JACK DEMPSEY'S INDEPENDENCE WEEKEND, 1940
Two decades on from winning the heavyweight title he 'flame of pure fire' blazed one last time
When legendary boxer Jack Dempsey, 45 and a little fat and balding, came out of retirement to fight a pro-wrestler named ‘Cowboy’ during Independence weekend 1940, the reaction was one of sentimentality and excitement.
(Jack Dempsey, age 45, vs pro-wrestler Clarence ‘Cowboy’ Luttrall, July 1, 1940, Atlanta)
DURING A LUNCHTIME IN THE EARLY SUMMER OF 1940, a middle-aged New York restaurateur named William Harrison Dempsey held several tables worth of customers in a trace.
Some of the diners at the two room restaurant on 344 West 46th Street were regulars, there for the fresh chopped chicken livers served steaming hot on toast and sold for 75c. The newcomers, though, had made the trip to the Hell’s Kitchen area especially to hear the kind of stories that now spellbound them.
Dempsey was forty-five. He was balding, clean shaven and paunched. He hadn’t boxed for thirteen years. Everyone still called him “Champ”.
He spoke in a voice slightly higher in pitch than you’d expect from a fighter, and was a wonderful orator with an understated charisma for gentlemen and a shy confidence with the ladies.
He was about to treat his patrons to another tale when a his waitress, the one married to the cook, approached. She leaned close to Dempsey’s left ear - the one which twenty years before had needed to be stitched back to the side of his face - and whispering there was a phone call.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” the proprietor would have said.
On the end of the AT & T owned Bakelite phone that rested behind the bar was Dempsey’s business associate, Max Waxman.
July 1 will be the date of the fight, Waxman informed Dempsey, perhaps burying the lede that the purse would be $4000 (around $75,000 these days).
Did Dempsey really still want to fight? Because there was plenty of work available as a guest referee in both boxing and pro-wrestling…
Dempsey had no problem doing either for extra cash, but a extra income wasn’t the only thing he needed. He looked beyond the brass and leather bar to a black and white photography on the wall.
The photo, framed in treated wood, was of himself at Madison Square Garden two decades before; on the night 17,000 fans witnessed what the New York Times called “one of the most vicious and closely-contested fights in history.”
That was the night Dempsey, his left ear “hanging by a thread”, finally prevailed in the tenth round over a challenger named Billy Brennan.
Brave Brennan was gone now, Dempsey would have known as he held that phone. The 30-year-old was murdered in 1924; shot open and bled out in the bar he’d bought on 171st Street with the purse from the Dempsey fight. At lot of people from the roaring 20s were gone from Dempsey’s life now.
Maybe the Garden never looked as distant as it did in that moment to Dempsey.
Jack? Are you still there, Jack?
Yes, ‘Jack’ was still there. And - yes - Jack Dempsey, the Manassa Mauler, the former heavyweight champion of the world and one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters of all time, wanted to fight once again.
JACK DEMPSEY WAS one of the biggest draws in the history of American sport, much less boxing. He was a darkly handsome man of some 6ft 1inches and 193lbs when he reigned as heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926.
In an era of clean shavers or bushy mustaches, his face was always darkened by a five o’clock shadow.
He stalked opponents while wearing black boots, no socks, black trucks and a pitiless look in his dark eyes. In his prime, Dempsey was the most intimidating hand to hand combatant the world had yet seen: a snarling, inescapable two-fisted inferno described by sports writer John Lardner as “a flame of pure fire.”
Dempsey had won the world title under the scorching blue skies of Toledo, Ohio, on July 4, 1919, knocking out the giant Jess Willard on the very first Independence Day following America’s victory in the Great War.
(Dempsey slays giant Willard, becomes champion, July 4, 1919)
His friend and eventual biographer Roger Kahn noted:
“Dempsey was perfectly suited to the time in which he reigned as champion… the time when the United States felt the first throb of its own overwhelming power… a fighter and a country growing into maturity in a blaze of strength and exuberance.”
