WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.540 Think about the sheer power of a name in the 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:05.879 world of sports. Those names that just instantly 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.300 command respect. Right. The ones that carry an 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:10.300 entire legacy the second they are spoken aloud. 00:00:10.339 --> 00:00:13.380 Exactly. We treat these names as immortal monuments. 00:00:13.699 --> 00:00:15.839 But consider the possibility that one of the 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:18.679 most famous, iconic names in the entire history 00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:21.719 of modern athletics actually belonged to someone 00:00:21.719 --> 00:00:24.539 else entirely. It is wild to think about. Right. 00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:26.899 Imagine that the legend you think you know is, 00:00:27.079 --> 00:00:30.160 well, in reality, wearing another man's identity. 00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:33.380 Today, we are taking a deep dive into the life 00:00:33.380 --> 00:00:36.380 of a 19th century Irish -American boxer named 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:38.659 John Edward Kelly. And our mission here is to 00:00:38.659 --> 00:00:41.539 uncover how this largely forgotten pioneer became 00:00:41.539 --> 00:00:44.679 the original Jack Dempsey, the fighter who was 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:47.200 famously known to the world as the Nonpareil. 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.759 Which is just an incredible nickname. It really 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:52.479 is. And to truly grasp the weight of this historical 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:54.979 riddle, you have to mentally transport yourself 00:00:54.979 --> 00:00:57.920 back to a drastically different era. If you notice 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:00.200 the backdrop behind me shifting to this gritty, 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:03.619 sepia -toned, 19th century boxing pavilion, well, 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:05.500 consider the environment we are stepping into. 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:08.719 Yeah, it is not the highly regulated modern arena. 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:12.120 Not at all. We are looking at a story of unparalleled 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:15.400 physical grit, genuinely bizarre sports history, 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:18.260 and a legacy that was... quite literally adopted 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:21.540 by a successor. This was a time when the modern 00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:24.159 rules of combat sports were actively being written, 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:26.859 often in blood. And where the line between athletic 00:01:26.859 --> 00:01:29.819 endurance and sheer survival was incredibly thin. 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:32.840 Okay, let's unpack this. Because to understand 00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:35.000 the stolen legend, we really have to start with 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:37.280 the flesh and blood man himself. John Edward 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:41.340 Kelly. Exactly. Born on December 15th, 1862 in 00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:44.219 Curragh County, Kildare, Ireland, before he makes 00:01:44.219 --> 00:01:46.340 this arduous journey across the Atlantic to the 00:01:46.340 --> 00:01:48.939 United States. And somewhere in that gritty immigrant 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:52.200 experience of 19th century America, Kelly transforms 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.959 into Jack Dempsey. And he doesn't just take a 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:57.540 new name. He earns this incredibly bold moniker. 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:00.390 The nonpareil. I'm always amazed by the sheer 00:02:00.390 --> 00:02:02.150 confidence of that. Carrying the weight of a 00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:04.189 title that essentially translates to having no 00:02:04.189 --> 00:02:06.329 equal. That you are fundamentally unbeatable. 