1970's were it claimed his trainer may have done it (the possible food poisoning).
as far as sparring partners in the movie ?
Big Bill Tate was still his sparring partner for that fight I believe .
His wife was also the camp cook I think I read somewhere.
I read once were Bill Tate wanted a shot at the heavyweight title.
if it was someone else,perhaps they could have distracted her in the kitchen and put something in Dempsey's food.
Dempsey was on the outs with Jack Kearns and Tex Rickard at that point I think.

I was watching this film again,and it looks like the punch that Gene Tunney throws and lands at about 3:16 (looks like Dempsey's legs buckeled)
or perhaps 4:43
that also appears to stagger Jack Dempsey.
Whichever,Tunney said Dempsey was out on his feet for a second and if the punch had landed on Dempsey's jaw instead of high on the cheek he believed he would have knocked him out in the first round.
Tunney had studied the film of the Dempsey vrs Carpentier fight and the right that staggered Dempsey in that fight and worked on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rkwNb4IQXY