Jack Dempsey Inspiration – Get up when you can’t
Tours TravelBoxers face the harsh reality of public defeat every time they step into the ring. His attitude of amazing courage and determination to push through the most difficult conditions is an inspiration to all of us. Few fighters have provided as much inspiration as Jack Dempsey, ‘The Manassa Mauler’.
I really like Jack Dempsey’s great phrase: “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.”
It encapsulates, as hard and as fast as one of his explosive left hooks, the spirit of anyone who refuses to accept limitation and defeat, boxer or not.
I just quoted the line on my brother’s phone who is temporarily stunned by the trouble of turning off his new scanner! Dempsey might as well have “solved” the problem by smashing the scanner with a mighty punch.
At times, Dempsey was fighting out of ‘pure rage’ although he also had great skill. He wasted no time in a fight, but simply attacked with fierce intentions.
Dempsey was born in Manassa, Colorado in 1895, the ninth of 11 children. There, the small hut in which his family lived remains to this day. One guidebook describes the great inspiration people draw from his life: “The people of Manassa still celebrate his greatness, which encourages them to succeed on their own in many professions, especially medicine.”
He left home at the age of 16 and learned to survive in the mining towns of the West. He had many successful fights and began boxing professionally in 1914. He knocked out the giant Jess Willard in 1919 to win the heavyweight boxing title. Dempsey was a skilled but fierce fighter. He didn’t believe in probing his opponent. Willard was knocked down 7 times in the first round.
Dempsey also had a great champion line for dealing with big men: “Tall guys get down to my height when I hit them in the body.” Dempsey was five inches shorter and weighed 58 pounds less than the 6-foot-6, 245-pound champion Jess Willard. But on July 4, 1919, under a blazing sun in Toledo, Ohio, Dempsey broke Willard’s jaw with one of his first punches, an explosive left hook.
He knocked Willard down seven times in the first round and pounded him for two more rounds. When Willard didn’t come out for the fourth round, he was missing four teeth, he had his eyes closed, a crushed nose and two broken ribs. For good measure, he still had a broken jaw from the first round.
Dempsey did not believe in half measures. Pulitzer Prize winner Red Smith vividly described Dempsey in the ring:
“In the ring, he was a merciless tiger shuffling forward in a crouch, humming a barely audible tune and pounding to the beat of the song. He weighed in at 187 pounds of unbridled violence. This isn’t big by heavyweight standards, though.” Yet, in the judgment of some, this black-browed product of Western mining camps and tramp jungles was the best of all pugilists.”
Dempsey defended his title twice in 1920 and then, in 1921, he knocked out Georges Carpentier, the French light heavyweight champion, in the fourth round. In 1923 he had a big fight with his challenger, Luis Firpo, a 216-pound Argentine who was called “the wild bull of the pampas.”
Firpo’s first blow was a powerful right hand to the jaw that dropped the champion. Dempsey jumped off the canvas before the count could begin and dropped Firpo seven times.
Before the first round was over, an angry Firpo threw a right hand that sent Dempsey through the ropes and into a sportswriter’s typewriter. The writer and another man helped the champion back into the ring before the count of 10. I’m not sure what happened to the typewriter. This is the stuff movies like ‘Rocky’ are made of!
Perhaps Dempsey had this incident in mind when he wrote, “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” In round 2, Dempsey scored two more knockdowns. The second knockdown ended the fight after 3 minutes and 57 seconds of non-stop action. No wonder his fights were popular!
Dempsey took the next three years off and wrestled only a few exhibitions. When he returned on September 23, 1926, the faster Tunney, the Marine, split the face of the field. Dempsey kept his sense of humor. Returning home to his wife Estelle after the loss, he confessed, “Honey, I forgot to bend over!”
Before the Tunney rematch, Dempsey defeated Jack Sharkey. When Sharkey complained to the referee in the seventh round that Dempsey was hitting low, Dempsey landed a left hook to Sharkey’s exposed chin. The fight was over. When asked why he threw the punch when Sharkey wasn’t looking, Dempsey said: “What was he supposed to do, write you a letter?”
Dempsey’s return match with Tunney drew a $2,658,660 gate (about $22 million in today’s dollars) at Chicago’s Soldier Field on September 22, 1927 Tunney controlled the first six rounds, but in the seventh a charge Typical Dempsey floored Tunney.
The timekeeper began his count. Referee Dave Barry pointed Dempsey to a neutral corner, but Dempsey ignored him and went to his own corner, a few feet behind Tunney. Barry pointed to the neutral corner again and at the count of three, Dempsey started there, arriving about two seconds later. The timekeeper was ticking at five when Barry turned to Tunney. But instead of picking up that count in unison with the timekeeper, Barry yelled, “One.”
Thus began the Long Count. At Barry’s count of four, Tunney looked at the referee. When the count reached nine, Tunney stood up. He had been down for about 14 seconds. Perhaps Dempsey had this incident in mind more than the one getting knocked out of the ring when he wrote, “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.”
Tunney ran from Dempsey for the rest of the round. In the eighth, he dropped Dempsey and then dominated the last two rounds to win easily. After the fight, Dempsey raised Tunney’s arm in greeting and said, “You were the best. You fought a smart fight, kid.” That was Dempsey’s last fight. He retired with a record of 64-6-9, according to The Ring magazine.
Subsequently, he was knocked down with another type of blow. He lost about $3 million in the stock market crash. But like a true champion, he took off again to become one of the most popular restaurant owners in New York. On May 31, 1983, he died of natural causes at the age of 87.
Dempsey was a great champion. He would bounce back after knockout punches both in boxing and in life. He kept his sense of humor and was graceful in defeat. He is an inspiration not only to the people of Manassa and the US, but also to the people of the world.