THE MILLION DOLLAR MAN

A biography argues for a heavyweight champion’s iconoclastic status.

The Roaring ’20s are still renowned as a time of splendor and excess, and no figure better exemplifies this than Jack Dempsey, the greatest athlete of the time. “Jack Dempsey is America’s first mega sports hero,” writes Brennan in his introduction. “His style of boxing had never been seen before in the annals of pugilism. Dempsey ushered in the modern era of boxing. He single-handedly brought shock and awe to the sport of boxing like no one before or since.” With this book, the author traces the rise of Dempsey from his hardscrabble origins as a runaway and copper miner to his celebrity status and eventual enshrinement as one of the greatest boxers in history. The so-called “Manassa Mauler” was known for his especially ferocious offense in the ring, which won him an exceptional percentage of knockouts. Brennan is particularly interested in Dempsey’s five unprecedented “million-dollar gate” fights—matches in which ticket sales totaled at least $1 million—against Georges Carpentier, Luis Firpo, Jack Sharkey, and Gene Tunney (twice). Along the way, the author documents the extent to which Dempsey captured the popular imagination of the time, bringing out 1920s legends like Harry Houdini, Babe Ruth, Damon Runyon, and Lucky Luciano to see him box. The author’s prose is as pugnacious as his subject: “In the fourth round, Dempsey swarmed all over his victim. He landed several blows to Carpentier’s horribly bruised body. Dempsey smashed Carpentier with a vicious left hook and the challenger hit the canvas in agony. As soon as the referee reached the count of eight, Carpentier sprang to his feet as if he had been playing possum.” Brennan does not unearth much that was previously unknown about the boxer’s life, nor does he make much of an argument for Dempsey’s importance outside of his skills in the ring. As such, the book resembles a fairly typical sports biography. But the author succeeds in painting an evocative portrait of Dempsey’s milieu. The fighter’s journey from the dusty periphery of the West to the canvas of Madison Square Garden is a classic tale of grit and blood.

An engaging and passionately told account of one of America’s earliest sports superstars.