Please, Mister Postman, look and see Oh, yeah If there?s a letter in your bag for me?The Marvelettes
Eighty-six years ago today?July 21, 1927?former champ Jack Dempsey took on wannabe champ Jack Sharkey to determine who would face reigning champ Gene Tunney for the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
Sharkey had won 17 of his previous 18 bouts, losing only to Bud Gorman on points in 1925. Dempsey?s last fight had been against Tunney, who won the heavyweight crown by unanimous decision in 1926.
The third Jack in the ring that night at Yankee Stadium was the ref, Jack O?Sullivan.
Things didn?t start well for ?The Manassa Mauler,? nose bloody in the first, a cut over the right eye in the fourth, a cut under the left and a blood-filled mouth in the fifth. But he didn?t play punching bag to ?The Boston Gob.? Dempsey pounded Sharkey?s body like a butcher tenderizing veal.
It was in the sixth that the former sailorman began to complain to O?Sullivan that some of that pounding was straying south of the equator. The ref warned the former champ to keep his shots clean.
His opponent visibly tired and discouraged in the seventh, Dempsey pressed home his advantage. Sharkey again complained of low blows, and again O?Sullivan warned the Mauler. Contemptuous of the sissification of the manly art, Dempsey continued to hook to the body as though hurling a discus.
Neglecting the cardinal rule to protect himself at all times, Sharkey turned to the ref to register yet another complaint. Noting his opponent?s momentary distraction, Dempsey landed one of the sweetest left hooks in the history of the Sweet Science smack-dab on the Gob?s chin. Sharkey went down like an old tree in winter.
Writhing on the resin-coated canvas, flashbulbs popping, unable to decode the intoning of numbers from above, Sharkey was counted out. Tough guys don?t whine??It?s all in the game,? he later said.
Can?t have been the first time a boxer got dumb in the wrong place and time. Certainly wasn?t the last. There?s a great photo of Floyd Patterson inexplicably turning away from Ingemar Johansson to scratch his nose. That must have been a helluva an itch. The Swede took care of it for him?with a massive left to the head. And we all know what happened to Victor Ortiz when he mistook Floyd Mayweather Jr. for the hostess of a ladies? tea.
Neither Johansson nor Mayweather expressed guilt at taking advantage of their respective opponents? lack of ring savvy. And neither did Dempsey: ?What was I supposed to do, write him a letter??
