The Dempsey-Tunney fight in September 1926 got plenty of attention. A crowd reported at the time as 135,000 fans, including Charlie Chaplin, cowboy star Tom Mix and the English Channel swimmer Gertrude Ederle, packed Sesquicentennial Stadium in Philadelphia for the bout.
Coverage of the challenger Gene Tunney's unanimous decision victory took up three-quarters of the front page of The New York Times -- not the front of the sports section, the front of the whole newspaper. It filled most of Pages 2 to 7 as well.
The champion, Jack Dempsey, earned $850,000 ($11.3 million in today's dollars) despite the loss.
"I have no alibis," he said afterward.
From the bare-knuckle days of John L. Sullivan, to the heyday of Joe Louis to the era of Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, heavyweight bouts have riveted the country and the world. And the heavyweight champion has been considered to be the toughest guy on the planet.
But Saturday, when the heavyweight championship is contested at Madison Square Garden, it may feel like something of a sporting afterthought amid events like the NBA playoffs and the homestretch of the European soccer season. And it will be far overshadowed by the welterweight title bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao the next week in Las Vegas.
Wladimir Klitschko of Ukraine has dominated the heavyweight division for 10 years. The next best fighter in that time has been his brother, Vitali.
In an era of multiple titles, Klitschko holds just about all of them: He is the heavyweight champion of the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Organization, the International Boxing Federation and The Ring, the boxing magazine. But that very dominance has sometimes seemed to suck the life out of boxing's glamour division.
Klitschko is 63-3 and last lost in 2004, a string of 21 consecutive victories. Before his retirement in 2012, Vitali ran off 13 consecutive victories over nearly a decade.
But notoriety does not always come from success. Tyson, and before him Jack Johnson, Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali, had no trouble attracting headlines outside the ring, for good or ill. Although he is engaged to a U.S. television star, Hayden Panettiere, Klitschko has not received anything like the same amount of attention.
Wladimir Klitschko's title fight Saturday is against Bryant Jennings, who is ranked No. 5 by The Ring, the most reputable rater of boxers. Jennings, 30, from Philadelphia, is undefeated. But part of the reason the fight has received scant attention is that there is little fear that Klitschko will lose. A bet on Klitschko would require as much as $20 to win a dollar.
At 39, Klitschko would surely seem to be ready to decline soon. But the list of his potential challengers is threadbare.
The No. 1 contender, according to The Ring, is Alexander Povetkin, a Russian who is 28-1. But Povetkin is 35 years old, and his one loss came to Klitschko, in 2013. Klitschko has beaten the Nos. 4, 9 and 10 contenders as well.
Perhaps the man to eventually challenge Klitschko will be Deontay Wilder, 29, an American who holds the one significant title that Klitschko does not, the World Boxing Council belt. That title was held by Vitali Klitschko for two stretches, until his retirement.
Wilder won an Olympic bronze medal in Beijing and has a 33-0 record as a pro, culminating in a defeat of Bermane Stiverne in January that won him his belt.
But in the fragmented, loosely structured world of boxing, there is no guarantee that Klitschko will ever fight any of these boxers. And if he does, he may dismiss them as he has so many pretenders before.
Uncertainty and upsets help keep sports exciting. After calling the Dempsey-Tunney fight on national radio, the pioneering broadcaster Graham McNamee concluded by saying: "There is a new champion. There should be every once in a while."
For the heavyweight division to recapture some of its past glory, the best thing might be for its current mighty champion to look more human.
Sports on 04/23/2015