The Saga of Jack Dempsey’s “Loaded” Gloves: Part 2

Published

11 years ago

December 5, 2013

This is the second of a two-part series on the ongoing question of whether Jack Dempsey’s gloves were loaded when he fought Jess Willard in 1919.

Jack “Doc” Kearns had stories to tell. He had taken Jack Dempsey from near-hoboism poverty and transformed him into a heavyweight champion; he had staged some of the most financially lucrative fights in history, even the first in Las Vegas; he had also managed other great boxers, including Archie Moore, Joey Maxim and Mickey Walker; and this was all after he prospected for gold in the Klondike.

Read part one right here at TSS.

In the last years of his life, Kearns was serving as a matchmaker for the International Boxing Club and decided to team up with United Press International sportswriter Oscar Fraley to write his memoirs. Fraley had just ghostwritten and published, “The Untouchables” for the late Eliot Ness, and was able to tackle Kearns’ story.

The two created an autobiography full of colorful tales, including a visit to an incarcerated Al Capone to discuss promoting him and psyching out Yvon Durelle in a 1958 bout by having Moore wave to his wife after Durelle had thrice sent him to the canvas in the first round. However, every other story paled in comparison to what he had to say about Dempsey’s bout with Jess Willard in 1919.

Questions had always surrounded Dempsey’s winning of the heavyweight title with such a savage knockout of Willard. As Sports Illustrated noted, “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.”

Kearns died on July 7, 1963, shortly after approving the final draft of memoirs, “The Million Dollar Gate,” and securing a deal with Sports Illustrated to publish two excerpts from the book. One, “The Days of Wine and Bloody Noses,” chronicled Kearns managing of and carousing with Walker. The second, titled, “He Didn’t Know the Gloves Were Loaded,” presented his untold and unpublished account of the Willard bout.

According to Kearns, he knew Dempsey could dispatch Willard inside of the fight’s scheduled 12 rounds, but had bet $10,000 on 10-1 odds that Dempsey would knock him out in Round 1. It was a high-risk, high-reward gamble for $100,000 and Kearns needed insurance. It’s best to let him now describe what happened in his own words.

I had schemed and connived over too many years to let anything go wrong with a bet like that, let alone with the championship of the world. The hell with being a gallant loser. I intended to win.

My plan had to do with a small white can sitting innocently among the fight gear on the kitchen table. I poured myself a nightcap and picked up the can, grinning at the neat blue letters on its side. All it said was “Talcum Powder.” Then I latched the kitchen door and went to a corner cupboard that extended from tabletop height to the ceiling. I pulled over a chair and stood on it to reach into a niche far back on the topmost shelf. Not even a drunk would have thought of hiding a bottle in that spot. Several days earlier, on an unaccompanied trip into Toledo, I had bought another can of powder. This one was labeled “Plaster of Paris,” and I was looking for it now. It was there.

I put the two cans side by side on the kitchen table. Then I found a knife and pried off their lids. I spread out a handkerchief and dumped the talcum powder into it, then knotted the corners together. Next I poured the plaster of Paris into the talcum-powder can and replaced the lid. Set back among the fight gear—the bandages, the Vaseline, the razor blades, the cotton—it looked as innocent as any of them. There was just one more thing to be done. I picked up the plaster of Paris can and the handkerchief full of talcum powder, unlatched the kitchen door and walked the 50 yards to the shore of Maumee Bay, where I pitched the whole business out into the dark waters. That was why the party had to end before dawn. That was something I wanted no man to see. Standing there in the dark, I knew we were as ready as Dempsey’s condition and my plotting ability could make us.

It may seem strange but, returning to the house, my conscience was easy. I was a product of the days—have they ever ended?—when it was every man for himself. In those times you got away with everything possible. Turn your head, or let the other guy turn his, and knuckles were wrapped in heavy black bicycle tape or the thick lead foil in which bulk tea was packaged. The net result was much like hitting a man with a leather-padded mallet. The rules were lax then, officials were not at all fussy and there were few boxing commissions.

Plaster of Paris is known in construction as sheetrock or drywall. In theory, when Kearns sloshed water on Dempsey’s bandaged hands and then applied the plaster of Paris-laced talcum powder the gloves would be like cement. Of course, the alleged plan did not completely work out for Kearns, since the bell saved Willard at the end of the first round. While he absolved Dempsey of any complicity in his actions, Kearns wrapped up the article by reinforcing how what he did was feasible.

