I read reference to an old sporting event that interested me, the Tunney-Dempsey heavyweight championship boxing match of September, 1927. It was the second meeting of these two boxers, Tunney having won the first bout. The key to this being a historic bout had to do with a new rule instituted just previously to this match: after a knock down, the standing fighter had to retreat to a neutral corner. Dempsey hit Tunney with a flurry of punches to the chin in the seventh round and knocked him down, but then he stood there. The referee did not start his count until he went to the corner, a length of five seconds. Whether or not Tunney needed the extra count is not known, but he waited for the full count before he got up and then went on to win the fight. Some thought Dempsey got cheated, but years later Dempsey said, "I didn't know what I was doing, I guess I was punchy. I didn't get to my corner. Besides Tunney wasn't hurt that bad." I searched YouTube by typing in Tunney-Dempsey and a film of the bout came up. I think I agree with Dempsey, Tunney didn't look hurt.
Some of the "jock strap" writers couldn't quite deal with Tunney without making fun of his love of literature. But he was a legitimate poetry quoting intellectual. After the Dempsey fight he spoke to a Yale Shakespeare class for an hour without notes about Troilus and Cressida. He counted writers like George Bernard Shaw, Thornton Wilder, M. Somerset Maugham, and Ernest Hemingway as friends.
After the fight Tunney and Dempsey became very good friends and Tunney would take his wife to Dempsey's restaurant to dine. To me one of the reasons I like this story is that this athlete didn't get his brains scrambled and become punch drunk. He went on to have a successful business career. Of course, it didn't hurt that he married an heiress to the Andrew Carnegie fortune.
