RSR Looks Back at the Long Count: Jack Dempsey – Gene Tunney II
By Russ Greenspan – April 9, 2008
In September, 1923, World Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey retained his title with a brutally taxing second round knockout against Luis Angel Firpo, flooring the powerful but crude Argentinean 9 times, and coming within a hair’s breadth of disaster himself, saved by the journalistic faithful after Firpo’s clubbing right hand knocked Dempsey from the ring.
Dempsey’s subsequent three year hiatus from boxing did his career no earthly good, which became patently obvious during his September, 1926 return to action against Gene Tunney, who handily vanquished Dempsey by 10 round unanimous decision, and captured his title in the process. The now former champ wistfully reflected that “It’s sad to hear the fellow with the microphone yell ‘the winner and new champion’ when you’re the old one”.
Not one to take any setback lying down, Dempsey rebounded ten months later, dropping and stopping top contender Jack Sharkey, in a match where Dempsey salvaged victory from defeat with a vicious left hook to the jaw, delivered when Sharkey turned his head to referee Jack O’Sullivan to complain about his adversary’s low blows. In a 1970 interview, the ever feisty Dempsey commented, “I was right. He said I hit him when he wasn’t looking. Well, what the hell, why ain’t you looking?”
Dempsey’s win over Sharkey set the stage for his September 22, 1927, rematch with Tunney, a bout that nearly 8 decades later, remains one of sports history’s memorable and controversial moments, and paired two of boxing’s most disparate characters.
Born in Manassa, Colorado on June 24, 1895, William Harrison Dempsey discovered early on that pugilism was his life’s calling, and left home after the 8th grade in fervent pursuit. The young man travelled at will and lived a hobo’s existence, riding the “rods” and fighting in barrooms, mining camps and other such eclectic locales in order to subsist. Dempsey also honed the tools of the trade which served him admirably during a 14 year career in which he won 66 fights, drew 11 times, and lost but six times, knocking out 51 opponents in the process.
As “Kid Blackie”, William Harrison Dempsey scraped and battled for loose change tossed into a hat by a couple of dozen inquisitive onlookers; within five years after his first recorded professional fight in 1914, Jack Dempsey had ascended to the summit of the heavyweight division, pummeling champion Jess Willard into acquiescence before a Toledo, Ohio crowd who shelled out $452,224 for the privilege of observing the spectacle. Dempsey also became his sport’s most compelling figure, on the eve of what enthusiasts traditionally refer to as the Golden Age of Sports.
In stark contrast to the brawling, rough hewn Dempsey, Gene Tunney was a well educated, highly skilled ring tactician who enjoyed reading Shakespeare and Maugham, cultivated friendships with the period’s literati, and abstained from alcohol. However, Tunney was no creampuff, but rather an outstanding student of the pugilistic arts; “The Fighting Marine” also served his country honorably during WWI, and entered the first Dempsey bout with an exceptional record of 79-1-3. But despite all of his accomplishments, Tunney never caught on with boxing fans as had Dempsey, who after his own years of public trials and tribulations, ironically (and to his own great surprise) became the crowd’s darling only following his loss to Tunney. Said Dempsey thereafter, “…losing was the making of me.”
More than 104,000 people filled Chicago’s Soldier Field to witness Dempsey – Tunney II, producing a then record gate of $2.65 million. Like their first encounter, the second go-round began with Dempsey stalking forwards, and Tunney retreating, firing jabs and combinations in short bursts. Tunney dominated the bout’s first six rounds, and Dempsey later admitted that he was virtually out of gas by the fourth.
Things were looking extremely bleak for the former champion, but in the words of esteemed boxing writer Hype Igoe, “Then a thunderbolt came out of the sky.”
Nearly one minute into round seven, Dempsey nailed Tunney with a left hook that drove him back against the ropes, badly stunned. Tunney tried weakly to counterpunch, which left his head exposed, and Dempsey threw a pair of right-left combinations upstairs that rendered the champion’s expression vacant, and left him slumping to the canvas with his legs twisting beneath him. Dempsey finished his handiwork by clouting Tunney with 3 or 4 other wicked blows on his way down, but it’s likely (and one hopes) that they went unnoticed, such was “The Fighting Marine’s” apparent level of consciousness. Unfortunately for Dempsey, poor memory and his own killer instinct conspired against him, and fistic history was written.
The Illinois State Athletic Commission had decreed before Dempsey – Tunney II that if/when a knockdown occurred, the opponent must retire to the farthest neutral corner before the referee begins his count. However, if the boxer on his feet failed to remain in the appropriate corner during a knockdown, the referee was mandated to cease counting until he had done so.
