Is Dempsey Overrated? Is his ATG status questionable

[travestyny]

Of course you would, no doubt an alt.

Outside of this clown, you can read for yourself credited accounts of what went down.

DeForest himself said he put two layers of tape over the gauze on Dempsey's hands. He also said that Dempsey's hands were soaked in brine for the duration of their training camp, which made his hands tough as leather and hardened.

From one of DeForest's articles:

ABOUT THOSE TAPED HANDS.

Soon afterwards I took up the job of tapping his hands. Right here is where I have a statement to make to the public once and for all. The punching power that Dempsey had developed over all his previous battles proved so amazing to many persons when he mowed big Willard down. The crack and the kick of his blows were so forceful that after the fight many of those who had lost heavily on Willard turned detractors at Dempsey and myself. They spread stories which got wide circulation to the effect that I had doped the tape on Dempsey hands.

Some of them had it that, I had doped plaster of paris between the gauze strips which hardened after Dempsey got his hands into the gloves. Others speculated tea lead; This is the paper, this lead that comes from tea boxes and has figured in the use of bandages by unscrupulous managers, trainers and fighters.

I have never played the game that way, and for me to have done so in Dempsey's case would have been sheer idiocy. For what Dempsey most needed to beat Willard was speed. And to have weighed his hands would have defeated his own purpose. It would have made Dempsey's hands too heavy for fast use and would have slowed him up to the ponderous Willard's own gait.

SOAKED HANDS IN BRINE.

It is true, though, that Dempsey went into the ring that day his hands were hard as steel-jacketed bullets, and the reason for that was that every morning and night from the day we began training I had made Jack soak his hands in brine---a strong, sharp brine. It puckered and shrunk the skin until it was cured to the toughness of leather. All the fat and softness was plucked out of them. They were the toughest pair of hands in the United States that day. And all I put on them when we went into the ring was seven wraps of soft gauze and two wraps of adhesive tape. That's everything that was in Jack's gloves besides his hands the day he made a quitter of big Willard. I guess I need not go into the details of the fight itself, which is still vividly remembered, same as the intimate things regarding it which have never been published.

Never above did it say that he didn't use the hardening tape that he claimed he used on TWO occasions. You want to try again?

[travestyny]

As someone who has played withvarious types of hand wrapping there is no significant difference in the ability to punch harder or cut your opponent based upon the type adhesive tape employed.

That simply isn't true. Willard himself talked about how the wraps would make boxers hands harder. He even said so going into the Dempsey fight:

Willard said in newswire article just days before his butchering in Toledo. “Some fellows have wound adhesive tape so thickly that the fist felt like iron through the glove."

“The rules of the Boxing Commission in Toledo specified soft bandages. Willard declared that he planned to use plain cotton bandages with a couple of layers of surgical tape to hold the bandages in place. “that’s all I care to use, and I think Dempsey should feel the same way about it. I believe it always looks bad to the spectators to see a boxer come into the ring with his hands looking as hard as a club because protected by some heavy material.”

Willard said that he would insist upon a thin layer of cotton surgical band aces, and only enough tape to hold the bandages in place.
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/49749739/

and here you can see he obviously was a victim of people using hard tape against him in the past:

When Willard spoke about having been up against slugs in his career prior to facing Dempsey, he was telling the truth. In 1913, Willard lost a 20-round decision to Gunboat Smith in a bout where Willard’s ear was shredded. Years later, Smith would tell Peter Heller just how Willard sustained such a grievous wound. “So in the tenth round I hit him with one of my right hands, but it was on the ear. Tore his ear right off. That hushed him up for the rest of the fight. The blood was running down, and oh God, I, of course, had my gloves ‘loaded.’ I had insulation tape laid across my hands.”
https://thisbrutalglory.com/2018/07/...willard-fight/

Obviously the type of tape that was used could affect the damage done. I'm surprised you haven't heard anything about the damage bicycle tape does.


Jack Kearns mentioned it:

“I was a product of the days—have they ever ended?—when it was every man for himself,” Kearns would write years later. “In those times you got away with everything possible. Turn your head, or let the other guy turn his, and knuckles were wrapped in heavy black bicycle tape or the thick lead foil in which bulk tea was packaged. The net result was much like hitting a man with a leather-padded mallet.”

