Short and sweet. That’s how you’d have to describe heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey’s defense of his title against Luis Angel Firpo, the “Wild Bull” of the Pampas, before 80,000 people at the Polo Grounds in New York. Dempsey floored Firpo seven times, with Firpo knocking Dempsey clean out of the ring — and that was just the first round (there was no three knockdown rules back then. Indeed, Dempsey was allowed to stand over the fallen fighter and immediately knock Firpo down again, as there wasn’t a rule about going to a neutral corner either). Conspiracy theorists believe that Firpo was denied a valid victory in the first round as Dempsey was helped back into the ring by the writers at ringside and the referee was accused of counting incredibly slowly. Nevertheless, after 11 total knockdowns between the pair, Dempsey won by KO in the second. The fight was also important from a historical perspective because it was the first time that a Latin American boxer would fight for the world heavyweight title.
Top 10 Boxing Matches of All Time
On the morning of 17 April 1860, boxing's inaugural "world title" match took place. Though illegal, sporting historians accept that John C. Heenan vs Tom Sayers (U.S. vs England, in a Hampshire field) was the first of many thousands of "fights of the century." Here's TIME's selection of the greatest bouts of all time
Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Angel Firpo, Sept. 14, 1923
Full List
The Sweet Science
- Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier III, Oct. 1, 1975
- Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Angel Firpo, Sept. 14, 1923
- Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns, Sept. 16, 1981
- Micky Ward vs Arturo Gatti I, May 18, 2002
- Joe Louis vs. Billy Conn, June 18, 1941
- Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo, May 7, 2005
- Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns, April 15, 1985
- Erik Morales vs Marco Antonio Barrera I, February 19, 2000
- Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Meldrick Taylor, March 17, 1990
- Chris Eubank v Nigel Benn I, November 18, 1990
