The ep05 The Dempsey-Tunney Fights

Hello there. This is Jimmy Powers coming your way with another story from the Tumalt and the Shouting. Hey there, this is Jimmy Powers ready to bring you in first person another chapter from the Tumalt and the Shouting. In the last episode I told

you about the Dempsey Firpo fight. Now I'd like to tell you about the first Dempsey Tunney fight which was held at the Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia on September 23rd 1926. Fight camps in those days were colorful and they handled more daily pain customers than the average television fights do today.

Toney went into heavy training at Speculator, New York about 40 miles west of Saratoga. His camp was pitched near a small river amid gorgeous scenery. Lardner and I went up for a visit. As we arrived, Gene was coming over the brow of a hill with a fat book under one arm.

He could have passed for a young college athlete, studying for his masters in English. Tani was in fine physical shape and looked wonderful. As for Dempsey, banging away behind closed doors, well, he didn't look nor move like the Dempsey of the Fermot fight four years earlier.

Wealth, opulence, a bride, and revamp nose hadn't exactly brought Jack anything approaching comfort. Besides, he was in a legal battle with his old manager, Kearns. I'd been fighting a cold all that week with hard deadlines and no sleep.

The night before the fight McGian and I were headed back to the hotel when one of us recalled a roulette wheel less than two blocks from City Hall. Along about 2 AM I was $1,200 a head.

McGian was 800 behind. Let's get out of here, I said, and get some sleep. No sir replied McGian. I'm going to get even. At 5 AM we had just enough between us for taxi fare to the hotel.