The Golden Age (1920s)

The decade after World War I made boxing a global mass entertainment for the first time. The heavyweight title was held from July 1919 by Jack Dempsey — 'The Manassa Mauler' — whose two-fisted attacking style brought a new audience to the sport. Promoter Tex Rickard recognised the commercial possibilities: he staged Dempsey-Carpentier in July 1921 at Jersey City as the first million-dollar gate in sports history (80,000 attendees, $1.7M gross). The 1923 Dempsey-Firpo fight (the original 'Long Count' bout — Dempsey was knocked out of the ring and helped back in by reporters) drew 85,000. By the end of the decade Dempsey had lost to Gene Tunney (September 1926, the first $2M gate) and the rematch (September 1927, the actual 'Long Count' where Dempsey took too long to go to a neutral corner after dropping Tunney). The Tunney trilogy — and Dempsey's mainstream celebrity — established boxing's position alongside baseball as one of the two dominant American sports.