00:02:06.510 --> 00:02:09.030 It requires an astonishing level of confidence. 00:02:09.310 --> 00:02:11.409 And delivering on a moniker like that in the 00:02:11.409 --> 00:02:15.009 1880s required a devastating work ethic. Looking 00:02:15.009 --> 00:02:17.949 at his physical attributes, he wasn't imposing 00:02:17.949 --> 00:02:20.189 by modern heavyweight standards. No, he stood 00:02:20.189 --> 00:02:23.330 at just 5 '8", fighting out of an orthodox stance. 00:02:23.729 --> 00:02:26.939 Right. But his record reflects an era where fighters 00:02:26.939 --> 00:02:29.900 practically lived in the ring. Factoring in the 00:02:29.900 --> 00:02:31.840 newspaper decisions, which, as we know, heavily 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:33.620 skewed the perception of a fighter's true activity 00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:36.199 rate back then, Dempsey amassed an astonishing 00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:40.580 69 total fights. 69! And looking at the sheer 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:44.060 volume of his record is staggering. 51 official 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:47.560 wins, 24 of those by knockout. 11 draws. Yeah, 00:02:47.580 --> 00:02:50.280 11 draws and only three losses in his entire 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:54.009 career. Just three. It defies logic to step into 00:02:54.009 --> 00:02:56.449 makeshift rings, athletic clubs, and unregulated 00:02:56.449 --> 00:02:59.270 brawls almost 70 times and only walk away defeated 00:02:59.270 --> 00:03:01.689 three times. And the defining culmination of 00:03:01.689 --> 00:03:04.569 that relentless pace happened on July 30, 1884. 00:03:04.849 --> 00:03:07.349 In Great Kills, Staten Island, New York. Exactly. 00:03:08.189 --> 00:03:10.949 Dempsey stepped into the ring and defeated George 00:03:10.949 --> 00:03:13.930 Full James in a 21 -round technical knockout. 00:03:14.689 --> 00:03:17.349 But this wasn't just a brutal defense of a regional 00:03:17.349 --> 00:03:20.580 reputation. By breaking down full jams over 21 00:03:20.580 --> 00:03:23.259 grueling rounds, Dempsey became the first ever 00:03:23.259 --> 00:03:25.219 holder of the world middleweight championship. 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:28.000 It was the inaugural title. Right. And holding 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.259 that crown was a massive target on his back, 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:32.800 a target he successfully defended for over six 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:35.240 years. I really want you to just imagine that 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:38.639 for a second. Holding a world title in a brutal, 00:03:38.860 --> 00:03:42.219 bare -knuckle adjacent era for over half a decade. 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:45.939 Six years of constantly fending off challengers. 00:03:45.939 --> 00:03:47.979 Traveling across the country, stepping into the 00:03:47.979 --> 00:03:50.560 chaotic atmosphere of 19th century athletic clubs. 00:03:50.659 --> 00:03:52.719 Yeah, physically defending that belt to maintain 00:03:52.719 --> 00:03:55.409 the absolute... undisputed claim of being the 00:03:55.409 --> 00:03:58.189 nonpareil. It is a level of sustained physiological 00:03:58.189 --> 00:04:00.770 and mental endurance that almost looks alien 00:04:00.770 --> 00:04:03.169 compared to modern fight schedules. Because the 00:04:03.169 --> 00:04:05.610 landscape of boxing in the 1880s was essentially 00:04:05.610 --> 00:04:08.370 the Wild West. The sport was in this painful 00:04:08.370 --> 00:04:11.389 transition phase. It was moving away from the 00:04:11.389 --> 00:04:14.669 unregulated, illegal brawls of the past toward 00:04:14.669 --> 00:04:16.569 the formalized governance score we recognize 00:04:16.569 --> 00:04:20.170 today. Dempsey's match record reads like a chaotic 00:04:20.170 --> 00:04:23.180 tour of late 19th century America. Brooklyn, 00:04:23.420 --> 00:04:27.259 San Francisco, New Orleans, Philadelphia. And 00:04:27.259 --> 00:04:29.360 the sheer length of these bouts provides a window 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:31.560 