 It's time for yours truly Jimmy Powers with another Grantland rice story there This is Jimmy Powers once again with another installment from the Grantland rice story the tumult in the shouting and Following the same pattern as I have in preceding programs. I will continue the story in first person One June day in 1919 in Toledo, Ohio off the hot and steamy shores of Maumee Bay I came upon the greatest star of the offense in the boxing game. His name was Jack Dempsey When I first met Dempsey, he was hard as steel from weeks of conditioning under a hot sun He was burnt purple and trained down to 180 pounds for his fight with champion Jess Willard Dempsey was then 24 years old keen in life and almost as fast as Ty Cobb Looking at these two opposites in 1919. It was hard to give Dempsey a chance slightly over six feet and 180 Dempsey was a pygmy compared to Willard who outweighed Jack by some 70 pounds and Stood six feet six inches in his stocking feet Well next day when the first round opened Dempsey circled Willard some 25 or 30 seconds He was a tiger circling an ox finally Willard couldn't wait any longer He jabbed at Dempsey with his left Jack ducked then threw a vicious right to the body and at the same time Nailed Willard on the right side of the head with a smashing left the roof had fallen in For three rounds nine solid minutes the most concentrated dose of pure punishment Ever doled out to a champion was spoon-fed Willard in about as brutal a spectacle as the ring has produced Whatever else was said or written about Willard's collapse his gameness can never be questioned Dempsey's first left hook upended Willard But that was just the first of six trips that Willard took to the canvas The towel Accepted white flag was tossed into the ring by Willard's second just before the fourth round Yes, it went three rounds, but I thought it was over in one Jack said later In fact, I knew Willard was done after I caught him with that first left hook. I saw his cheekbone cave in Rubbing his own wire stubble jaw Reflectively Dempsey years later told me his version of that fight My manager Jack Kearns claimed that he had bet ten thousand dollars to one hundred thousand dollars I'd knocked Willard out in the first round. That's what I did the referee had raised my right hand awarding me the fight Willard's head was hanging over the lower rope. He was practically unconscious from several knockdowns I left the ring the fight was over or it should have been I Must have been twenty five yards from the ring when they called me back That was the biggest shock I ever got when I was told the bell had rung three seconds too soon Suppose it had my hand had been raised and I had been given the fight by the referee But that's what's happened granny The next stop on Dempsey's hit parade was George Carpenter and it was a shrewd piece of maneuvering by promoter Tex record Tex sensed more and better gate building tricks in one minute than today's promoters can dream up in a year Carpenter with a gaudy but superficial war record had been an airplane mechanic for the French He had hung up a fast knockout streak in France and England at the war's end and returned to Paris in one piece But hungry a pretty fair light heavyweight with a bona fide punch the papers ballooned the Frenchman into a bona fide heavyweight Rickard knowing the public's love of a hero and villain story Cast Dempsey the scowling wire bearded draft dodger as the villain with the apple-cheeked Carpenter the personable boy as the hero That fight was the first to be broadcast with Graham McNamee describing the action and it had the entire nation taking sides Jack trained at Atlantic City. I'm still not certain where Carpenter trained He was never on exhibition to the press never on a scale in fact about the only time We'd see him was on a rubbing table or sauntering into a restaurant The culmination of Carpenter's mental and physical preparedness was seen near his dressing room just before the fight at Boyle's 30 acres in Jersey Not by me, but by my wife and Sophie Treadwell McGeehan a keen reporter Sophie had been assigned by her New York paper to cover the carriage trade angle During the final preliminary bout it started to rain the girls spotted a little exit and headed for it They wound up in a small room sitting on a rubbing table when a cop entered and asked them where they thought they were Informing the law that they were out of the rain the cop replied. Well, you've got to leave. You're in the Frenchman's dressing room At that moment down the corridor came Carpenter according to the girls He looked like a man walking the last mile and behind him Dwarfing his retinue of cops came Dempsey wearing trunks and a heavy red sweater big tough