The Roaring Twenties

In every sport there emerges one person who stands out so prominently that he is referred to as "The Idol."

Such a man was Jack Dempsey in boxing. While in there tossing punches, he was the most spectacular heavyweight since John L. Sullivan.

He participated in the first million-dollar gate - $1,789,238 - when he fought Georges Carpentier and before he hung up his gloves, the receipts of four other contests in which he fought exceeded those figures. His last fight with Gene Tunney grossed $2,658,660, for a grand total in five bouts of $8,453,319.

Every time Jack defended his crown an epic battle ensued. His sensational mixup with Luis Angel Firpo, the Wild Bull of the Pampas, was one of the most thrilling in pugilistic annals, and his joust with Tunney in Chicago, the "Battle of the Long Count," is the most controversial.

He scored the quickest knockout in a heavyweight bout of national importance when he flattened big Carl Morris in New Orleans in fourteen seconds on December 16, 1918, bettering by four seconds the time in which he disposed of Fred Fulton, the Sepulpa Plasterer, in Harrison, New Jersey, on July 27 of the same year. Both were non-championship affairs, since the Manassa Mauler had not yet won the title.

It was the start of his career as world champion that got the Golden Era of Boxing under way, with him as the ace pugilist; Jack Kearns, his manager, as the king of the ballyhoo artists who beat the publicity drum; and Tex Rickard, as the promoter.

It was in the fall of 1917 that Dempsey, born in Manassa, Colorado, June 24, 1895, six feet, one inch tall and scaling 180 pounds, met Kearns, the man who through extraordinary ballyhoo steered Dempsey into the million dollar class of fighters and a world crown. It was the turning point in young Dempsey's career and a lucky stroke for the kid from Colorado.

Up to the time that Jack Dempsey had stopped Willard, he had scored forty-two knockouts, but it wasn't until after he had put big Fred Fulton down for the count that he received sufficient recognition to be considered a proper challenger for the champion. The quick Fulton victory gained for him the bout with Jess Willard.

William Harrison Dempsey was a tough young hobo. He had fists of iron and a granite jaw.

The Manassa Mauler, who rode the rods on his way to fame and fortune, landed in New York broke and pleaded for a chance to display his fighting qualities. He had many managers but only Kearns gets credit for Dempsey's fabulous career. Kearns' publicity campaign, following Dempsey's triumph over Fulton, succeeded in getting Rickard to stage the Dempsey-Willard match.

It was on July 4, 1919, that Dempsey reached the goal of his ambition - the world championship - when he battered big Jess Willard into submission in three rounds. Willard regarded Dempsey as easy prey, did little training, and paid for it with a merciless heating, one of the worst ever suffered by a heavyweight king. Not in the memory of the oldest fan could anyone recall when a title holder received such murderous Punishment as did Jess.

Yet he responded after each knockdown by rising from the rosin canvas to absorb more punishment.

Willard, scaling 245 pounds to 187' for his opponent, was dropped for counts seven times in the opening round and was reeling, dazed, in a stupor, when the gong came to his rescue as he was sitting on the canvas, mouth wide open, eyes glazed, blood streaming from the nostrils and gushing down his parched throat. He was staring wearily and aimlessly into space as his seconds dragged him to his corner. The broiling sun added to his discomfiture.

The referee, Ollie Pecord, hadn't heard the bell ending the round and held up Dempsey's hand in victory, but after Jack had left the ring and Pecord was apprised of his error by Warren Barbour, the official timer, he quickly recalled Dempsey and the bout continued.

Willard made a game attempt for a comeback in the second round but fared little better than in the opening frame. Now the claret was flowing freely from mouth and nose, both cheeks were puffed, two front teeth had found their way to the canvas. His right eye was closed and the right side of his head was swelling rapidly. He looked as if he were struck by a blackjack. Yet he fought on.

In the third round he walked out of his corner a pitiful object.

He faced another severe attack, but handed back a number of solid punches. Soon his left eye was tightly closed, his face looked as if it had passed through a threshing machine. The bell sounded and the fight was over for Big Jess. He called the referee to his corner, where he had been virtually dragged by Walter Monahan, his second, and announced his retirement.

The King had abdicated; a new King was crowned.