By the time of his retirement, the emotional bond between the heavyweight and the American public ran deep. Dempsey retired a national hero in 1927 and remained active in boxing, making appearances and often refereeing matches. He also appeared in stripped shirts as a make-believe official for pro-wrestling events.
One such occasion opened the door to his unlikely comeback.
In Atlanta in May 1940, one wrassler - Clarence “Cowboy” Luttrall - decided to go into business for himself and shoved the ex-champion across the ring during a tag team match Dempsey was refereeing.
No such antics had been agreed upon prior to the match and, according to a local newspaper, a bemused Dempsey later tried to smooth things over backstage – only to find himself ducking an attempted sucker punch.
The pair were separated but now a furious Dempsey demanded satisfaction. This was a man who once walked thirty miles across the Mojave desert for a fight in a saloon, a man who fought and destroyed giants and a man who, while a gentleman outside the ropes, was so unable to tame his wild insticts inside them he once knocked out a reporter with rabbit punches in what was supposed to be a sparring match.
No, Jack Dempsey wasn’t letting some phony wrestler disrespect him without a receipt.
The event promoter couldn’t believe his luck. A guaranteed $4000 later and a fight – a real fight – was set.
The bout was somehow neither an ‘exhibition’ nor a professional match - it wouldn’t appear on Dempsey’s pro record (60-7-8 with 50 knockouts) - but that didn’t matter to a generation of fans.
Whether or not the shove in the tag-team match was legit? That didn't matter. Was there really an attempted sucker-punch backstage? That didn't matter, either.
Just like with my scene at the restaurant, something like that had happened and that was enough. The details were not important in 1940, nor have they grown in consequence during the intervening decades.
Jack Dempsey was back. That was all that mattered.
Dempsey assured the New York Times:
"It's no gag. We're going to fight with gloves. I ought to knock him out quick because I can still punch and he doesn't know how to fight."
This was seven decades and more before terms like “access journalism” and “fan boy media” became common. I’m tempted to add these were less cynical times - but of course there was plenty to be cynical about in 1940.
Nevertheless, there was little cynicism in the reportage of Dempsey’s middle-aged comeback. With no fear of getting blasted on social media, one newspaperman asked Dempsey if, should he win, the old champ would then challenge the formidible Joe Louis for the world heavyweight title?
"That is something I cannot answer,” Dempsey pawed. “If I prove I can still punch and, if the public demands the match, we will talk about it.”
Then, with a wry grin, he added:
"I have been searching for a fighter to beat Louis. Wouldn't it be strange if he turned out to be Jack Dempsey?"
With that, nationwide hysteria erupted.
An event which would be dismissed as a farce and money grab today took on national importance in 1940.
Every major newspaper dispatched a reporter to speak with Dempsey in New York and then on to Atlanta to be ringside for the fight.
None of them were “adversarial journalists” (whatever that is). The fact Dempsey’s NY restaurant had yet to start making money and the reality the old champ was also going through his third – and most costly – divorce were referenced but didn’t overwhelm the tone of the coverage. And there was no condescension and virtue signaling as to why this fight was getting attention better spent on three-division champ Henry Armstrong’s upcoming welterweight defense.
Dempsey’s return was a happening, a circus. With the news from Europe worsening by the week, here was something goddamn fun for folks to read about!
On fight night, a police escort was needed to accompany Dempsey from his hotel to the local Ponce de Leon baseball field, where 12,000 fans in suits and top hats of various expense had paid to see him roll back the years.
The fight itself was a sham and a farce. The fight itself was magical and inspiring.
Those contradictory statements are equally accurate.
Viewed through the eyes of a cynic, it took an overweight and rapidly tiring Dempsey two rounds to knock out a hapless, out of shape novice who had no business boxing apples, much less a former champion.
But to the fans who raised up a deafening roar that just wouldn’t stop, a still heavy-handed Dempsey tapped into his long held reserves of greatness that night.
