The two fights between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney rank with boxing’s most-storied championship bouts and are among the greatest sports spectacles ever seen in America. Wednesday marks the one hundredth anniversary of their first encounter. Dempsey bridged boxing’s old and modern eras and was one of the most charismatic fighters in history.
When Dempsey was young, biographer Randy Roberts recounts, “he lived in mining camps and hobo jungles, rode the rods, and more than once begged for food. What separated him was his willingness, even eagerness, to work. He accepted any type of employment from washing dishes, cutting lawns, and scrubbing floors to the harder work of coal-mining, digging ditches, and picking fruit.” Dempsey had his own thoughts on his origin story: “I was a hobo,” Dempsey said.
When I was a young fellow, I was knocked down plenty. I had to collect that $2 for winning or go hungry. I had one fight when I was knocked down 11 times before I got up to win.
When you haven’t eaten for two days, you’ll understand.” In the ring, Dempsey attacked with unrelenting ferocity. Trainer Ray Arcel likened him to “a saloon fighter” and observed, “With Dempsey, every part of your body was a legal target.” Sportswriter Paul Gallico echoed that theme, writing, “Dempsey seemed to have a constant bottomless well of cold fury somewhere close to his throat. He had tremendous courage, speed and determination, and good hitting powers.
He was never a good boxer and had little or no defense. His protection was aggression. Dempsey never boxed anybody.
When the bell rang, he ran out and began to attack his opponent, and he never stopped attacking him, trying to batter him to the floor until the bell ended the round. He had a smoldering truculence on his face and hatred in his eyes. He was utterly without mercy or pity, asked no quarter, gave none.” Dempsey said: “To be a good fighter, you have to have three things.
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