British heavyweights are now a force, but 100 years ago, there was no rival for Jack Dempsey

WITH Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, Dillian Whyte, Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce all currently ranked within the top 12 in the world, the UK dominates the heavyweight division in a way it has never done before. The US fields only one candidate in this group, Deontay Wilder. 

This is a far cry from the 20th Century, when there were so many great US heavyweights and so few from these shores. Most of the great American heavyweight champions defended their world title against a Brit at one time or another, with Tommy Farr’s game stand against Joe Louis, blown-up light-heavyweight Don Cockell’s annihilation by Rocky Marciano and Henry Cooper putting the great Ali on his backside (see fight image below) still evoking comment among fight fans to this day. One of the few true greats who never fought a Brit was Jack Dempsey.

Dempsey reigned supreme from 1919 until 1926 and, though he did not defend his title as often as he should have done, there was no-one active on this side of the pond who could have lived with him in the ring.

At the start of 1919, our champion was Joe Beckett, who was defeated by the great Frenchman, Georges Carpentier in less than a minute in December 1919. Carpentier repeated that feat in 1923, this time famously beating Beckett in only 15 seconds. Frank Goddard then won the British title in 1923, beating Jack Bloomfield in an appalling contest at the Royal Albert Hall. Goddard’s one bout against a leading American had seen him KO’d in two rounds by Frank Moran in 1920. 

Goddard did not defend his title until 1926, when Phil Scott took him apart in three rounds. Scott was the best of our heavyweights during the 1920s but, when he made his much-heralded US debut in 1927, he was flattened by Knute Hansen, a moderate Danish heavyweight, in one round. He managed to recover some status over there but quick losses to Jack Sharkey and Young Stribling in 1930 saw the end of him.

Throughout the entire decade, Phil Scott was the only British heavyweight to be worthy of a Top 10 world rating and it was not until the mid-1930s, when Jack Petersen, Larry Gains and Tommy Farr restored a little prestige, that we could hold our heads a little higher. Most of our ‘greats’ during that era came from the lower weight classes.

Jack Dempsey liked the UK and he visited more than once. He made his first visit in April 1922 when, after stepping off the Aqutainia, he was greeted at Southampton by Ted “Kid” Lewis and Boy McCormick. Upon meeting Joe Beckett, Jack advised the Britisher to go to the States where he could make a lot of money. Sadly, Beckett did not heed this advice and never fought over there.

Dempsey returned in July 1925 as part of a European tour and was hosted by Sir Harry Preston, a boxing impresario who rubbed shoulders with royalty. At the time, Preston was running occasional big-time shows at the Dome in Brighton. After picking Dempsey up from the boat train at Victoria Station, where Dempsey posed, in typical fashion, with a British policeman, he whisked the world champion down to the South Coast, where he had arranged for him to box a series of exhibitions on one of his shows.

Dempsey boxed four times that night, with Phil Scott and Harry Drake of Windsor being his principal opponents. He handled both lads with ease and BN editor, John Murray, commented that, “Dempsey practically swept the press critics and the public off their feet. Few had ever witnessed such a display of combined force, power, speed and skill. Several of these critics went into ecstasies of admiration, detecting almost amazing genius in everything Jack did.” 

Murray knew his boxing and it is a great shame that we never had anyone good enough to meet Dempsey at his best in a title contest.