Tunny looking up a referee Dave Barry as he picks up the count.

Exactly 99 years ago today, on September 22, 1927, Jack Dempsey landed what seemed like the knockout punch of his life, dropping Gene Tunney to the canvas in the seventh round of their heavyweight championship rematch. The dramatic moment sparked "The Long Count," arguably still the most controversial fight in heavyweight boxing history and a moment that would connect two Irish-American boxing legends for the rest of their lives.

Jack Dempsey heard the bell ring for the 7th round of their 10-round championship fight on September 22, 1927, and their plans for the remainder of the bout could not have been less similar. Both knew Tunney had probably already won at least five of the previous rounds. Dempsey could not win now without a knockout or a knockdown.

The “puncher’s chance,” people in the boxing world call it, means a knockout puncher can be losing every round of a fight and still win with one good punch.

Tunney had won nearly all the 16 rounds the two men had fought in the last year and had never been knocked down in 75 fights. He must have felt quite confident. But suddenly, less than a minute into the round, lightning struck. Dempsey landed a grazing straight right and a left hook. It pushed Tunney back into the ropes. Dempsey hit him on the chin as he came off the ropes with his storied left hook. It was the punch Dempsey used to break the jaw of the 6’6” Jess Willard when he won the title.

Tunney crumpled to the floor, grabbing the middle rope with his left hand as Dempsey landed several more punches. The millions listening to Graham McNamee on NBC Radio heard him screaming, “Tunney is DOWN! … Tunney is DOWN!”

The early days of boxing in the United States were dominated by the Irish and Irish Americans. In 1890, Irish-American boxers held five of the seven weight division championships.

William Harrison “Jack” Dempsey (left) was born June 24, 1895, in Manassa, Colorado. Jack was the ninth of his parents' eleven children. His father, Hiram, was born in West Virginia and was a Mormon. Jack’s first Dempsey ancestor in the American colonies, William Dempsey II, was born in the early 18th century in Co. Offaly.

Dempsey from the cover of Time Magazine, September 1923.

Dempsey grew up away from the Irish Catholic communities of the East Coast and was baptized as a Mormon. Tunney, on the other hand, grew up immersed in the Irish-American culture of New York City and was a Catholic, like most Irish Americans. It was Dempsey, however, who became the darling of the Irish-American community.

Dempsey knocked down Jess Willard, known as “The Pottawatomie Giant” in that era of great nicknames, seven times when he won the Heavyweight title in July 1919. Dempsey KOed Argentinean Luis Firpo in the 2nd round in September 1923 in a fight that featured 11 knockdowns and included Dempsey famously being knocked totally out of the ring in the first round.

Boxing manager John “Doc” McKernan guided Dempsey’s early career. He got Dempsey bouts with contenders, some of those fights back in the East. This culminated in his title fight with Willard on July 4, 1919. Leading up to the fight, sports writer Damon Runyon, who had met Dempsey a few years earlier, had dubbed Dempsey with his most famous nickname, “The Manassa Mauler. His brawl with Williard, who outweighed him by some 50 lbs, began his climb to be one of the sports icons of the “Roaring Twenties.”

Tunney's road to the heavyweight title was a far more orthodox boxing story. His father, John, was from Cill Aodain, Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo. John and his wife, Mary Lydon, met and married in New York. John worked as a stevedore on the docks. Mary gave birth to James Joseph (but called “Gene”) Tunney on May 25, 1897. (Young Tunney, right)

Young Gene Tunney

When Gene was 10, John bought his skinny son a cheap pair of boxing gloves so he could learn to defend himself. Gene was an avid reader who loved school and learning. He was self-educated, however. He left school at fifteen and went to work as a mail clerk at the Ocean Steamship Company. A year later, Willie Green hired him as a sparring partner. On July 2, 1915, Tunney had his first professional bout against Bobby Dawson at the Sharkey Athletic Club in New York. He won by TKO.

When the U.S. entered WWI in 1917, Tunney enlisted in the Marines. No one was aware of Tunney’s pro boxing experience until he was urged to fight in a bout on the base by a sergeant who had seen him dispatch a base bully with one punch.

Tunney would win nine straight bouts in France. His last win was for the light-heavyweight championship of the American Expeditionary Forces. He came home as “The Fighting Marine.” He told a friend just before leaving France, “I'm going to win the heavyweight championship of the world.”

Back in New York, he had a meeting with Dempsey. They had a brief conversation. Tunney was surprised that he was soft-spoken and friendly. Tunney found that he liked him.

In the next 13 months, Tunney won an incredible 15 bouts. By mid-1921, he advanced in the boxing world to the point where he fought and won the undercard of the Dempsey – Carpentier title fight, fighting.

