By Matt McGrain: In Toledo, Jack Dempsey was King. Leaving his corner and circling to his left, on his toes, his chin tucked in, leading with his left foot, just out of punching range, right hand high and slightly extended, left hand low – a loaded gun, we now know – Dempsey looks loose, showing near perfect form. He slips a couple of clumsy jabs and declines to contest the first clinch of the fight, stepping back, not really exerting himself until it is time to separate himself from his towering opponent, Jess Willard, who outweighs him by some 55lbs.

After the clinch, Dempsey bounces once to each side, just out of range, and appears to be looking Jess Willard in the eyes, not a habit for Dempsey because it was an amateurs habit, and Jack Dempsey was a professional. He circles right and takes a light, half-formed jab, then appears to over-feint, or shy away. Willard, the big dog in the fight, does what a big dog should do when faced with an elusive adversary who wants to snipe, waits, waits for his chance to bite in the hope that he will be able to take hold. Willard jabs again, twice more, reasonably authoritative punches, but something is different. Jack is still trying to slip and ride them, but is suddenly using his footwork to bounce straight back into the firing-range, back and down, then in on steel springs. In-fighting follows, Dempsey landing short hard punches to Willard’s midriff, the big man, who landed a decent one-two as Dempsey came in, punching only once and ineffectively.

Then, something odd. Willard spreads his arms, demonstrating an impressive wing-span, but leaving himself totally vulnerable. The referee, Ollie Peccord, was close as the clinch occurred, had distanced himself from the two, perhaps a command was issued before he moved, but here, Willard looks curiously Naïve. Dempsey, a fighter who even then had a reputation for hitting on the break, distances himself without throwing a punch. Willard, who should be looking for action on the inside to utilise his lethal uppercut, instead takes his first backwards step. Jack Dempsey uncorks his left hook…

The internet is a great gift to the boxing fan. He can download fights from almost any point in history, he – or she – is more up to date with results, rumours and fight reports than the most well-connected in the Dempsey era. It has also concentrated debate, and era to era comparisons are everywhere. Modernists consider this centuries fighters superior in almost every way, traditionalists consider the reverse to be true, showing preference for these more rugged times when “heart” meant fighting blind or lame. I’ve never cared much for these arguments myself. For me, power, speed and heart are never things that were in or out of fashion, and a fighter with punch resistance, talent and balance would go far in whatever era you decided to plop him down in. I don’t see drastic evolution in boxing, and I don’t consider that fighters who only fight in black in white are primitive.

Jack Dempsey is a case in point.

Later in this round, he unleashes the most fearsome attack ever seen in the ring. I want you to re-read that last sentence. This is not an opinion. Nothing done to an opponent in the ring in a single round compares to the havoc Jack is about to wreak upon Jess. Dempsey is remembered best for this, and that is fair, but I often wonder, is enough made of these first few seconds in Toledo? Dempsey is at a rare peak, an all-time great enjoying his absolute best, and that best is about more than punching. Yes, his hands are a little low, but they are higher than Roy Jones’s. And Dempsey looks just as elusive against his admittedly slow opponent, he looks just as alive on his feet, he looks every bit as gifted in terms of balance and timing, and weighing in at 190lbs, this probably makes him, in pound for pound terms, as dangerous to his opponent as anyone who has ever been in there. What Dempsey does to Willard sees him remembered as a puncher, even a slugger, but to me peak Jack Dempsey is a box-puncher, and one who has only the likes of Sonny Liston and Lennox Lewis for company – and it’s a good job that those two boys are bigger, because they are slower, with worse footwork and balance.

“Under no circumstances take any little half step or hippety-hop when you decide to punch. And never, never draw back the punching hand before you throw it. Here’s another never. Never throw a light punch. Any time you swing, you’re going to be open, make it worth it. Punch hard. Light leads don’t impress me at all.”

Jack talks about balance. He talks about firing his punches over a short distance without warning. He talks about bad intentions.

Back in Toledo, Jack Dempsey has just uncorked his left hook. It’s his Sunday punch, and it has few rivals in the history of the division, in the history of the sport. He brings it around just as he describes it, hard, without warning and in a short, perfect arc – he doesn’t demonstrate perfect punching form, he is punching up, and allowances must be made for that, but he shows perfect punching form in the circumstances. Add adaptability to his list of wining attributes. Stepping in with the punch, he is right after the freshly retreating Willard – perhaps the bigger man has felt something in the clinches he has not enjoyed, a vibrancy, a freshness, a murderous intention? For whatever reason he has decided to give ground, and so Dempsey has decided to attack.