In all his subsequent career Dempsey never inflicted such dreadful damage on an opponent. And he did it to this one in the very first round. There may be those who will wonder how it could possibly be that Dempsey didn’t know his gloves were loaded. Actually, it isn’t too surprising. He was young, and this was the most unnerving day of his hungry life. Until the bell rang and he slipped the leash, he was like a man who had been hypnotized. Afterward, when I cracked off the bandages and ditched them, he was so numb at being the heavyweight champion of the world that you could have hit him with a hammer and he wouldn’t have blinked an eye.

Sports Illustrated scheduled the article for publication for January 13, 1964. On January 8, the magazine contacted the 68-year-old Dempsey to inform him of the article. Even though he had bitterly broken with Kearns following his bout with Luis Angel Firpo in 1923, he had always credited him for his early success and had even served as a pallbearer at his funeral.

Dempsey sent a letter to Sports Illustrated, stating that it would face court action if it published Kearns’ story. The magazine said it was going ahead with the piece so he provided his response.

“Ridiculous! I could take an oath. In fact I will,” said Dempsey as he raised his right hand in a booth at his New York restaurant. “I hope to God I die right now, and my wife and children, too, if there is any truth in what Kearns said.”

Sports Illustrated also contacted Willard, who was 82 and living a quiet life outside of Los Angeles. Still somewhat bitter from a bout that left him with a shattered jaw, broken ribs, a broken nose, four missing teeth and partial hearing loss, he felt somewhat vindicated.

“I’m glad that Kearns finally was man enough to admit it. First time Dempsey hit me, I knew those gloves were loaded,” said Willard, who pointed to his left cheekbone. “Put your hand here. Feel that bone moving around? That’s what them cement gloves did to me.”

The issue published with a cover that read, “Dempsey’s Gloves Were Loaded” and a cautionary editor’s note stating, “It is a good yarn; it is also a declaration that a heavyweight champion of the world was robbed of his title and with it the fortune that title came to be worth in the Golden Twenties.”

Kearns kept few friends throughout his fast life. Dempsey had many and they came to his defense. Leonard Sacks, his former business manager, said that he and Jimmy de Forest, Willard’s trainer, both watched the taping and “there was no possible chance that anything illegal could have been done.” The great bantamweight champion Pete Herman said that he owned Dempsey’s gloves from the bout and that there was no evidence of plaster of Paris being used.

“I knew Kearns. I know Dempsey. Kearns word was not to be trusted,” said Georges Carpentier, the former light heavyweight champion whom Dempsey knocked out in 1921. “He hated Dempsey, and now in his memoirs is trying to hurt Dempsey again. I believe Kearns’ hatred of Dempsey was so strong that it is even working now from beyond the grave.”

On January 22, the Milwaukee Journal reported that it had debunked Kearns’ allegation by applying plaster of Paris to a fighter’s fist the way he described. The result was “a thin layer of soft cement, which cracked at a slight touch.” Numerous letters to the editor of Sports Illustrated reported the same conclusion. In his column the next day, Red Smith applauded the Journal for the getting to the truth, but wrote “it’s a little saddening the way debunkers are always shooting our most charming legends full of holes.”

Not finding the legend or experience charming at all, Dempsey filed a $3 million libel suit against Time Inc., the publishers of Sports Illustrated, in April of 1964. The two reached an agreement in September of 1965, with the magazine stating in its September 27 issue:

Jack Dempsey has been a friend of Sports Illustrated since publication began in 1954. He has cooperated with us in the production of a number of stories concerning boxing, and he has also made public appearances in our behalf to promote the business fortunes of this magazine.

We have been his friend, too, and, not wanting to hurt this famous sports figure, we printed his vigorous denial of Kearns’s allegations.

Now we are pleased to record a happy ending to this story. Since publication, no evidence has come to us to support the tale told by Kearns, and we support and wholeheartedly accept Jack Dempsey’s denial.

Good men, of which Dempsey is one, are sorely needed in boxing in these troubled days.

As for Kearns’ memoirs…“The Million Dollar Gate” was scheduled for publication in September of 1964, but the controversy delayed the release until December of 1966. The book that hit the shelves did not include the plaster of Paris story.

Willard died in 1968 at the age of 86. In one of his last interviews, he said, “[Dempsey] must’ve had something in his left glove. The whole right side of my face was caved in.”

We will never know if foul play actually took place on July 4, 1919. Like all humans should strive to be, Dempsey was a much different man when he passed away in 1983 at the age of 87. If he had any secrets from his early days with Kearns, he never publicly shared them, but it’s hard to believe something was not askew with this bout.

The New York Times’ Arthur Daley summed up the question of doctored gloves when he wrote in 1964, “How else could a single punch splinter a cheekbone into 13 pieces?”

Since that question will never be answered, this fight will continue to raise eyebrows.

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Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

1 day ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

3 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

Published

4 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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