The story they repeated to each other on the way home, and for weeks and years to come, was that the Champ came back and ended a fight with a thunderbolt uppercut that literally summersaulted Luttrall onto the arena floor.
How you choose – and it is a choice – to interpret the fight is up to you. You can do that now by watching the event on grainy footage on YouTube:
IF THERE’S ONE THING MY TWO DECADES in combat sports has taught me, it is that fans don’t care about “the best fighting the best”, top rankings or any of that stuff. They care about characters, personalities. They care about their favorites. They care about stories.
Jack Dempsey was everyone’s favorite and the story of his 1940 comeback meant something to so many. The reporters at ringside understood their job was to capture that meaning, not to condescend.
The 12,000 in that Atlanta ballpark 81 years ago tore their throats cheering. They wanted to believe Dempsey had landed a punch on the jaw of Father Time – and so they experienced the fight through that narrative.
So did the fight reporters.
One ringside writer filed the following hyperbole:
"Dempsey, possessed with all the savagery and relentless fury of the Manassa Mauler of old, last night brought back memories of the days when he ruled the heavyweights of the world with a smashing two-round knockout of Cowboy Luttrall, a 224-pound Texas bull.
"Stalking his prey from the opening gong, the old warrior may have battered his way back into the heavyweight title picture as he turned loose a murderous attack on the huge wrestler that left Luttrall senseless and the crowd gasping in amazement.
"Contrary to pictures painted by crepe hangers before the fight, Dempsey was not fat. And he was not clumsy. Instead, fans saw a trim, tigerish Dempsey, lacking the speed of his golden days, but still perhaps the most dangerous fighter in the business, outside of the Brown Bomber (Louis)."
Another newspaperman allowed himself to be carried even further away, filing this to his readers:
"Dempsey was a whirling and slashing killer! Over four rounds, he would be a match for heavyweight champ Joe Louis."
If Twitter was around in 1940, the newspaper men and fans who allowed themselves to be swept up in the July 1 fight would be trolled as ‘marks’, ‘homers’, ‘access journalists’ and ‘casuals’.
They’d written press releases, they would be told. They should be ashamed.
And all of those barbs would be wrong.
The emotions that stir when the champion of our own primes makes a comeback are not trivial.
The return of the ultimate symbol of their generation’s strength allowed those Dempsey fans to live through him once more.
Once the cheering was over, maybe those aged fans reflected on what it is to grow older. Maybe seeing first hand that Dempsey, the mightiest man of their time, as an older man helped them face some of the rougher truths of life's impermanence.
And, just maybe a handful of those readers or the ones lucky enough to have been at ringside were inspired to believe they had one more big fight left in them, too.
WHERE DO DREAMS GO WHEN WE WAKE?
The next morning, Atlanta arose and found the circus had packed and departed during the night. No more column inches were taken up by fantasies of Dempsey taking on Louis. The very idea of him challenging for his old title folded back into the imaginations of his fans, where it belonged.
Dempsey had a couple more bouts vs novices but the spell he, the fans and the media had weaved together only lasted for that one magic night in Atlanta.
By the end of the summer, the forever ex-champion was back in his restaurant, telling stories. He later relocated Dempsey’s to Broadway, directly opposite Madison Square Garden III. That's as close to boxing as Jack would venture again.
On May 31, 1983, the flame of pure fire went out. Jack Dempsey, the shining prince of America’s golden age of sport, passed away aged 87.
The Ponce de Leon ballpark in Atlanta had been torn down decades before. The Cowboy passed away in 1980 and, by now, surely all the 12,000 who witnessed the beatdown of Luttrell are gone, too.
But you can still hear the echoes of that hot July night 81 summers ago when you read those old articles. You can feel the emotions that swelled around that arena as if you had a ticket for a wooden seat in the seventh row.
Even if you’d never heard the name Jack Dempsey before, those clippings would leave you in no doubt this man was a beloved figure with a magical connection to sports fans. It is all there, in those words.
If that’s not ‘accuracy’ in reporting, what is?
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