As someone who gives a lot of credence to boxing historians, here are some quotations you should look at. They all agree that DeForest's tale is plausible and likely what happened.

Arthur Daley— Pulitzer Prize winner for reporting and commentary--outstanding coverage and commentary on the world of sports; The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association "Sportswriter of the Year.”

The mention of “aluminum pads” would seem to indicate that there must have been some suspicion even then of destructive foreign substances inside Dempsey's gloves. The discredited Kearns tells a discredited story with his plaster of paris. But the DeForest tale of “a certain kind of adhesive tape” sounds both plausible and logical.
https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/09/s...the-times.html

Paul Beston—Author of The Boxing Kings: When American Heavyweights Ruled the Ring.

All the evidence points to a more mundane explanation: Dempsey wore handwraps wound with a tightening adhesive, likened to bicycle tape—more than sufficient to make his hands feel like rocks. The tape was not illegal at the time, and the testimony of multiple parties suggests that Willard’s people made no objection to it.
https://www.paulbeston.com/blog/the-...f-jack-dempsey

Paul Beston Again:

The punishment that Dempsey inflicted in Toledo—likely exaggerated as the years passed—can probably be explained by DeForest’s use of a hardening tape to wrap his hands. One observer compared it with bicycle tape, which would make Dempsey’s hands very hard indeed.

Were Dempsey’s gloves loaded in Toledo? Yes—but only in comparison with the softer wrappings that modern fighters wear. The foul-play accusations that surround the Willard fight make wonderful lore but poor history. These were different times.
https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=...20tape&f=false

Carlos Acevedo—Boxing Writers Association of America/Intenational Boxing Research Organization.

For years, those who pooh-poohed the Railroad Spike Theory and the Plaster of Paris Plot have ignored two simple details.

The first is the fact that Dempsey did wear “loaded gloves.” As Al Spink pointed out in*The Atlanta Constitution*only months after Dempsey annihilated Willard:….So bandaging knuckles has become an art among the boxers, and the trickiest glove men are adepts in putting on the wraps so as to make the glove as hard as the old Roman cestus, with which the ancient gladiators often killed each other.” Jimmy Deforest explained how Dempsey had achieved such carnage in so short a time. Is it possible that Willard actually inspected Dempsey’s hands before the tape hardened?
https://thecruelestsport.com/2015/06...willard-fight/

Randy Warren Roberts — “Nearly 40 years later, Roberts’s biography remains the best book written about Jack Dempsey, and it’s not even close.”

Jimmy Deforest, who taped Dempsey's hands, admitted that he used a hard adhesive tape, but that was perfectly legal. Regardless of how hard the tape was during the fight, Dempsey was champion.
https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=...%20was&f=false

[HOUDINI563]

Old wives tales.

First you can clearly see Dempsey up close sitting in his corner his taped hands clearly visible. There are no thick pads of tape on those hands.

Secondly try wrapping your hands in a standard fashion and with a layer or two of electrical tape. You punch no harder with electrical tape than standard tape. There is no additional cutting power from choice of tape that is then encased in boxing gloves.

I own 6 oz Everlast gloves from the 50’s/60’s and have had them since the early 70’s. Pro boxing gloves and they are filled with horsehair. Back when I was training in boxing gyms I experimented with many different types of bandage/tape thickness and found no difference between wrapping type and punching power. There is an improvement in general with wrapping as your hands feel protected to throw harder blows. Once this has been accomplished I saw no further benefit.

These horsehair filled gloves are like bricks to begin with. You have to be one tough fighter to take any blow full force with these type gloves.

[travestyny]

Old wives tales.

Sure, If DeForest is an old wife.

First you can clearly see Dempsey up close sitting in his corner his taped hands clearly visible. There are no thick pads of tape on those hands.

Then you must be blind. Even people at the fight commented that Dempsey's hands were HEAVILY taped. Again, you're showing your hypocrisy. I'm pretty sure you have taken the word of people at the fights before, but here, you are saying...nahhh.

On July 1 the matter was settled. “Jess Willard and Jack Dempsey will go into the ring for the heavyweight championship contest here Friday with bare hands, and all the bandaging and taping will be done in the view of the spectators and seconds of the heavyweight rivals. This announcement was made today by Tex Richard, promoter of the contest.”

