Jack Dempsey Biography
Jack Dempsey Biography
Jack Dempsey was born as William Harrison Dempsey on the 24th of June 1895 in Manassa Colorado. He was born into a large poor family that traveled frequently looking for a better life. Jack had to work from age 11 to help out his struggling Mother and became interested in boxing early thanks to his older brothers one of which was a pro boxer.
Jack left home at the age of sixteen and began working in lumber and mining camps. Fights were frequent and Dempsey began to develop his fistic prowess in order to defend himself. He began to box and would travel looking for fights and working when he could, but often he became poor and desperate to the point were he had not eaten for several days.
Jack began to fight in bars for money. He would go in and declare that he could lick any son of a bitch in the house. Because jack was so thin and only a young lad he would have plenty of takers. Bets were taken and jack would usually knock out his opponent. It was a hard and dangerous life for the young Dempsey.
Jack or Harry as he was known at the time was fighting under the name of kid Blackie for most of his early career but began to call himself jack in honor of the great middleweight jack "the nonparallel" Dempsey. Jack couldn’t often afford to travel by train so he would hang on to the break beams underneath the train. This was known as riding the rods and was terribly dangerous. He traveled vast distances like this.
Jacks career began to improve when he met the crafty manager jack doc Kearns who helped to carefully guide Dempsey towards the Heavyweight Title.
Jack earned his shot at the title by knocking out most of the top contenders of the day such as battling Levinsky, Gunboat Smith, Bill Brennon, Carl Morris And his 18 second destruction of Fred Fulton. Dempsey defeated the 6 foot 6" Jess Willard on the 4th of July 1919 in one of the most savage and brutal fight in history. The huge Willard was battered to the canvas seven times in the first round. Jess Willard was to badly beaten to come out for the fourth round and suffered a shattered jaw, missing teeth and cracked ribs despite outweighing Dempsey by 70 pounds.
Jack defended his title six times and was the first fighter to bring in million dollar gates. The Firpo fight was a particularly thrilling fight in which Dempsey was knocked through the ropes in the first round but came back to knock out Firpo in the Second. The fight was one of the most action packed fights in the history of the ring with Firpo being knocked down nine times in total.
Gene Tunny defeated him in 1926 after having a 3 year lay off. Dempsey was visibly slower then he had been in his heyday and Tunney out boxed Dempsey over ten Rounds.
Dempsey and Tunney met again the next year after Dempsey had stooped future champion and leading contender Jack Sharkey. Jack was in much better shape this time around and was forcing the fight but Tunny was again cleverly out boxing him. Dempsey stalked Tunny and landed a terrific combination in the seventh round knocking Tunny down. Tunny was down for between 14 and 18 seconds, as the referee did not start the count until Dempsey had gone to a neutral corner. This fight was called the battle of the long count and one of the most controversial incidents in boxing history. Tunny was able to recover and continued to outbox Dempsey to win the fight.Tunny would have been able to rise after ten seconds but whether he would have kept Dempsey at bay and survived Dempsey’s attack is unknown .
Dempsey retired after the second loss to Tunny but came back to the sport to perform in countless exhibition fights when he lost his vast fortune in the stock crash. He opened the Famous Jack Dempsey restaurant in New York and was a successful restaurateur. Jack became a hero to many when he fought in the Second World War despite his age. Dempsey was wrongfully accused of slacking during world war one and so jack was able to finally lay such roomers to rest. Later on in life when Dempsey was past seventy Years of age Jack once again proved his punching power when he knocked out two men who had attempted to mug him.
Jack lived to the ripe old age of eighty-seven. He died of natural causes in 1983. Jack Dempsey will always be remembered for the power, courage and brutality he showed in the ring but people who met him outside of the ring have always described jack as a kind and generous man. Perhaps the great middleweight Mickey Walker said it best when describing Dempsey as a boxer.
“I don’t think that the world will ever again see a man who releases such ferociousness, strength and viciousness in the ring" Jack Dempsey Biography