As Tunney sat glassy eyed and helpless on the ring mat, timekeeper Paul Beeler began his count, with Dempsey hovering in the corner immediately to the champion’s right. However, this was not 1919, and Dempsey was not in the ring with Jess Willard, whom he was permitted to stand over and maul every time the fallen giant tried to rise from the canvas. When Dempsey did not proceed as the rules entailed, referee Dave Barry promptly admonished him to go elsewhere; specifically, the neutral corner to his right. Dempsey purportedly told Barry that “I’ll stay here,” and moved not at all until Barry physically directed him towards the appropriate location, just after the “three” count; Barry then began turning towards Paul Beeler at the count of “four”, but did not pick up the timekeeper’s tally until “five”. It was only then that Barry’s count began….at “one.”
Tunney had by now started to regain his senses (though exactly to what extent is pure conjecture), and at Barry’s count of “five” looked over at his corner, where he was ordered to stay down and use the full time allotted. Tunney gazed directly at Barry and regained his footing as the ref tolled “nine”; with Dempsey once again on the attack beckoning him to fight, Tunney prudently sounded the retreat, using his guile and experience to survive the round; he had been on the canvas roughly 14 seconds after the knockdown.
The bell for round eight sounded, but Dempsey was a spent shell, and the now completely recovered Tunney dropped him for a one count; it bears noting that while Tunney did not head for a neutral corner after the knockdown, referee Barry instantly and erroneously counted “one” over Dempsey. It mattered little; the remaining stanzas proved anticlimactic, and Tunney coasted to another 10 round unanimous decision win over his exhausted and outclassed foe.
Dempsey’s appeal of the bout’s outcome was rapidly quashed by the Illinois State Athletic Commission, but the debate raged on; specifically, as to whether Tunney would have been able to reach his feet within 10 seconds had Dave Barry assumed the timekeeper’s count.
In his book “A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and The Roaring Twenties”, celebrated author Roger Kahn contends that Dave Barry’s “long count” was a mistake afforded Tunney, and then some. According to Kahn, Barry was doing his level best to ensure that Dempsey did not regain his title. “Watching this moment on videotape” Kahn writes, one is consumed by outrage. Two knockdowns, one round apart, and two different sets of rules. The explanation, I believe, is not complicated. In my tape of Chicago, 1927, I am looking at a crooked referee.” However, Mr. Kahn’s allegations do not appear to be supported by the evidence.
Initially, Dempsey acknowledged receiving Dave Barry’s pre-fight instructions, which in accordance with the Illinois Athletic Commission’s directive, stated that the fighter striking a knockdown blow would proceed to the farthest neutral corner, or else Barry would not begin his count. Further, in his article “Jack Dempsey Revisited”, the distinguished boxing writer Thomas Hauser quotes Dempsey thus; “I lost my head and couldn’t move as the referee shouted, ‘Get to a neutral corner.’ I was the jungle fighter so completely set in my ways that I couldn’t accept new conditions.” Dempsey added, “I’ll never really know whether Gene could have gotten up (within ten seconds of the knockdown); He has often told me he could have, and I have no reason not to believe him.”
Unsurprisingly, Tunney never denied that he was badly shaken by the knockdown punches, but insisted that he picked up the referee’s count by “two”, and could have risen at any time thereafter. Said Tunney, “Realizing, as do all professional boxers, that the first nine seconds of a knockdown belong to the man who is on the floor, I never had any thought of getting up before the referee said ‘nine’. Only badly dazed boxers who have momentarily lost consciousness and show-offs fail to take that nine seconds that are theirs.”
Even Mr. Kahn was forced to admit his uncertainty as to whether Tunney could have gotten to his feet by “an honest nine”, though he emphatically asserts that if he had, Dempsey would have regained his title by knockout in round seven. On the other hand, boxing writer and historian Nat Fleischer expressed no such doubts, claiming that “…the photo of the knockdown with Gene resting against the ropes, glassy eyed, indicated otherwise.” Of course, Mr. Fleischer is entitled to his opinion, but I am inclined to favor the opinions of Mssrs. Dempsey and Tunney, who were in the ring on that fateful Chicago night.
Dempsey never again fought professionally after the Tunney rematch, and Tunney competed but once more, winning an 11th round TKO over rugged contender Tom Heeney in 1928. Interestingly, Dempsey and Tunney stayed in touch as the years passed, bound together by history forged in combat. When Tunney died from blood poisoning in November, 1978, Dempsey unquestionably suffered the loss, admitting that “I feel like a part of me is gone…As long as Gene was alive, I felt we shared a link with that wonderful period of the past. Now I feel alone.”