Willard doesn’t like the hook. He shuffles back again. Dempsey runs into him, and it’s like running into a tank – “Willard’s back was a solid brick wall. His fist looked like the were twice as high in the air as I was tall. I saw the muscles standing out on his back. He was in terrific shape. I said to myself, ‘this guy is liable to kill me’” – Dempsey mauls with him, but then relaxes, loose, allows the bigger man to walk him, not contesting the clinch, not wasting energy, again there appears to be no command from the referee, and again Willard spreads his arms upon breaking the clinch – again there is no punch on the break from Dempsey who back-pedals and steps to his left, chin still in proper position. He holds his ground, then feints and Willard flashes at him with surprisingly fast punches – it is my opinion that Willard knows he is in trouble already, and his pre-fight concerns regarding what would happen “if I kill Jack Dempsey” (Willard wanted certain legal reassurances, having already killed a man in the ring) may have been overstated – but Dempsey is already gone, having taken a new measure of his man and his speed – and how properly to time him. Jack Dempsey darts onto the front foot, then back, another feint, Willard is not sure, then Dempsey pounces in behind the hook and begins the work he was put on this earth for.

“I never go in confident. Any sucker can get lucky and give you a crack on the chin. I go in, saying to myself, ‘Kill him, kill him, kill him. Otherwise he’ll kill me.’”

The previous moment’s feint and Willard’s reaction was important, I think. Dempsey decided he was so much faster than Willard he could attack with some impunity. Fast, full-blooded but rather less concise punches from Jack are met by shorter, meaty punches from Willard and Dempsey induces a clinch. Willard is pushed back for the first time as Dempsey contests. Willard does not spread his arms to indicate a clean break on this occasion. He has now felt Jack’s power in earnest. Jack throws a perfectly formed overhand right which reaches it’s mark. He then declines a clinch and fires over a left. Willard looks concerned, alarmed even, and this time when Dempsey steps back and appraises his opponent he does not feint or move, he returns immediately to the attack. In the following clinch, Willard looks different, he handles Dempsey gingerly, like a man handling some exotic pet, wanting him close and far away in the same moment, both hands on Dempsey’s weapons and liking that feeling. Dempsey is calm, not rushing. For the first time the referee steps in to break them.

I am not a Jack Dempsey fan. I consider him to be the most over-rated heavyweight in the history of the division. It stuns me that fans routinely have him in their top 5 – even their top 3, heavyweights of all time. For me he is not even a top ten heavy. He had one of the most inactive reigns in history, a soft run to the title in terms of the opponents he fought – if not the life he was living – and as champion he ducked the #1 contender, Harry Wills. Much is made of the fact that it was “impossible to make a fight between a white and black fighter at that time”, and there is something in this. Certainly Tex Rickard was not keen to make the fight, having seen the devastation wrought in his country, and to his pocket, when Jack Johnson was the heavyweight champion of the world. But there were other promoters, and a good deal of support for the fight in New York when Dempsey elected to fight Tunney – indeed, serious political pressure was brought to bare to make the fight happen. In addition, Dempsey ducked Harry Greb, the best white fighter of Jack’s generation, and a man who had humiliated him in sparring. Dempsey saw fit to take on George Carpantier, who was also a smaller, white fighter, but failed to fight Greb, who may actually have beaten the past peak Dempsey. Not this version though. Not the man who so devastated Willard in Ohio that day. This fight, perhaps, is the reason Dempsey is so thoroughly over-rated. The most violent, perhaps the most impressive 3 minutes of boxing in the history of the sport may make Dempsey a subject who is near impossible to appraise. Is it, perhaps, even fair? Could it even be said that such an extraordinary three minutes of ring genius renders such a lofty opinion of Jack reasonable? Perhaps, but not for me. I rank Dempsey at #15 for what little that is worth, just behind Peter Jackson. But would Jackson have held out much hope if presented with the version Willard had face up to after that break?

Dempsey feints again. Willard does nothing. He looks very much like a cobra who has just been confronted by a mongoose packing an Uzi. Willard jabs and moves in-between the camera and Dempsey and some short punches are exchanged, but it is hard to see exactly what transpires, then, like a great-white bursting from below the surf, Dempsey lands a left hook that would have ended most fights as a stand alone punch. The hook was perfect. It was sold – that is, it was readable, the way Jack turns his body, but it is probably easy to tell when a tiger is about to eat you as well. Any hook that has been thrown since can only be as good, it is not possible to throw this punch any more perfectly. It is said to have fractured Jess Willard’s cheek bone in 12 places. “As you take your falling step forward, shoot a left hand straight along the line, chin high…as the left hand speeds towards it’s target…close the hand with a terrific grab…when the knuckles smash into the target the fist and the arm and the shoulder are frozen steel-hard by the terrific grabbing tension. That conclusive, squeezing grab is the explosion.”

