More than nine decades have passed since the rematch between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey took place on a crisp September afternoon at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 1927, and in that time the more mythical qualities of history have replaced the facts. The staggering crowd, the impressive gate, and the realization of the death of a hero and former champion fill the overall narrative, but the focus forever remains on the generous count given to Tunney after he was knocked down in the seventh by the “Manassa Mauler”. .” In fact, in a 1933 presentation to the American Dialect Society entitled “Jargon of Fistiana”, the term “long count” was defined as “Ten seconds on the canvas, unfair lengthening of the count by the cheating referee”.
In 1969, Mel Heimer devoted 262 pages to dissecting Tunney’s second win over the beloved former champion, drawing on a variety of sources and omitting a few details as he described a peculiar year in the life of American heavyweight boxing. Furthermore, Heimer explains through chronicling simultaneous global events, the intense interest in Tunney vs. Dempsey II was not just a product of his time, but something that went a long way towards defining the time.
Looking back, it was as if Gene Tunney jumped ahead a few years. The decade they call “The Roaring Twenties” would not slam shut until “Black Tuesday,” the terrible Wall Street Crash of 1929. That calamity was the result of numerous economic problems feeding off each other, but behind the flaws involved were the excess of the 1920s. “America was a house party, a party weekend in Bronxville, Carmel, or Grosse Pointe, and everyone was invited,” Heimer writes. In that sense, Tunney marked the early end of the party that heavyweight champion Dempsey had been the default host.
The sports world rocked and rolled throughout the decade, making stars out of golfers Glenna Collett and Bobby Jones, soccer players Knute Rockne and Red Grange, swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, tennis players Bill Tilden and Helen Wills. and, of course, Babe Ruth, who, by the way, chose Dempsey to win. Everyone hoped that Jack, their cultural leader, could win back the heavyweight title.
Social symbolism aside, Heimer says that Tunney’s true obsession with defeating Dempsey first surfaced during a chance meeting between the two on a ferry crossing the Hudson River in 1920. The following year, Tunney dispatched Soldier Jones on the Dempsey vs. Carpentier undercard. , boxing’s first million dollar gate. When asked about his plans after him, Tunney replied, “My plans are all Dempsey.” Between then and Tunney vs. Dempsey I in 1926, the former stepped into the ring more than forty times, while the popular champion fought only twice, becoming more of a superstar than an actual fighter. Tunney’s defeat of Dempsey was shocking, but it shouldn’t have been.
Tunney, a more solemn character, a Marine who reads Shakespeare, was the one who felled the snarling beast. He became so obsessed with seizing Dempsey’s title that he shadowboxed while walking to and from his workout on a Florida golf course while playing Scottish pro Tommy Armor in 1925. The “great bookworm,” as Dempsey called him, he knew his time would come.
Dempsey’s first loss in eight years sparked months of furious speculation about whether or not he would retire. Then all interest abruptly focused on Charles Lindbergh’s departure from New York in late May 1927, and exploded when he landed near Paris, becoming the first person to fly across the Atlantic alone. The New York Times headline read: “Lindbergh Does It!”
Throughout The Long Count, Heimer mentions other significant exploits along with daily and weekly updates on the negotiations and events between Tunney and Dempsey: Murderer’s Row; the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti; the latest news from Broadway; the development of films with sound; the downward spiral of Charlie Chaplin’s marriage. It was all consumed and led to “The Long Count” fight, which was more than just a boxing match, but a genuine cultural event, one of the biggest fights in the history of the sport in terms of money and anticipation.
Between two fights involving Tunney and Dempsey there were twenty rounds and more than 200,000 live spectators with embossed gold tickets. The boxers traded knockdowns, although only one mattered. In fact, when Tunney backed down on a left hook-cleanup combination that dropped him in the seventh round, the count administered by referee Dave Barry became the focus of the entire Tunney vs. Dempsey story.
With crowds gathering on the streets of New York and people riding aimless cable cars listening, not to mention inmates at Sing Sing and the New Jersey State Prison, Barry administered a belated ten count to Tunney when Dempsey stood on his prey and stayed in the wrong corner for too long. Tunney then got up and weathered the attack, even dropping Dempsey in the next round with a right hand, but Barry’s quick count only served to amplify the complaints after “The Fighting Marine” won another decision. And with that, more groan than explosion, the reign and era of the great Jack Dempsey came to an end.
When the complaints poured in quickly, it didn’t take long for Tunney’s representatives to set up a pre-fight meeting with Illinois Commissioner John Regiheimer, attended by members of both sides of the fight, where it was agreed that a fighter who scores a fall must go immediately. to a neutral corner. Nat Fleischer, founder and editor of The Ring and Dempsey’s biographer, was among those who thought it was “plausible” that Tunney could have moved up even with a normal count.
“The arguments were just beginning and would go on for the next forty years. But the Long Count was over,” Heimer wrote in 1969. What he could not have predicted is that the storylines would continue for decades more, the mythology still intact.
—Patrick Connor
The Long Count publication first appeared in The Fight City.
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