“The day I fought Jack Dempsey”

[HOUDINI563]

Written 35 years after the fact and including inaccuracies that one would expect after so many years but still an interesting first hand account.

https://archive.macleans.ca/article/...t-jack-dempsey

[Willie Pep 229]

This (below mentioned) insistence, by Doc Kearns, that all the money be up front, (guaranteed), W/O a %, would prove double edge for Dempsey, e.g costing him here but protecting him in Shelby.

This fear of a 'taking a percentage' was, in my opinion, Doc Kearn's greatest weakness. He never, as far as I can tell, got pass making this same mistake. It's not until Tunney I (sans Kearns) that Dempsey 'gets smart' and takes a % of the gate.

It is also one more reason the Wills/Greb fights never got made; most of the big offers we hear of today (1921-1923) were percentage based offers and Kearns wasn't interested.

The $500K figure seems to have haunted Kearns (the newspapers rode him about the mistake) and IMO it became to him, some sought of holly grail, making him determined to get that 500K payday all up front.

And he would, for Dempsey-Firpo

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From "The Day I fought Jack Dempsey"

The financial arrangements had already been made. Regardless of the crowd or the result, Dempsey was to get $300,000 and I $200,000. This had been at the insistence of Dempsey’s manager, Jack Kearns. The famous promoter, Tex Rickard, although many others thought him mad, welcomed this arrangement eagerly.

“I’ve just done the best bit of business I ever did in my life,” he said to his intimates. “I’m absolutely certain that we shall take more than a million dollars.”

And how right he was! The receipts amounted to $1,700,000. If Dempsey and I had boxed for the usual arrangement instead of for fixed sums of $300,000 and $200,000 respectively he would have been paid $595,000 and I $340,000.

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P.S. Good read, thank you for posting.

[Willie Pep 229]

Debunking the supposed legendary 'almost KO of Dempsey' in the second round.

Here is a different view of the supposed 'fight changing right hand' (2nd round) that almost KOed Dempsey.

Mencken argued that Dempsey waked through the right hand.

In the excerpt below Mencken argues 'the why' others came to believe it. [Full article here.]

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H. L. Mencken, "How Legends Are Made." [Excerpt]

Baltimore Evening Sun, July 5, 1921

. . . . "Boiled down, the thing simply amounts to this: that Professor Carpentier practiced a style of fighting that was more spectacular and attractive than Dempsey’s, both to the laiety present and to the experts; . . . But why did all the reporters and spectators agree upon the same fiction? The answer is easily given: all of them did not agree upon it. Fully a half of them knew nothing about it when they left the stand; it was not until the next day that they began to help it along. As for those who fell upon it at once, they did so for the simple reason that the second round presented the only practicable opportunity for arguing that Carpentier was in the fight at all, save perhaps as an unfortunate spectator."

[billeau2]

Debunking the supposed legendary 'almost KO of Dempsey' in the second round.

Here is a different view of the supposed 'fight changing right hand' (2nd round) that almost KOed Dempsey.

Mencken argued that Dempsey waked through the right hand.

In the excerpt below Mencken argues 'the why' others came to believe it. [Full article here.]

----------------------------------------------------------------

H. L. Mencken, "How Legends Are Made." [Excerpt]

Baltimore Evening Sun, July 5, 1921

. . . . "Boiled down, the thing simply amounts to this: that Professor Carpentier practiced a style of fighting that was more spectacular and attractive than Dempsey’s, both to the laiety present and to the experts; . . . But why did all the reporters and spectators agree upon the same fiction? The answer is easily given: all of them did not agree upon it. Fully a half of them knew nothing about it when they left the stand; it was not until the next day that they began to help it along. As for those who fell upon it at once, they did so for the simple reason that the second round presented the only practicable opportunity for arguing that Carpentier was in the fight at all, save perhaps as an unfortunate spectator."

One of the best writers of the times!

[Rusty Tromboni]

Debunking the supposed legendary 'almost KO of Dempsey' in the second round.

Here is a different view of the supposed 'fight changing right hand' (2nd round) that almost KOed Dempsey.

Mencken argued that Dempsey waked through the right hand.

In the excerpt below Mencken argues 'the why' others came to believe it. [Full article here.]

----------------------------------------------------------------

H. L. Mencken, "How Legends Are Made." [Excerpt]

Baltimore Evening Sun, July 5, 1921

. . . . "Boiled down, the thing simply amounts to this: that Professor Carpentier practiced a style of fighting that was more spectacular and attractive than Dempsey’s, both to the laiety present and to the experts; . . . But why did all the reporters and spectators agree upon the same fiction? The answer is easily given: all of them did not agree upon it. Fully a half of them knew nothing about it when they left the stand; it was not until the next day that they began to help it along. As for those who fell upon it at once, they did so for the simple reason that the second round presented the only practicable opportunity for arguing that Carpentier was in the fight at all, save perhaps as an unfortunate spectator."

Great find!