By Gav Duthie: A couple of quite significant events happened on 13 February in boxing through the years. Here are my picks of the day.
100 years ago
13 February 1913
Fireman Jim Flynn KO 1 Jack Dempsey
100 hundred years ago to the day future heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey 54-6-9 (44) was knocked out for the first and last time of his career. He was stopped in the opening round by contender Jim Flynn.
Dempsey 23-1-5 at the time was relatively unknown in the third year of his career where as Flynn had been boxing a staggering 18 years and was 38. Reports are sketchy as at the time microfilm was not yet invented and newspapers were unreliable. Remembering there was no ‘neutral corner’ rule Boxrec states that when Dempsey got up he had his arms across his face stumbling towards Flynn and the veteran contender smashed a right hand through his guard and knocked Dempsey out. Another report suggested that Flynn took a cheap shot when they touched gloves but Dempsey said in his book he was dropped several times but his corner pulled him out early. What a simple time this was without social media and cameras everywhere. The most popular theory however is that Dempsey took a dive for $500 although he never confirmed this. 1917 was probably Dempsey’s worst year with a 6-2-4 record from 12 fights, yep 1 bout a month. He did knockout Flynn in a rematch 1 year later on Valentines day 1918 with a flip 1st round knockout win. Flynn went on to box well into his late 40’s but died in 1935 aged 55. Dempsey went on to be one of the greatest heavyweights ever winning the heavyweight title in 1919 and he lived until 1983.
The birth of Johnny ‘Mi Vida Loca’ Tapia
Born February 13 1967
Johnny Tapia would have been 50 years old today had he still been alive. Its almost 5 years since he died in May 27 2012 of congestive heart failure. At the time of his death he had no illegal drugs in his system but he put his body through so much it was always a matter of time. He attempted suicide on a number of occasions and was often depressed. His Alias ‘Mi Vida Loca’ translates to ‘My Crazy Life’. He was an amazing character though, a tremendous boxer and entertainer leaving behind a superb legacy. I had the pleasure of meeting Tapia along with my friend Cliff Gillan at the Scott Harrison v Wayne McCullough fight in Glasgow, 2003. He was on tremendous form and had time for everyone. At this point he was fighting at featherweight himself and had recently lost to Marco Antonio Barrera but he joked he didn’t fancy Harrison as he was too strong.
Johnny’s father was murdered when his mother was pregnant with him and his mother was murdered when he was 8 years old after being stabbed, raped and hung. He was brought up by his grandmother and unsurprisingly turned to boxing at age 9. Tapia was a 5-time world champion over 3 divisions at Super Flyweight, Bantamweight and Featherweight. Tapia was a unified champion at Super Flyweight and didn’t lose until his 49th contest in Ring magazines fight of the year against Paulie Ayala (A must watch for any fan) in 1999. Another classic was him beating featherweight Manuel Medina despite the 5-time champion throwing over 1000 punches. Tapia had an extremely hard life and he was taken from us too soon but he leaves a great boxing legacy and is survived by his wife and 3 children.