into a completely different standard of human 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:34.560 durability. Just consider his fight against John 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:38.399 Reagan on December 13, 1887 in Long Island. Dempsey 00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:41.100 won by a technical knockout. But the staggering 00:04:41.100 --> 00:04:45.180 detail is the round. The 45th. 45 rounds of continuous 00:04:45.180 --> 00:04:47.639 combat. We are not talking about modern three 00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:49.959 -minute rounds with highly regulated pacing and 00:04:49.959 --> 00:04:52.439 synthetic gloves here. We are talking about hours 00:04:52.439 --> 00:04:55.339 of clinching, striking, and sheer survival. You 00:04:55.339 --> 00:04:57.279 really have to wonder what is even left of a 00:04:57.279 --> 00:05:00.300 human body physiologically after 45 rounds of 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:02.699 taking and delivering damage. That 45 -round 00:05:02.699 --> 00:05:05.160 marker changes the whole paradigm of how we view 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:07.779 athletic stamina. A TKO in that era wasn't just 00:05:07.779 --> 00:05:09.620 a referee stepping in because a fighter was taking 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:12.379 too many unanswered jabs. It often meant... Total 00:05:12.379 --> 00:05:15.459 systemic physical failure. But beyond the punishing 00:05:15.459 --> 00:05:18.220 endurance, the lack of centralized regulation 00:05:18.220 --> 00:05:22.100 also led to some incredibly strange, borderline 00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:25.139 theatrical situations inside the ring. The business 00:05:25.139 --> 00:05:27.319 of boxing was deeply intertwined with gambling 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:30.199 syndicates and shadowy promoters. Which brings 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:33.279 us to a bout in Buffalo, New York on April 9th, 00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:36.540 1887. And here's where it gets really interesting. 00:05:37.399 --> 00:05:39.819 Dempsey fights a man named Billy Baker. This 00:05:39.819 --> 00:05:42.079 is scheduled as a four -round bout. According 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:44.740 to the historical record, this fight was explicitly 00:05:44.740 --> 00:05:47.220 fixed. It was a complete setup. Driven entirely 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:49.899 by the gambling underbelly of the sport. The 00:05:49.899 --> 00:05:51.860 fix was in for Billy Baker to win the fight. 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:55.199 But the execution of that fix turned into a spectacular 00:05:55.199 --> 00:05:57.639 comedy of errors. The failure of the corruption 00:05:57.639 --> 00:06:00.199 is almost cinematic. The fight is fixed for Baker 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:02.420 to win, which, given the mechanics of the fix, 00:06:02.459 --> 00:06:05.019 meant Baker had to secure a knockout. But Dempsey 00:06:05.019 --> 00:06:07.589 was simply too resilient? Or perhaps Baker was 00:06:07.589 --> 00:06:10.370 entirely too inept. Probably a bit of both. Yeah, 00:06:10.410 --> 00:06:12.209 even with the fight rigged completely in his 00:06:12.209 --> 00:06:15.310 favor, with Dempsey supposedly allowing the victory, 00:06:15.550 --> 00:06:18.269 Baker failed to score a knockout across all four 00:06:18.269 --> 00:06:21.250 rounds. The bout officially resulted in a no 00:06:21.250 --> 00:06:24.089 decision or a no contest. The figs completely 00:06:24.089 --> 00:06:26.009 fell apart because the predetermined winner just 00:06:26.009 --> 00:06:28.250 couldn't physically manifest the knockout. And 00:06:28.250 --> 00:06:30.550 the ultimate punchline to that entire bizarre 00:06:30.550 --> 00:06:33.910 affair is that Dempsey fought Baker legitimately 00:06:33.910 --> 00:06:37.870 in a rematch the very next year, February 1888, 00:06:38.129 --> 00:06:41.709 and he defeated him on points in 10 rounds. He 00:06:41.709 --> 00:06:43.589 essentially proved that even when he was trying 00:06:43.589 --> 00:06:46.170 to lose, Baker couldn't beat him, so he returned 00:06:46.170 --> 00:06:48.689 to just dismantling him legitimately. But for 00:06:48.689 --> 00:06:50.910 all his