unshaven and bristling Sophie McGeehan after glancing at the white as a sheet carpenter and then at Dempsey turned a kid and said that poor French boy Why he'll be murdered returning to their seats. They waited for the angel of doom to claim Carpenter It was all over in four rounds But had Dempsey wanted to put the slug on Carpenter who injured his hand on Dempsey steel jaw I think he could have nailed him in the very first round. I Recall another visitor who came to America to strike at rich against Dempsey Louis Furpo My first glimpse of the South American was two weeks before the fight at his camp in Atlantic City When I arrived early that morning Furpo was tackling a light breakfast a huge steak smothered with lamb chops After finishing he walked over to a couch and lay there like a python who had just swallowed a calf He seemed dopey and indolent. I compared his camp to Dempsey's at Saratoga There the order of the day was mayhem with the massive George Godfrey as Jack's number one sparring partner at $1,500 per week Furpo had a couple of two-bit sparring partners whom he belabored at will he sure didn't spend much on that camp Except on food it made me wonder at the fight that was about to be perpetrated on the unsuspecting public $50 ringside seats were being gobbled up for $100 each The night of the fight September the 14th 1923. It was drizzly and miserable. We looked around the polar grounds We were the hub of a novel of 90,000 fans with another 25,000 clamoring to get into the park It's gates slammed hours before at ringside My typewriter was next to a very fine sports writers Jack Lawrence during the final prelim about we were discussing the main There are two big guys said Lawrence if somebody goes through the ropes. I hope it's Dempsey. He's lighter Well for the record Lawrence got his wish it was Dempsey who came hurtling through the ropes in that madhouse first round He landed back first on top of Lawrence who had put up his hands to protect himself But nobody including Lawrence had to help Dempsey back through those ropes. He was all for helping himself, but fast Never again will civilization witness four minutes of such savagery as that which erupted that night from two grown men wearing boxing gloves It was Dempsey the snarling Glint-eyed tiger colliding with Furpo the red-eyed bull of the Pampas from the opening bell The rulebook better known as the Marcus of Queensbury was tossed into the ash can and when a brawling spitting Snarling Dempsey was bowled through the ropes by the club that Furpo masqueraded as the right arm of a human 90,000 souls were electrified into a raving bedlam Yes, Dempsey came back under his own power and managed to hold on to Furpo for dear life as the round wore itself out In the second round Dempsey his head clear and his mind as purposeful as a mongoose circling a rock python Rushed in and landed but not on Furpo's big button. He ducked nicely when the Argentine giant swung his club again He ducked it a couple of times as any champion should Then when the opening came when Furpo was starting one more sledgehammer right Dempsey beat him to it with a short power-ridden left clip right on the point of the chin Furpo dropped like a bull in a slaughter pin rolled over on his back Rithed in pain blood flowing from his mouth Though his massive muscles tried to raise him as the seconds were counted off the power was gone Having been down six times Furpo finally was out in 57 seconds of the second round Dempsey never cared to talk about that fight at any length to him. It was his closest call Rickard asked me to carry Furpo for four or five rounds to give the customers a run for their money Jack said I Refused I told Tex that Furpo was too strong and hit too hard to play with I told Rickard I'd put Furpo away in the first round if I could You know granny before the fight you told me that Bill Brennan said Furpo would throw rocks at me that he had a rubber arm and that he'd socked me from a good way off Well in the first round I got in a little too close and Furpo's first shot a full right caught me smack on the chin I almost went down, but kept punching. I Was dazed you wrote and others did the same that I hit him when he was just getting up at that time I wasn't fighting for any championship or any million dollars. I was fighting to keep from being killed I would have hit him any place. I found him The wallop that sent me through the ropes was a half punch and half shove It was nothing like that opening right hand. He nailed me with earlier. The guiding angel was sure with me that night Well, this is Jimmy Powers transcribed next time we'll tell you about the two Dempsey Tunnyfights and be there at the historic long count until then Hasta la vista