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Originally Posted by Saku4me
So Kearns did make those allegations...right? I just wanted to make sure I remember correctly.
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You will note that Dempsey’s Wiki-bio makes brief mention of the loaded gloves theory.
Kid McCoy will take you a little deeper.
For your reading pleasure I’ve just pulled from my archives the Sports Illustrated issue dated January 13, 1964 (Wikipedia lists the issue as being March, 1964 which is an error), in which that story first came to light.
I’ll preface my remarks by stating the Doc Kearns did indeed have a falling out with Dempsey to the point of being vindictive, was given to telling tall tales, and finish by stating that the story was later recanted and is remembered today as being sour grapes on the part of Kearns.
In the end, the story was bogus, and Dempsey’s gloves were NOT loaded for the Willard fight, nor for any other.
The story is the cover feature on the January 13 issue and features a great painting of Dempsey delivering a terrific right hand to a bloodied Willard surrounded by a classy orange boarder.
The story, found on page 48 is actually written by Jack “Doc” Kearns and Oscar Fraley, a writer popular at the time.
It was a two part story appearing in two consecutive editions.
The preface reads; “The most famous, flamboyant fight manager of all time begins his memoirs with his version of the bloody and long-controversial Toledo fight between Jack Dempsey and Jess Willard”.
The article begins with a side box headlined “A cautionary note on a shocking boast” that reads:
“Jack Dempsey’s devastation of the giant Jess Willard on that broiling Fourth of July in Toledo 45 years ago was so complete-and so unexpected-that a rumor of foul play has persisted to this day: a rumor that Dempsey’s gloves were loaded.
Willard has long insisted, bitterly, that the rumor is true. Dempsey has always denied it.
Just before he died last year, Doc Kearns put the finishing touches to his long delayed memoirs, The Million Dollar Gate, prepared with the assistance of Oscar Fraley and scheduled for publication by Macmillan next September. Now Kearns account of that Dempsey-Willard fight of 1919, taken from the book is presented on these pages. Kearns says that the gloves were indeed loaded and that he loaded them himself.
It is noteworthy that Kearns absolves Dempsey of any complicity. The absolution should be accepted, for it was typical of Kearns that he trusted no one, and Dempsey was naïve enough, for years after Toledo, to trust Kearns. Few did for long. The face Kearns presented to the prizefight world was one of roguish rascality, and he all but got away with it, for his smile was jovial and his hand was ever ready to pick up the check. At the same time, everyone in the sport knew him as a wily trickster and a ruthless opponent when big money was involved”.
Dempsey commented in the edition regarding the charges:
“A bit jowly, but otherwise fit and trim for his 68 years, Jack Dempsey sat at the greeter’s table in his Broadway restaurant and spat an indignant denial that his fists were encased in plaster of Paris when he won the heavyweight title from Jess Willard. From time to time an admirer paused on his way out of the restaurant, interrupting to shake the still powerful right hand. “I’ll always remember this”, one of them said. Dempsey responded graciously, then turned back to the question. “Ridiculous!” I could take an oath. “In fact,” he went on, “I will”. He raised that same right hand. “I hope to God I die right now, and my wife and children too, if there is any truth in what Kearns said”.
Outwardly calm, Dempsey was seething. “I banged up my own hands,” he insisted, “and nobody put anything on them. How could he put anything on them without me knowing it?”
“Kearns was bitter to the end,” Dempsey said. “I fired him as my manger. He owed me about $200,000, so I arranged with Tex Rickard to collect my end of the Firpo purse myself instead of having Kearns collect it. I took out what he owed me and gave him the rest. He was Furious.”
He paused and sighed. “I’m grateful for a lot of things Doc Kearns did for me,” Dempsey went on. “A lot of things he did I didn’t like. There are many things I could say, but I won’t, because he’s dead and gone”.
My postscript to the article was that Dempsey remained to his final days livid about it, and saddened by it as well.
Immediately afterward, however, a number of still living eye witnesses came forward to dispel the myth.
Dempsey had earlier in life been forced to live down bogus charges of being a ‘slacker’ during WWI, which simply wasn’t true, and in court he was acquitted of that.
He went on to serve as a coast guard commander during WWII, developing a military self defense program for all U.S. soldiers incorporating boxing, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu and he at age 49 went into battle on Okinawa with a group of men he had trained, forever putting to rest the whole ‘slacker’ nonsense.
Then here comes slick and bitter Doc Kearns 20 years later with another sladerious story, but none of that ever tarnished the legacy of one of sport’s greatest heores.
Dempsey had plenty of time to get his wild oats out there during a crazy youth, and by the time he’d retired from the ring he was a genuine stand-up guy and a clean living example to everyone, which is the way we all should remember him.
Doc Kearns on the other hand, was a world class bullshit artist, and a bitter clown.