Sudenberg was a heavyweight, one of the most rugged and skilful the mining country had ever produced. Dempsey went up against him as a substitute for a fighter who had backed out. The promoters were worried, because Jack looked too small and seemed too green as a fighter. But Dempsey talked them into it.
He trained in a dive called the Northern Bar. His first sparring partner was a rough Indian pug named Kid Harrison. Dempsey, never easy on spar‑mates, knocked Harrison stiff one day and lost him. He took on another boy named Roy Moore. This one managed to stay on his feet during the training. Before the bout, Moore, who had seen Sudenberg fight, advised Dempsey not to start slugging it out with his opponent.
That went against Dempsey’s grain. He knew how to do only one thing, go in there and slug. The fight was held in the town dancehall. For three rounds, the two men stood toe to toe and tried to kill. each other with punches. The place was a madhouse of screaming miners and farmers. They had never seen anything like it.
“Johnny could hit,” Dempsey said. “From the fifth round on, I had no idea what was happening Sometimes there was a face in front of me. Sometimes there was nothing. I just kept throwing my fists.”
The fight went ten rounds. Dempsey was on his feet when the bell rang, but for hours afterwards he didn’t know whether he had won or been knocked out. The fight went to Sudenberg on a decision. Dempsey dragged his battered body and welted, shapeless face to a shack outside of town where he slept. When he woke up the next morning, he discovered that his manager had skipped off with the $100 Dempsey was to get for the fight. He was flat broke.
The beaten‑up kid fighter hung around town for a few days, then a wire came from a promoter in Tonopah, Nevada, 30 miles away. Would Dempsey fight Johnny Sudenberg again? Dempsey’s answer was to start for Tonopah, walking. It was a walk over the mountains. He legged it 15 miles before he was picked up by a wagon. And ten days later, his face and body still swollen and bruised, Young Dempsey, as he was then known, climbed into the ring again against Sudenberg.
The second Dempsey‑Sudenberg fight was rougher than the first. In the first round, Dempsey floored Sudenberg seven times. Each time, Johnny bounced back and crashed into Dempsey. Round after round wore on. One of the fighters had to retreat. It was Sudenberg. He began to back up, but as he went back, he kept belting away and gaining strength. Dempsey, not used to fighting in high altitudes, began to weaken. In the seventh round, Sudenberg brought up a right from the floor and knocked Dempsey flat on his back. Jack got ‑up. Sudenberg knocked him down again. Dempsey took three knockdowns in that round, but kept on boring in for more.
The crowd watching that fight was as exhausted as the fighters. By the last round, with the two men still slugging at each other, they watched in silent, breathless awe. They had seen the greatest prizefight of their lives, probably one of the most brutal of all time. It was called a draw. Dempsey pulled himself across the ring at the final bell, put his arm around Johnny Sudenberg’s shoulders. They left the ring that way, supporting each other.
“He was a fighter,” Dempsey said. “I really liked that guy.”
Those were the fights, dozens of them, that made Dempsey the kind of fighter he was. Hard, back‑breaking work and cruel jungle‑camp brawls developed Dempsey into the merciless, stalking killer he became in the ring Those who criticize Dempsey’s lust for mauling his opponents don’t realize that these were the only tactics he knew. The fighters of that day asked no quarter and gave none. To win, you had to be the tougher. You fought to prove how strong and mean you were.
(By Jack Sher)