In January 1922, Tunney outpointed Barney “Battling” Levinsky to win the American Light Heavyweight Championship. He lost that title when he was outpointed by Harry Greb in May 1922. It was the only loss of Tunny’s career, and he was a bloody mess at the end. But he won the title back on a close decision over Greb in February 1923.

Dempsey, meanwhile, fought far less during the first years of the 1920s. From 1920 to 1923, he only fought five times. He knocked out four of the five opponents, most notably the highly regarded Frenchman Georges Carpentier and Luis Firpo, dubbed the “Wild Bull of the Pampas” by Damon Runyon. (Firpo knocking Demsey out of the right, left, in a painting by George Wesley Bellows.) 

vs Firpo

Dempsey had a falling out with his manager, “Doc” Kearns, which led to lawsuits by Kearns and caused Dempsey to refuse to fight until 1926, when his contract with Kearns would expire. During that time, Tunney fought nineteen times, winning eighteen. 

As 1926 began, Dempsey was looking to fight again and signed to fight Tunney. Though he had been idle for three years, Dempsey was favored to win the fight. He had an aura of invisibility with the public. Tunney had been studying Dempsey for years. "I am positive that I am capable of a better fight than I've ever fought because never yet have I been extended to the limit,” he said before the fight.

Tunney stung Dempsey with a hard right in the first round, then dominated him with skillful boxing for the rest of the 10 rounds. Dempsy said afterward, “There was plenty on that sock, and I never really got over it through the rest of the fight.”

The New York Times story on the fight (right) said Tunney was “a complete master, from first bell to last.” But many papers gave Tunney little credit for fighting well. They wrote that Dempsey was “over the hill” or had only lost because of the long layoff. Sportswriter Ring Lardner even called it a “fake, a very well done fake,” though only in private.

nyt 1sts fight

The next day, without telling anyone, Tunney visited Dempsey in his hotel room. The two gracious men, who had tried so hard to knock each other out less than 24 hours earlier, had a cordial conversation. Tunny praised Dempsey as a “great champion.” For his part, Dempsey said, “Gene, I'm sorry to lose the title, but I'm glad you were the one to win it from me.”

Promoter Tex Rickard knew a rematch was the only real big-money match he could make with Tunney. Dempsey, thinking of retiring, was talked into taking another shot at Tunney. And so it was that they arrived at the famous moment in round 7 of their second fight: Tunney sitting on the canvas with his back to the ropes, holding the middle rope with his left hand. In 65 professional fights, this was the first time the master defensive fighter had ever been knocked down.

“God, how I dreamed of this moment. Seventeen rounds [counting the ten in Philadelphia]. And now I had him,” Dempsey later said. But that dream turned into the nightmare of giving Tunney extra time to recover by not going to the neutral corner. “Now, in the event of a knockdown, unless the boy scoring it goes to the farthest corner, I will not begin the count until he does,” referee Dave Barry had told both before the fight started. When Barry finally got Dempsey started to the neutral corner, he began the count.

left hook

The best estimates are that Tunney was down for 14 to 18 seconds. However, Tunney claimed he could have gotten up much sooner. He said he was listening to Barry’s count and could have gotten up any time after he heard Barry count 2.

The film of the fight shows Tunney looking up at Barry and possibly being able to get up sooner than he did. Only Tunney could ever know for sure if that was true, but what is definitely true is that Dempsey was not in any way robbed of the knockout. In the end, the rule was correctly applied.

Tunney recovered quickly after getting up and danced away from Dempsey the rest of the round. In rounds 8 through 10, Tunney was in control again, even knocking Dempsey down in the 8th. No one disagreed with the unanimous decision for Tunney. Dempsey retired after the bout. “The Long Count” is arguably still the most controversial fight in heavyweight boxing history. (See a replay of the knockdown HERE.)

Gene Tunney passed away at age 81 on November 7, 1978, at the Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut, of a blood infection. Jack Dempsey died of a heart attack at age 87 on May 31, 1983, in New York City. As had always been the case, Dempsey overshadowed Tunney even in death. When Dempsey died, it was a story on the front page of the New York Times. When Tunney died, the article was on page 22, with the headline, “Tunney, Boxing Champion Who Beat Dempsey, Dies.” His relationship to Dempsey was what gave him most of his worth in the eyes of the press.

older

Tunney and Dempsey remained good friends throughout their lives. “Gene has often told me he could have [gotten up], and I have no reason not to believe him,” Dempsey later said.

There are moments in sports that can connect opponents for posterity. Baseball has had Ralph Branca giving up Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard Around the World” home run and Dennis Eckersley giving up the “I don’t believe what I just saw” World Series walk-off home run to Kirk Gibson. In boxing, Tunney and Dempsey will forever be connected by “The Long Count.”

This article was submitted to the IrishCentral contributors network by a member of the global Irish community. To become an IrishCentral contributor click here.