Prior to the Dempsey-Carpentier fight on July 2, 1921, Dempsey had stopped Billy Miske in a title defense in three rounds at Benton Harbor, Michigan, on September 6, 1920, and Bill Brennan in Madison Square Garden on December 14, 1920, in twelve rounds.

The Golden Era got under way when the champion faced the Orchid Kid from France, a popular boxer who had previously annexed the world light heavyweight championship.

The bout, called "The Battle of the Century," took place at Boyle's Thirty Acres in Jersey City, New Jersey, and ended with the dramatic knockout of Carpentier in the first million dollar gate in ring history.

Tex Rickard's enterprise at Toledo, on the shores of Maumee Bay, was a piker's gamble compared to what he faced when he undertook to stage the Dempsey-Carpentier mill. But he was amply rewarded with a record attendance and receipts. The colorfulness of the contestants brought out more persons, including the cream of the social set, than ever before in boxing. The success of the venture proved the crowning point in the career of Tex Rickard.

The Frenchman took the offensive at the clang of the gong in the second round after Jack had easily won the opening one, and for one complete round had the greatest boxer of recent years rocking and backing under the fury of the onslaught. A swooping overhand punch was responsible.

Then came the turn of the battle. With 80,000 cheering the Orchid Kid as he came out for the third round, Jack leaped forth with an attack and shot in several hard right hand blows to the face and a solid right smash to the stomach that changed the tide. The Frenchman covered up, was cornered and bombarded with body blows. He looked like a weakling in the hands of his now vicious opponent. The bell was sweet music to his ears.

It took but little time in the fourth and final round to end the fray. The champion's deadly left hook found its mark to an unguarded body and the Frenchman slipped limply to the canvas. He took a count of nine. Through all this, scarcely a sound was heard as the huge gathering gasped in astonishment at what was happening.

Dempsey swung against the jaw of the challenger and again he went down, his body stretched across the floor. He didn't move until eight was counted and then attempted to get to his feet but couldn't make it. The fight was over and Dempsey became a national hero.

Following two years of idleness, Dempsey tackled Tom Gibbons at Shelby, Montana, on July 4, 1923, and the best he could do was to win a decision in fifteen rounds before only 7,202 paid spectators, the lowest in Dempsey's championship career. The city went bankrupt through its guarantee of $300,000 to the Manassa Mauler, a sum that was far beyond what had been taken in at the gate.

The fight was a financial flop and four Shelby banks went broke.

The Shelby fiasco was followed by Dempsey's greatest battle-that in which he knocked out Luis Angel Firpo of Argentina in the second round at the Polo Grounds in New York on September 14, 1923.

The champion floored the Wild Bull of the Pampas seven times in the opening round and twice in the second before putting him away. A short right uppercut to the jaw ended the thriller.

But in those three minutes and fifty-seven seconds of fighting, there was crowded more action than ordinarily is witnessed in fifteen rounds of a championship match. In those minutes of thrilling, whirlwind, terrific battling. Dempsey was knocked through the ropes, out of the ring, and hadn't friendly hands pushed him back, he would have lost his title.

In that space of less than two rounds, Firpo gave a marvelous exhibition of gameness. Battered and bloody, groggy from the severe punishment, he showed a fighting heart by coming back following those crushing drives and almost relieving Jack of his crown.

It was the most dramatic fight in the history of modern pugilism. It was a gripping, nerve-shaking contest between lion-hearted, heavy-hitting ringmen.

Firpo had the world within his grasp, the richest title in pugilism almost in hand, yet failed to triumph because he lacked one great essential in boxing-a fighting brain. Twice he floored Dempsey in the first round but couldn't take advantage of the opportunity by following up his attack properly.

The wild-eyed, excited, infuriated giant, who saw his opponent swaying groggily before him, was unequal in the emergency. Dempsey, fully recovered in the second round, made quick work of his task with speed, agility, and fighting fury.

When Dempsey decided to return to the ring in 1925, he was pressed by the New York State Athletic Commission to accept Harry Wills, a Negro of national prominence, as his challenger, but he refused.

This was done after a previous agreement for such a match had fallen through. His decision resulted in Jack's being barred in the Empire State. Tex Rickard was appealed to by the Boxing Board and he decided against staging a mixed bout, declaring that he had received a hint from Governor Al Smith that such a contest was not desired in New York, but James A. Farley, Chairman of the New York Commission, emphatically denied the report.