Jack Kearns protested against this. The next day tex Rickard reversed his decision and announced that the fighters would tape their hands in their dressing room in the presence of a representative of the rival camp. The change occurred, Doc Kearns said “because of the blazing heat.” Another reason given was that to tape in the ring would create unnecessary delay. Either way, Dempsey entered the ring with hands heavily wrapped in tape and Willard had lost a critical battle to Doc Kearns.”
https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=...0brine&f=false

Secondly try wrapping your hands in a standard fashion and with a layer or two of electrical tape. You punch no harder with electrical tape than standard tape. There is no additional cutting power from choice of tape that is then encased in boxing gloves.

So we should believe you over Willard and Gunboat Smith, amongst others? How many professional fights have you had?


The Kid McCoy article says the tape would become hardened like iron.
Willard said he went up against guys who used so much tape that it felt like iron through the glove.
Gunboat smith admit to using insulation tape to nearly rip off Willard's ear.
Kearns said bicycle tape could be used to make the hands like a mallet.
Various authors have went on record saying bicycle tape would indeed make the hands hard like "rocks" or worse.

Oh, and most of all, the man who wrapped Dempsey's hands HIMSELF said the tape would harden to cause "unusual punishment."

Yet we should believe you..because you played with some gloves at home. Time for you to jump down from that "high horse." You are the one that always appeals to historians and people around at the time. You're outgunned here.

[GhostofDempsey]

You can find anything you want looking back over so many years and so many articles. Deforest contradicted himself in various articles. As someone who has played withvarious types of hand wrapping there is no significant difference in the ability to punch harder or cut your opponent based upon the type adhesive tape employed. The glove type and the amount of padding within that glove DO have an effect. In those days of brick like horse hair filled five ounce gloves to imply hand wrapping type enhanced power is laughable. Those gloves were lethal weapons on the fists of a fighter as powerful a puncher as Dempsey.

And Kearns detailed description of how he plastered Dempsey's gloves for the Willard fight has already been debunked, I think that is the one of the most relevant pieces of evidence that supports Dempsey.

[GhostofDempsey]

You can find anything you want looking back over so many years and so many articles. Deforest contradicted himself in various articles. As someone who has played withvarious types of hand wrapping there is no significant difference in the ability to punch harder or cut your opponent based upon the type adhesive tape employed. The glove type and the amount of padding within that glove DO have an effect. In those days of brick like horse hair filled five ounce gloves to imply hand wrapping type enhanced power is laughable. Those gloves were lethal weapons on the fists of a fighter as powerful a puncher as Dempsey.

And Kearns detailed description of how he plastered Dempsey's gloves for the Willard fight has already been debunked, I think that is the one of the most relevant pieces of evidence that supports Dempsey. Only someone with a clear agenda against him would see it otherwise.

[travestyny]

And Kearns detailed description of how he plastered Dempsey's gloves for the Willard fight has already been debunked, I think that is the one of the most relevant pieces of evidence that supports Dempsey.

lol. You're pathetic. Always trying to go back to Kearns plaster bullshlt...but you dodge out when it comes to Deforest's claim.


You're not fooling anyone.

[travestyny]

Only someone with a clear agenda against him would see it otherwise.

Someone with a clear agenda against him...


Like his own trainer who wrapped his hands and was defending him against accusations of using aluminum foil on his wraps?

Or someone who claimed he used bicycle tape in the very book where they thanked Dempsey for his contribution, and gave a special thanks to Dempsey's Press Agent for giving him the bulk of his information, who was in the dressing room when he was wrapped up?

Or Pulitzer Prize winners who published the information, as well as other boxing historians, including the guy who was credited with making the best biography on Dempsey?

You're drowning.

[GhostofDempsey]

This is the Harry Wills some people think would have beaten Dempsey, LMAO.

[travestyny]

This is the Harry Wills some people think would have beaten Dempsey, LMAO.

LMAO. Your feelings got hurt real bad, didn't it?

That's right. The same Wills that beat Langford a bunch of times (we both know you only big up Langford so much because Demspey went on record saying he was scared of him).

Same Wills that took that Langford fight at the same stage in his career as Dempsey was when he turned it down.

The same Dempsey that was a KO1 vs. Jim Flynn.

And the same Dempsey that...Ducked Harry Wills


You're such a crybaby.