Jack Dempsey vs Gene Tunney

Jack Dempsey’s seven-year reign as heavyweight champion ended in the rain at Sesquicentennial Stadium in Philadelphia on September 23, 1926, when Gene Tunney outboxed him over ten rounds and received the unanimous decision. The contest had originally been intended for Yankee Stadium, but New York officials refused Dempsey a licence while he remained under orders to meet Harry Wills, and promoter Tex Rickard shifted the championship to Philadelphia. The move did nothing to lessen public interest, with a paid attendance of 120,557, then the largest ever for a boxing match, while contemporary reports put the receipts at about $1.9 million. Dempsey, making his sixth defence, had not fought professionally since defeating Luis Angel Firpo three years earlier. Tunney, by contrast, had remained active, defeating Harry Greb, Tommy Gibbons, Bartley Madden and Johnny Risko during his rise to heavyweight contention. Both men were listed at approximately 190 pounds. Referee Tommy Reilly worked with judges Mike Bernstein and Frank Bull Brown.

Dempsey began in his customary manner, driving forward from the opening bell and attempting to force Tunney onto the ropes before the challenger could establish his boxing. Tunney was initially made to give ground, but he quickly demonstrated that he could hit Dempsey cleanly as the champion came in. He landed hard rights to the head during the first round and made Dempsey miss with an attempted uppercut. The second was more violent. Dempsey forced Tunney back repeatedly, opened the challenger’s mouth with a left hook and landed heavily to the jaw, but Tunney answered with straight rights and combinations to head and body. What had looked at first like Dempsey’s familiar attacking pattern was already becoming more difficult to sustain, because Tunney was not standing in front of him for long enough to be trapped.

The third round marked the first clear change in command. Tunney met Dempsey in the middle of the ring and began throwing the jab with increasing regularity. A right uppercut and left to the head brought blood from Dempsey’s nose and mouth, and another left hook as they came from a clinch shook him. Dempsey, instead of continuing his original rush, began pausing and looking for openings. In the fourth, he made another determined effort, driving Tunney backwards with a wide left and landing a hard right to the head and left to the body. Tunney nevertheless continued to score with the straighter punches and opened a cut around Dempsey’s right eye. Reilly also warned the champion about blows to the back of the neck during the close work. The difference in method was becoming pronounced: Dempsey was still trying to win exchanges by force, while Tunney was stepping away, turning him and making him pay for the approach.

By the fifth, Tunney was doing more of the forcing himself. He blocked a heavy left to the body, countered with an uppercut and drove Dempsey towards the ropes with rights and lefts. Dempsey was already showing signs of the long inactivity that had preceded the defence. His attacks came in bursts rather than sustained pressure, and his punches were increasingly falling short. He tried to revive matters in the sixth, rushing from his corner and getting the better of one close-range exchange, but Tunney answered with punches to the body and head and complained to the referee about rough work in the clinches. The champion was still dangerous enough to demand respect, but Tunney’s greater activity and accuracy were steadily taking control of the contest.

Rain continued to fall through the seventh, and Dempsey produced his best period of the second half of the fight. A left hook opened Tunney’s right eye, and another punch briefly put the challenger back on his heels. Tunney answered almost immediately, landing rights and lefts to the head and forcing Dempsey to hold. Some contemporary accounts regarded this as the champion’s best round and one of the few that could reasonably have been scored in his favour. The eighth belonged more clearly to Tunney. Dempsey came out slowly, his legs no longer carrying him into range with the old suddenness, and punches to the body hurt him. Tunney remained on the move, jabbed as Dempsey advanced and made the champion miss repeatedly with his leads. Dempsey clinched after absorbing two hard body shots and was having increasing difficulty setting himself before punching.

The ninth left little doubt about the direction of the championship. Dempsey tried once more to attack at the bell but was met by Tunney’s right hand and left hook. Tunney landed cleanly to the jaw, followed by both hands and continued working on the champion’s damaged face. Dempsey’s left eye was almost closed, blood was running from the cuts, and contemporary ringside reports described him as extremely tired when he returned to his corner. His seconds worked vigorously over him before the last round. There had been no knockdowns, but Tunney had gradually removed Dempsey’s ability to launch the kind of sustained attack that had characterised his championship victories.

They shook hands before the tenth and then fought through a canvas made treacherous by the rain. Dempsey made one last attempt, driving into Tunney’s body and forcing him towards the ropes, but the challenger soon turned matters around. Tunney struck back with repeated straight punches and short combinations to the head, forcing Dempsey backwards and leaving him struggling to remain steady. One contemporary account described the punches arriving in rapid succession as Dempsey’s left eye closed completely and blood streamed down his face. Another reported that Tunney rocked him with several rights near the bell. Dempsey was still upright when the contest ended, but he had been thoroughly beaten, and there was no protest when Reilly, Bernstein and Brown all awarded the championship to Tunney. Exact numerical score totals from the three officials are not reliably preserved in the standard records, but contemporary reporting was virtually unanimous that Tunney had won by a wide margin, with one account crediting him with every round except the seventh.

Tunney’s victory was not achieved by avoiding a fight so much as by controlling its terms. He had studied Dempsey’s films in preparation, understood the champion’s need to set his feet before launching the left hook and right hand, and spent the greater part of ten rounds refusing to remain where Dempsey wanted him. His jab, straight right and movement gradually turned Dempsey from the aggressor into a pursuer. For Dempsey, the defeat was his first in eight years and exposed the cost of three years without competitive fighting. After the announcement, he accepted the verdict without complaint, remarking that the better man had won. Tunney left Philadelphia as heavyweight champion, and The Ring later selected the result as its “Upset of the Decade.” The two would meet again almost exactly a year later in Chicago, but on this first occasion there was nothing controversial about the decision: Tunney had beaten the champion clearly over the full ten rounds.

Jack Dempsey was my favourite fighter, so this one is never easy to watch. By 1926, though, the truth was staring everyone in the face. He hadn’t had a proper fight for three years, while Gene Tunney had been active, sharp and improving. Dempsey was still the great attraction, still the man people came to see, but the version of him that battered Jess Willard and destroyed Georges Carpentier wasn’t there any more.

Tunney fought the perfect fight. He didn’t try to prove how tough he was by standing in front of Dempsey. He used his feet, kept the punches straight and made Jack reset every time he wanted to launch that left hook. That’s the bit people miss. Dempsey wasn’t just getting outboxed; he was being denied the chance to fight his fight.

By the later rounds, Jack was tired, cut and swollen, and Tunney was still working with control. Dempsey himself later admitted that the inactivity had taken too much out of him and that he was nowhere near the fighter he had been.

Sad as it is for me, there was no robbery and no excuse needed. Tunney deserved it. Dempsey came back once more, but this was really the night the great championship years ended. What a career he had, though, and by every account he became an even bigger man outside the ring than he had been inside it.