The Hunger of Jack Dempsey

The Manassa Mauler, Kid Blackie, Jack Dempsey—whatever the ring announcer called him, William Harrison Dempsey was one of a kind. A man who taught himself to fight by hoboing across the United States, but who eventually found himself drawing boxing’s first million four million dollar gates. There was something about Dempsey that people just needed to see and it wasn’t hard to recognize: a life-and-death desperation to win at all costs, and a thunderous punch.