If that fight was ever a contest, it was over now, the execution Jack was about to carry out is the cornerstone of the foundation of his legend. Willard rolls over and assumes the position of a man about to rise. Then he sees Jack Dempsey standing over him. He sits down again and looks at the referee who is counting “4”. Curiously, Dempsey moves away from him and behind the referee. I’ve watched this over and over again. Why? Why does Jack do this? I will not speculate, but it is very interesting to me. Regardless, as soon as Dempsey has moved away, Willard rises, at six. Left, right, left, left, two massive, massive rights as Willard lies prostrate upon the ropes, cruel, cruel punches and possibly the barrage Dempsey is best remembered for. Sometimes I wish he was remembered, instead, for the opening minute of this round, but it is understandably not the case. Willard is trying to fall, but Jack lands two short lefts as he goes. Re-watching the film, every fibre of yourself calls for Willard to stay down, for it to be over. Willard was separated from six of his teeth at some point during the last assault, and in any sane universe this fight is over. Unthinkably, Willard rises. Dempsey is a cat with an injured bird. You could hate him for what he does. Willard rises again. This time Dempsey is behind him. Willard stands stooped over, a man searching for a contact lens. Dempsey hurls a punch that is beyond describing, but I am sure it would have killed me had it landed upon my person. Is this when three of Willard’s ribs were broken, with these right hands? Willard falls again, face first, pitiful. Jack Dempsey circles him, re-assumes a position at Willard’s rear, throws those punches to the body again – they are hard to watch – and when Willard, for some insane reason, does not fall, Dempsey mounts a furious attack upon Willard’s head, Jess is rearing up not unlike a frightened horse, trying to put as much distance between himself and his tormentor as possible, Dempsey is winging punches at him, raging, I’m reminded fleetingly of Ali’s strategy in Zaire and for a moment see Dempsey chopping down that version of the greatest heavyweight of all time, Willard stumbles forwards, is felled again, and Dempsey stands over him, Tysonesque for the first time, daring his opponent to rise, then the cool descends and he ambles to his right, he looks like a man deciding if he wants to buy this birdbath or the more expensive one he saw earlier. Willard struggles up. He fires of a punch, another. Dempsey ignores them and proceeds to literally beat him across the ring, from left to right as we watch, he’s like a drunk reeling away from the harshness of the world’s reality, goes down again clutching the middle rope, hauls himself up just to be beaten down. Why? Willard’s part in this piece of history is often forgotten. Just as we’ve never seen savagery like this in the ring before or since, we’ve never seen heart like it either.

Willard is beaten down again and counted out. Dempsey moves to his corner, then changes his mind, and seems to move towards Willard, to commiserate, perhaps. His path is blocked by a well-wisher as the ring is mobbed. Dempsey is mobbed. He is the champion! He leaves the ring with the air of a man who has just washed his car, and done a good job, not punching the air, nor hailing the crowd.

Willard is helped to his feet, and, to his deep joy, I’m sure, it is explained to him that he was saved by the bell and the fight can continue. He is not entirely conscious. In Dempsey’s corner, there is pandemonium as they try to retrieve him in time for the second round. For a moment, Willard – bizarrely – seems to have won the fight as the second round begins with Willard alone in the ring. I will suggest that had Doc Kearns been in Willard’s corner and not Dempsey’s, Jess would have been declared the winner at this point. But Dempsey returns for two anti-climatic rounds – somehow failing to put Willard down again, though Jess seems to spend the whole of the rest of the fight trying to find his legs, much like a new-born fawn to Dempsey’s lion – before the towel is mercifully thrown in. Willard was derided as cowardly in some corners for his decision to quit. Mike Tyson puts it best: “Willard had a broken eye socket. A broken cheekbone. Three broken ribs. Man, I love Jack Dempsey”. But Grantland Rice put it nicely too: “In his own way, Willard, too, was unbelievable. From ringside it looked like every one of Dempsey’s punches would tear off his head. But during [the last two rounds] he stood up and took upon his unprotected jaw an almost countless flurry of punches from a man who is the hardest hitter fighting has ever known.”

W.O.McGeehan: “Only because he went into the ring in perfect shape is Willard still alive.”