THE GREAT FIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2303, 16 July 1921, Page 1

THE GREAT FIGHT.

DEMPSEY’S TERRIBLE BLOWS

IMPERVIOUS TO RETALIATION,

COLLEGE BOY AGAINST GIANT

Details of the light between Cavpentier and Dempsey for the world’s heavyweight boxing championship, at Jersey City on July 2nd, show that except for a brief period in the second round, Carpentier had only an outside chance. Dempsey won with his terrific punches. He found out in 11$ first round that he could take the vaunted right-hand punches of the Frenchman, and waded in, fighting in his typical style. It was Dempsey’s fight, and lie pounded the Frenchman, absolutely disregarding his defenee. Dempsey’s punches were wearing down the challenger in the first round. In the middle of the second round Carpentier got a staggering right flush to Dempsey’s jaw. It rocked the champion against the ropes, and the crowd yelled like maniacs, when Carpentier followed up his advantage with rights and lefts to Dempsey’s jaw. The Frenchman probably lost the tight in this period, as he was unable to deliver a hard enough punch to knock Dempsey out.

In the third round Carpentier continued a running figlil. lie tried several fancy steps, and got away, when Dempsey backed him against the ropes for the third time. Dempsey showed speed, and cracked Carpentier with a terrible left as he tried to get away. Carpentier was missing' with the right. He would take a desperate chance to win with one blow, but Dempsey would turn away, and the Frenchman’s blows would slide off the champion's head. Carpentier landed two rights on Dempsey’s jaw, and the champion laughed. Dempsey retaliated with another cruel body punch, and the Frenchman looked at the French section of the press box and smiled feebly. He was bleeding at the nose, and his mouth, was opened, blood running from his cut lips. Tt was strikingly apparent then that lie could not last much longer. lIOW THE END CAME.

When the fourth round started Kearns yelled from Dempsey's corner, “Go after him now!” Dempsey was wide open, and sneering at the Frenchman. He delivered the knockout punch a few moments later. Carpentier fought back gamely, but was outclassed, and much of the time he was going away from the champion, who once half-knock-ed and half-pushed him through the ropes.

The finish was absolutely in sight at the beginning of the fourth round. A continual bombardment was weakening Carpentier, and after 55 seconds’ fighting the Frenchman sagged noticeably at the knees, and he crumpled up when a vicious right to the face and a left to the chin landed. Carpentier was not unconscious, but was sorely distressed. As he lay curled up on his side, the referee began to count, while .Dempsey, grinniitg sardonically, leaned against the ropes, watching the rise and fall of the referee’s hands. Gamely, yet weakly, Carpentier rose at the count of “Nine.” Dempsey leaped at him like a Hash, and another crushing left to the body and right to the chin hurled Carpentier to the floor. At the count of “Eight” Carpentier tried to rise, but failed. Carpentier finished flat on his face, with his legs and arms outstretched. He took an unmerciful beating. He had a cut under the eye, and his head was battered viciously until his face was swollen and bleeding. At the end the crowd cheered the conqueror, and then the vanquished Frenchman’s supporters clung round his corner until he revived, and staggered from the ring. Carpentier told his friends in the dressing room that he regarded Dempsey as "the most formidable hitter of all time. M. Descamps, Cnrpenticr’s manager,, said that it was another case of the Stanley Ketehell against Jack Johnson. CAR RENTIER'S GREATEST PERFORMANCE.

New York sporting: writers tiro unanimous that Dempsey was groggy from Carpentier’s onslaught in the second round, but the writers agree that when the Frenchman failed then to land a knock-out he lost his chances of winning, because his superhuman efforts left him practically as exhausted as Dempsey was at the end of the second round. The third round found Carpentier unable to recuperate rapidly enough to overcome the powerful rain of blows which Dempsey showered on the head, face, and body, and Carpentier was swaying and sagging badly at the end of this round.

A surgeon found a compound fracture of Carpentier’s right thumb and sprain of the hand sufficient to make the hand useless. This’occur-

red during the onslaught in the second round, when Carpentier smashed Dempsey with his right in the same way as he hit Beckett, making many ringsiders think that the Frenchman was on the verge of winning. Newspaper critics Jhink that the second round produced the greatest lighting in Carpentier’s career, and the best he ever will be capable of, but even that would be,insufficient to knock out Dempsey, who had it all his own way thereafter.

M. Descamps says that Carpentier’s thumb was injured training a week before, but he did not mention it because it looked like framing up an excuse for defeat.

The correspondent of the London Times at New York says: “My imagination was haunted- by the spectacle of the doughty Gallic boxer, springing into the ring smiling, a model for any sculptor, and his appearance in less than 20 minutes, stunned, paralysed, and disfigured as a result of. terrific punishment. The contrast in the fight was equally poignant: Dempsey, with a scowling, bristling face, was

The Great Fight -. 2 a magnificent spectacle of physical strength, literally towering over his slender and graceful opponent. It impressed the spectators as a college boy confronting a giant.

HARDEST BLOW INEFFECTIVE. “In the second round Carpentier broke his thumb and sprained his wrist with his famous right to the jaw, which knocked out Beckett, and would have felled almost any man. But it had no effect on the champion. Then the gorilla disdainfully said afterwards that he did not remember the blow. Captain Chandler, former amateur champion, agrees that the punch was delivered with every ounce of strength Hush on the jaw. lie doubts whether any living man could exchange punches with Dempsey.” In a considered statement the day after the fight, Carpentier said: “If my hand had not been injured I might have won. I have never been hit by a man such as Dempsey, whose blows are terrific beyond comprehension. Even now lam still weak from those terrible blows. I believe 1 could outbox Dempsey, except at infighting, where he held my aims and smashed, with one hand. At the beginning 1 was tilled with confidence, and was cool, while Jack was worried. I therefore decided to reverse my plan of keeping away, which I had previoijsly determined upon, and rush him, the same as 1 did with Beckett; but Dempsey held my hands and hit me so hard on the ribs and the back of the head that I knew I was wrong ever to think of mixing it. So 1 agreed with Deseamps’ advice, after the first round, to play a waiting game.

“In the second round his uppercut broke the skin over my cheekbone, and hurt me badly. It maddened me into my great effort, which nearly won. Dempsey was slow in blocking, and for the first time I had the thrill of seeing him back away. Then I delivered the hardest blow, but was horrified when I felt my hand was broken. I knew it was all over. I outboxed him later; but what was the use? He took all I gave for the sake of hitting me. It was the blow over my heart that sent me down and out. I was nearly unconscious, and did not hear the count of 10. lam heartbroken that I was beaten.”