When Rickard arranged to have Gene Tunney face Dempsey and selected the Yankee Stadium for the bout, the Commission put its foot down and refused to sanction it.

The Boxing Board drove the fight out of New York, and the Sesquicentennial Stadium of Philadelphia was awarded the promotion for September 23, 1926. In that bout Jack lost his title.

It was another million-dollar bout and drew an attendance of 120,757, the largest in boxing history. The gate was $1,895,733. The fight took place in a driving rainstorm that made the canvas slippery and drenched spectators and participants alike. Tunney, far better physically, was master of the situation in all except two rounds, in one of which, the fourth, he was on the verge of a knockout.

In several rounds Tunney made the champion look foolish as Jack missed and floundered about the ring. He was far off his usual tearing-in, fast punching style. He seemed to have lost his punch, his vicious attack and all that in his heyday made him the "Man Killer."

The champion was awkward, slow, and couldn't follow through as he did in the famous battles with Willard, Carpentier, and Firpo. Some blamed it on the weather conditions; others on his difficulties with his manager with whom he broke following his marriage to Estelle Taylor, the movie actress.

Gene, on the other hand, exhibited cleverness and sharp hitting.

He fought his greatest battle. He often beat Jack to the punch and several times rocked his head. He opened a gash over Jack's eye in the fifth round. In the sixth, Dempsey succeeded in checking his rival's attack, but Tunney came back with power in the last portion of that round and the next to toss punch after punch to the head and body without a return from the champ.

And that's how it went from then to the tenth and final session with Tunney always leading, striking effectively, and Jack missing. For the first time in his career, the Manassa Mauler found himself entirely on the receiving end.

His left eye was closed, his face puffed, and he was wobbly when the gong ended the affair. Tunney, the New York boy who had won the light heavyweight crown in the American Expeditionary Force in France, was now the world heavyweight champion.

Both Rickard and Dempsey were eager to obtain a return engagement, but Tex had to get Manassa Jack back into the top challenger's post before he could sell Dempsey to the public again.

The heavyweight chosen to give Dempsey a tryout was Joseph Paul Zukauskas, otherwise known as "Jack Sharkey," who figured as the outstanding fighter among the big fellows plodding toward the championship goal.

Sharkey had a good record, his most noteworthy performance being a victory over Harry Wills, the Negro gladiator who for years had vainly challenged Dempsey. It was this removal of what had come to be known as "The Black Menace" from the roster of title-contenders which boosted Sharkey's stock and gained for him the match with the ex-champion.

The bout took place at Yankee Stadium, New York, on July 21, 1927, Dempsey winning by a knockout in the seventh round before 75,000 fans who paid $1,083,530, the fourth million-dollar gate. In the contest's early stages, Sharkey elected to fight at long range. A fast boxer, he outpointed Dempsey, whose speed did not equal that of his antagonist.

But Sharkey, abandoning his cautious attitude, unwisely went in to mix matters, a style of milling which exactly suited the iron-fisted Dempsey. The latter pounded Sharkey's body savagely and in the seventh round landed a stomach punch at close quarters which seemed to some of the spectators to be a trifle low. Sharkey imprudently turned his head to protest to the referee and in the same instant, Dempsey smashed a hook to the jaw which sent the ex-gob down and out. He claimed a foul, but Referee Jack O'Sullivan disallowed it.

Opinions -were about evenly divided among the spectators as to whether Sharkey had actually been fouled. With that victory, Rickard announced the Dempsey-Tunney rematch.

They met at Soldier's Field, Chicago, September 22, 1927 in a title match that has gone down in ring history as "The Battle of The Long Count," the fifth in the series of million-dollar-gate contests in which Dempsey took part, with 104,943 per sons paying the all time record sum of $2,658,660.

It had been agreed before the fight that the neutral corner rule be observed and that in the event of a knockdown, the man scoring it should go to the farthest neutral corner. When Dempsey dropped Gene in the seventh round, he refused to obey that rule and Referee Dave Barry stopped the count until Jack did. Thus, Dempsey was penalized and Tunney received additional time to regain his senses.