dominance and the occasional absurdity 00:06:50.910 --> 00:06:52.990 of the era, there were moments that highlighted 00:06:52.990 --> 00:06:55.649 the intense, unregulated danger of this transitional 00:06:55.649 --> 00:06:58.750 period. example, that danger occurred during 00:06:58.750 --> 00:07:02.769 a non -title bout on August 27, 1889. Dempsey 00:07:02.769 --> 00:07:04.970 faced George LeBlanc at the California Athletic 00:07:04.970 --> 00:07:07.069 Club in San Francisco. And Dempsey had a history 00:07:07.069 --> 00:07:10.769 with LeBlanc. He did. Three years prior, he had 00:07:10.769 --> 00:07:14.170 beaten him by TKO in 13 rounds to cement his 00:07:14.170 --> 00:07:17.399 middleweight championship claim. But the 1889 00:07:17.399 --> 00:07:20.439 rematch devolved into a grueling war of attrition. 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:23.740 The fight dragged into an exhausting 32 rounds. 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:27.300 And in that 32nd round, LeBlanc knocked Dempsey 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:30.600 out using a highly unconventional strike, a spinning 00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:33.379 backfist. The rotational force of a spinning 00:07:33.379 --> 00:07:35.699 backfist, especially given the rudimentary nature 00:07:35.699 --> 00:07:38.220 of the gloves used during that specific transition 00:07:38.220 --> 00:07:40.899 away from bare -knuckle fighting, is absolutely 00:07:40.899 --> 00:07:42.959 devastating. It's fascinating here is how the 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:45.610 sports governing bodies reacted. That specific 00:07:45.610 --> 00:07:47.910 move, the spinning back fist, was actually banned 00:07:47.910 --> 00:07:50.350 from the sport entirely following Dempsey's death. 00:07:50.529 --> 00:07:52.930 Wow. It highlights a crucial, often overlooked 00:07:52.930 --> 00:07:55.709 aspect of Dempsey's career. He wasn't just participating 00:07:55.709 --> 00:07:58.449 in a static sport. His physical sacrifices were 00:07:58.449 --> 00:08:00.509 actively dictating how the rules of boxing were 00:08:00.509 --> 00:08:02.930 evolving. The emerging athletic commissions were 00:08:02.930 --> 00:08:04.629 literally looking at the damage inflicted upon 00:08:04.629 --> 00:08:07.389 Dempsey's body and retroactively drawing boundaries 00:08:07.389 --> 00:08:09.779 to protect the next generation of fighters. That 00:08:09.779 --> 00:08:12.180 retroactive protection brings a heavy sense of 00:08:12.180 --> 00:08:15.300 tragedy to his story. Because for over six years, 00:08:15.540 --> 00:08:18.439 Dempsey was the undisputed king. He defended 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:21.160 his middleweight title, absorbed unimaginable 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:24.740 damage, and stood as the nonpareil. But the human 00:08:24.740 --> 00:08:27.259 body has a finite amount of punishment it can 00:08:27.259 --> 00:08:30.019 absorb. Every legendary reign eventually hits 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:32.860 a wall. And for Dempsey... That violent climax 00:08:32.860 --> 00:08:36.379 happened on January 14, 1891. The challenger 00:08:36.379 --> 00:08:38.840 was Bob Fitzsimmons. Right. They met at the California 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:41.279 Athletic Club in San Francisco. This was the 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:43.320 night Dempsey finally lost his world middleweight 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:46.000 title. But reading the raw data of the match 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:47.740 record, you know, a corner retirement in round 00:08:47.740 --> 00:08:50.460 13, well, it completely fails to capture the 00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:52.940 psychological and physical devastation that unfolded 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:55.490 in the ring. The accounts of that night are incredibly 00:08:55.490 --> 00:08:58.330 grim. Fitzsimmons was absolutely pummeling Dempsey, 00:08:58.450 --> 00:09:01.389 was not a competitive exchange. It was a systematic, 00:09:01.610 --> 00:09:04.769 one -sided dismantling. But Dempsey, the reigning 00:09:04.769 --> 00:09:06.909 champion, the man who had built his entire identity, 00:09:07.090 --> 00:09:09.610 his entire livelihood on being unbreakable, simply 