Jack Dempsey vs. Bill Brennan (1st meeting)
Jack Dempsey 188 lbs beat Bill Brennan 196 lbs by TKO in round 6 of 10
- Date: 1918-02-25
- Location: Auditorium, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
- Dempsey vs. Brennan was overshadowed in the press by Fred Fulton's third-round knockout of Frank Moran, which took place in New Orleans on the same day.
- The Milwaukee Journal reported that Dempsey vs. Brennan took place at the Elite Roller Rink.
- The gate was $4,200.
- After the fight, Dempsey sent his mother $150 in bills wrapped in a newspaper clipping that told of his victory.
Notes
From The Milwaukee Journal, February 25, 1962:
Accounts of the actual fighting vary. Several Dempsey biographers say that Brennan went down once in the first round, four times in the second, and finally for the last time in the sixth. The last time Dempsey hit Brennan with a right cross to the chin it was so hard that it spun Brennan around and he fell with legs legs crossed. Later it was discovered that he had cracked his ankle.
The account in the next day's Journal, however, lists two fewer knockdowns—none in the first and three in the second instead of four. The New York Times of the next day mentions no first round knockdowns but lists four in the second.
"The Jack Dempsey Story" by Gene Schoor says that Brennan was knocked cold by that sixth round punch. A biography written by Bob Considine and Bill Slocum in 1960 says that Brennan tried to get up but couldn't make it.
The Journal, however, says that Brennan did make it to his feet, game but very groggy, and exposed his chin to another series of sledge-hammer blows before Referee Walter Houlehen mercifully stopped the fight.