Dempsey, Jack (1895-1983)

Boxer Jack Dempsey heralded the Golden Age of Sports. Like Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Bill Tilden, and Bobby Jones, Dempsey was the face of his sport. "In the ring, he was a tiger without mercy who shuffled forward in a bobbing crouch, humming a barely audible tune and punching to the rhythm of the song," wrote Red Smith in the Washington Post, adding, "he was 187 pounds of unbridled violence." Jack Dempsey was a box-office magnet, attracting not only the first $1 million but also the first $2 million gate. He held the world heavyweight boxing title from July 4, 1919, when he knocked out Jesse Willard—who retired at the end of the third round with a broken jaw, two broken ribs, and four teeth missing—until September 23, 1926, when he lost it to Gene "The Fighting Marine" Tunney on points after ten rounds. Of a total of 80 recorded bouts he won 60, lost 6, drew 8, and fought 6 "No Decisions." He knocked out 50 opponents, 25 in the first round; his fastest KO came in just 14 seconds.

Born William Harrison Dempsey in Manassa, Colorado, on June 24, 1895, into a Mormon family of thirteen, young Jack started doing odd jobs early on but eventually finished eighth grade. At fifteen his brother Bernie (a prizefighter with a glass chin) started training William Harry. Dempsey chewed pine gum to strengthen his jaw, "bathing his face in beef brine to toughen the skin," as he wrote in his Autobiography. A year later he got his first serious mining job, earning three dollars a day. When William Harry wasn't mining, he was fighting. By 1916 he had already fought dozens of amateur fights. As "Kid Blackie" he hopped freight trains and rode the rails from town to town, announcing his arrival in the nearest gym and boasting that he would take on anyone.

"Kid Blackie" became "Jack" Dempsey on November 19, 1915, when he TKOed George Copelin in the seventh round. Dempsey was actually substituting for his brother Bernie, who had until then fought under the name of Jack Dempsey, in honor of the great Irish middleweight Jack Dempsey the Nonpareil, who died in 1895, the year in which William Harrison was born. The newly named Jack Dempsey flooded New York sports editors with clippings of his 26 KOs, though no one noticed him but journalist Damon Runyon, who nicknamed him the "Manassa Mauler." Late in 1917 Dempsey caught the attention of canny fight manager Jack "Doc" Kearns, who recruited him. Under Kearns, the ballyhoo began: Dempsey KOed his way through the top contenders and within 18 months he took the heavyweight title from Jesse Willard. Dempsey's glory was short-lived, however, for the very next day writer Grantland Rice labelled Dempsey a "slacker" in his New York Tribune column, referring to his alleged draft evasion. Though a jury found him not guilty of the charge in 1920, it took Dempsey six years to overcome the stigma associated with the label and become a popular champion.

Dempsey soon found himself in a peculiarly modern position: he became a sports hero—or anti-hero—whose image took on extraordinary significance in the climate of publicity and marketing that was coming to dominate sports promotion. Pre-television marketing techniques which stressed his rogue style of fighting and his alleged draft evasion turned his title fight against the decorated French combat pilot George Carpentier into a titanic clash between "Good" and "Evil." The July 2, 1921, match was a fight of firsts: it was the first fight ever to be broadcast on radio, the first fight to gross over a million dollars, and it was fought before the largest crowd ever to witness a sporting event up to that time. Amid a chorus of cheers and jeers of "Slacker!," Dempsey dispatched Carpentier in round three and somehow won over the 90,000 member crowd. Dempsey defended his crown several more times, most notably against Argentinian Luis Angel "The Bull of the Pampas" Firpo. Dempsey sent Firpo to the floor seven times before Firpo knocked the champ clear out of the ring to close the first round. Dempsey made it back into the ring and ended the fight 57 seconds into the second round with a knockout.

Dempsey lost his title on points to Gene Tunney. The resulting rematch would become one of the most contested fights in boxing history. Chicago's Soldier Field was swollen with the 104,943 fans who packed the stadium for the September 23, 1927, fight and provided boxing's first two-million dollar gate. Referee Dave Barry made the terms of the fight clear: "In the event of a knockdown, the man scoring the knockdown will go to the farthest neutral corner. Is that clear?" Both men nodded. Tunney outboxed Dempsey in the first six rounds, but in the seventh Dempsey unloaded his lethal left hook and sent Tunney to the floor. Barry shouted, "Get to a neutral corner!" but Dempsey stood still. At the count of three he moved to the corner; at five he was in the neutral zone. In one of the most momentous decisions in boxing history, referee Barry restarted the count at "One." Tunney got up on "Nine"—which would have been "Fourteen" but for Barry's restart. Tunney stayed out of Dempsey's reach for the rest of the round, floored Dempsey briefly in the eighth, and won a 10-round decision. The bout, immortalized as "The Battle of the Long Count," has been described in an HBO sports documentary as "purely and simply the greatest fistic box-office attraction of all time." Despite the fact that Dempsey lost, the fight allowed him to reinvent himself, according to Steven Farhood, editor-in-chief of Ring magazine: "He was viewed as a villain, not a hero, but after losing to Tunney, he was a hero and he remained such until his death."

Dempsey retired after this match, although he still boxed exhibitions. A large amount of the $3.5 million that he earned in purses was lost in the Wall Street Crash, but Dempsey was a shrewd businessman who had invested well in real estate. In 1936 he opened Jack Dempsey's Restaurant in New York City and hosted it for more than thirty years. During World War II, he served as a physical education instructor in the Coast Guard, thus wiping his alleged "slacker" slate clean. Jack Dempsey, "the first universally accepted American sports superstar," according to Farhood, died on May 31, 1983, at the age of 87 in New York City.

—Rob van Kranenburg

Further Reading:

Dempsey, Jack, with Barbara Piatelli Dempsey. Dempsey. New York, Harper & Row, 1977.

Evensen, Bruce J. When Dempsey Fought Tunney: Heroes, Hokum, and Storytelling in the Jazz Age. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1996.

Roberts, Randy. Jack Dempsey: The Manassa Mauler. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1979.

Smith, Toby. Kid Blackie: Jack Dempsey's Colorado Days. Ouray, Colorado, Wayfinder Press, 1987.