Low life
Well mauled
Jeffrey Bernard
illiatn Harrison 'Jack' Dempsey, the `Manassa Mauler', has taken the float count as Ring Magazine would and will say. He was born on 24 June, 1895 and Was exceptionally well bred for the business of fighting, his ancestry being Irish- Scottish-Cherokee. He weighed 1871bs and he was 6ft 3/4in tall. Before Muhammad Ali, Who tipped the scales at anything between tipped the tipped the 2301bs, all the class heavyweights were Dempsey's size and with the exception of the exceptional Ali they must have thrown three punches to the likes O.f. Larry Holmes's one. But one from the likes of Dempsey or Louis could suffice. Some nut of a scientist in New York once fia mechanical device in the heavy bag the at St thouillman's Gymnasium and came up with ght-provoking fact that a left hook
from Joe Louis was the equivalent of a 901b weight being dropped on your head from a height of 6ft. Not many hung around long enough to dispute the possibility and Dempsey certainly hit as hard. Dempsey had, for the benefit of record freaks, a total of 80 fights of which he won 49 by the short route and he lost 7. Two of them of course, to Gene Tunney. And there's the crunch for me. Dempsey's death has me thinking of Tunney yet again and that's not to detract from the old mauler.
Years ago, there was an amusement ar- cade in the Charing Cross Road where for a couple of pence you could — and I did hun- dreds of times — see an old hand-wound flicker movie of Tunney beating Dempsey.
I'm not here to revive memories of the famous 'long count' or to speculate as to whether Tunney could have survived after nine seconds but I do remember very well how extraordinarily vulnerable Dempsey was to Tunney's overhand right crosses.
That's why, I suppose, I have never been able to rate Dempsey in the top four. Com- parisons may be odious but they kill the time of day. Tunney beat him decisively twice. Ali would have boxed his head off.
Louis would have stopped him and Mar- ciano was unstoppable. For all of that opi- nion — not a humble one — Jack Dempsey was a great fighter who had a sort of uneducated ferocity that brought a kind of glamour to the ring that died when AU packed it in. In February 1926, Dempsey boxed 12 exhibition bouts in the space of one week, winning them all and eight of them by knockouts.
Even the names of his opponents have a ring about them that provokes the deepest nostalgia. Where are they now? Fireman
Jim Flynn. Ed 'Gunboat' Smith. One- Round Garrison. Battling Levinsky and the
Boston Bearcat. It makes you want to weep to look at Joe Bugner. Watching Dempsey chase Jess Willard around the ring when he won the world title is a remarkable reminder that the brother of the 'noble art' is that exciting animal the fighter. Pitted against each other Dempsey and Tunney were a pretty uncivilised spectacle that I find irresistible. Tunney psyched him, though, as well as outpointing him. Before the first fight the referee told Tunney, 'I don't want any squawks from the loser when this fight is over.' Tunney answered, `Go over and tell that to Dempsey. He'll be more interested in what the loser has to say than I.'
But one of the more endearing human qualities is bravery. Guts come in all shapes and sizes. The little Lord Nelson had a hun- I've often thought of taking a caravan holiday.' dred miles of them as did Edith Cavell, and Jack Dempsey wasn't the hero of thousands of young men in their day because of his pa- tent leather shoes or flashing smile. (You have to be very well loved to smile like Errol Flynn or Dempsey.) There's something about boxers though. I'm biased, having had a shot at it, but I soon realised in my Jack Solomons Gymnasium days that they're the 'nicest' of sportsmen. When and if you can box 'and fight like 'Sugar' Ray Robinson you don't actually find it quite as necessary to be nasty to people. Tempera- ment is part and parcel of it all and John McEnroe, for example, will always be an arsehole as far as I'm concerned. No, it's all frightfully proper and upstanding even when the adrenalin is gushing. Taki didn't forget his manners when I watched him fight in the European Karati Champion- ships and I very much like a piffling but touching quote from Tunney's autobiography, A Man Must Fight, concer- ning his last encounter: 'Jack greeted me as I entered the ring: "How are you Gene?" "Quite well, Jack, and you?" I replied.'
Let mayhem commence. I seem to have been waffling more about Tunney than Dempsey and what I meant to say was that Dempsey was a great fighter and one of the great sportsmen of this century. In the ghastly event of there being such a thing as
a repeat known as an after life I imagine the aforementioned quote being reversed. 'Gene greeted me as I entered heaven. "How are you Jack?" "Quite well, Gene, and you?"' He was all very well.
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