As in Philadelphia, Dempsey was defeated. This time he came pretty close to winning by a knockout in the seventh round, but his failure to obey the rules and go to a neutral corner cost him the victory. Though Tunney has often declared he could have gotten to his feet at any time within the allotted ten seconds, the photo of the knockdown with Gene resting against the ropes, glassy-eyed, indicated otherwise.

Yet in the next round, Tunney, his brain cleared, danced around the ring, tossed jabs and then dropped Dempsey with a right to the jaw. He quickly got to his feet but was outpointed by a wide margin in that and the succeeding two rounds, with Gene getting a well deserved decision. The long count knockdown has become one of the most talked about, controversial points in boxing. Some of the ringsiders said Gene received a fourteen count, as did the official timekeeper, while others, mostly newspapermen, said it was seventeen. The writer's stop watch caught it at fourteen. Here is what happened:

Gene opened the round with a right to Dempsey's head then delivered several effective jabs. Dempsey rushed him and smote two rights to the head that landed Gene against the ropes. The last punch was hard enough to drop him to the canvas, where he lay in an awkward position in Dempsey's corner with body half twisted and eyes glassy.

In interviews he declared that he knew what was going on, however. He watched Dave Barry closely and when Dempsey went to a neutral corner and Barry's count was started, Gene slowly worked his way upward. Dempsey rushed in, but Gene, his equilibrium regained, moved about the ring, making Jack miss, and the round ended with both hugging each other.

Thus ended the fighting career of one of the great ringmen of all time. Though Dempsey tried a comeback and gained a fortune in exhibitions after the second defeat, his real fighting terminated with the "Long Count" battle.

James Joseph Tunney, born May 25, 1898, the first New York-born ringman to win the crown under glove rules, had a proud record before winning the heavyweight title. Prior to joining the Marines and gaining the A.E.F. light heavyweight title in Europe, he had a few contests, but it was after his return from World War One that he took to the sport in earnest and set the championship as his goal.

He defeated Battling Levinsky for the American light heavyweight crown, January 13, 1922. At that time he had won twenty-nine contests and didn't experience a single setback. He lost the title to Harry Greb in May of that year, regained it from Greb on February 23, 1923, and never again did he suffer a defeat.

In 1925 he threw down the gauntlet to the heavyweight class, scored knockouts over Tommy Gibbons and Bartley Madden, and defeated Johnny Risko in twelve rounds.

From a slender, though sinewy athlete, he had developed into a splendid specimen of muscular manhood, with massive shoulders, deep chest, and stalwart frame. His weight and punching power increased without sacrificing the agility and speedy footwork for which he was celebrated.

Not the least surprising thing about the Philadelphia meeting with Dempsey when the heavyweight title passed to Tunney, was the unsuspected strength of the victor which enabled him to tie up and control in the clinches a pugilist who had hitherto been deemed invincible in a test of roughing it at close quarters!

Nearly a year passed before Tunney again defended his title. This time Tom Heeney, known as the "Australian Hard Rock," was selected to oppose him. Out of a lot of rather mediocre heavies in an elimination tournament conducted by Tex Rickard at Madison Square Garden, Heeney and Sharkey had forged to the front.

A meeting between the two pugilists resulted in a draw, but. as Sharkey had already been knocked out by Dempsey, the Australian was awarded the match for the championship.

Tunney and Heeney met on July 26, 1928, at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fight was halted by Referee Eddie Forbes eight seconds before the conclusion of the eleventh round, when Heeney, game to the core, but literally cut to pieces by the champion's unerring punches, was blind and utterly helpless. From first to last Heeney never had a chance.

The man who stood off the best of the heavyweight contenders was little better than a novice in the hands of the most scientific pugilist since the day of James J. Corbett.

Financially the bout was a dismal failure. It was the first non-profitable championship battle staged by Rickard. It resulted in a loss of $152,000. Gene was guaranteed $500,000.

The glamor and color of Dempsey's name was missing. Despite the most frantic efforts of the press agents, the public remained coldly indifferent as to what would happen to Tom Heeney. There was nothing spectacular about the man from the Antipodes. He was a persevering, dogged, plodding fighter and the fans guessed correctly in advance as to what his fate would be.

Speculation as to Tunney's next opponent ceased suddenly when the champion announced his retirement. There were no "if's" about Gene's statement. It ryas short, definite, to the point. He was through forever with the ring.

Tunney married an heiress, Miss Polly Lauder, and became a very successful businessman.