00:09:09.610 --> 00:09:12.590 refused to go down. The beating became so visibly 00:09:12.590 --> 00:09:15.409 horrific that Bob Fitzsimmons, the man actively 00:09:15.409 --> 00:09:18.830 trying to strip Dempsey of his life's work, actually 00:09:18.830 --> 00:09:22.389 stopped fighting. He stopped and begged Dempsey 00:09:22.389 --> 00:09:24.570 to concede so he wouldn't have to inflict any 00:09:24.570 --> 00:09:27.210 more permanent damage. Think about the psychological 00:09:27.210 --> 00:09:29.990 weight of that moment. It violates the core premise 00:09:29.990 --> 00:09:32.970 of combat sports. Your opponent in the middle 00:09:32.970 --> 00:09:35.470 of a title fight pleading with you to stay down. 00:09:35.710 --> 00:09:39.549 But Dempsey flatly refused. The reigning champion 00:09:39.549 --> 00:09:42.450 would not quit on his stool. The fight had to 00:09:42.450 --> 00:09:44.629 continue until Fitzsimmons finally knocked him 00:09:44.629 --> 00:09:47.320 out in the 13th round. What stands out to you 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:50.460 when evaluating that kind of absolute unyielding 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:53.139 pride? Where do you draw the line between a dangerous 00:09:53.139 --> 00:09:56.360 lack of self -preservation and the ultimate undeniable 00:09:56.360 --> 00:09:59.090 mark of a true champion? who refuses to surrender 00:09:59.090 --> 00:10:01.429 his crown on his feet. It forces you to question 00:10:01.429 --> 00:10:03.730 the very nature of greatness in these early sports. 00:10:03.990 --> 00:10:06.070 And the cruelty of John Edward Kelly's story 00:10:06.070 --> 00:10:08.350 didn't end when he finally lost that belt in 00:10:08.350 --> 00:10:11.129 San Francisco. His physical battles inside the 00:10:11.129 --> 00:10:13.230 ring seamlessly transitioned into a horrific 00:10:13.230 --> 00:10:15.450 fight against disease outside of it. Yeah, he 00:10:15.450 --> 00:10:18.149 contracted tuberculosis. And even while suffering 00:10:18.149 --> 00:10:20.850 from this debilitating, wasting illness, his 00:10:20.850 --> 00:10:23.840 instinct was to keep fighting. His final bout 00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:27.720 took place on January 18, 1895 at the Seaside 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:30.580 Athletic Club in Coney Island. He fought Tommy 00:10:30.580 --> 00:10:33.440 Ryan and lost via a technical knockout in three 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:36.639 rounds. The grim reality of stepping into a boxing 00:10:36.639 --> 00:10:39.500 ring, trying to conjure the ghost of the nonpareil 00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:42.399 while your lungs are actively failing from tuberculosis 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:45.059 is deeply haunting. Dempsey actually managed 00:10:45.059 --> 00:10:47.460 to fight off his first severe bout with tuberculosis, 00:10:47.779 --> 00:10:50.059 which is a testament to the sheer physiological 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:52.200 resilience that allowed him to survive those 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:55.100 four days. round wars. But the disease recurred 00:10:55.100 --> 00:10:58.279 with a vengeance. On November 1st, 1895, at the 00:10:58.279 --> 00:11:01.399 remarkably young age of 32, John Edward Kelly 00:11:01.399 --> 00:11:03.360 passed away at the home of his wife's parents 00:11:03.360 --> 00:11:06.919 in Portland, Oregon. 32 years old, after 69 fights 00:11:06.919 --> 00:11:09.759 pioneering a global sport and defining an entire 00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:12.740 era of athletics, his life was cut drastically 00:11:12.740 --> 00:11:15.340 short. But the drama surrounding his name didn't 00:11:15.340 --> 00:11:17.950 end with his final breath. Let's shift the backdrop 00:11:17.950 --> 00:11:20.049 from the roaring crowds of San Francisco to a 00:11:20.049 --> 00:11:23.049 shadowy, quiet cemetery in Portland, Mount Calvary 00:11:23.049 --> 00:11:25.750 Cemetery. Where Dempsey was buried in what was 00:11:25.750 --> 00:11:28.909 initially an entirely unmarked grave. Right, 00:11:28.950 --> 00:11:30.750 and the boxing world found this unacceptable. 00:11:31.490 --> 00:11:34.250 Former world champion John L. Sullivan and a 00:11:34.250 --> 00:11:36.549 prominent figure named John S. Barnes stepped 00:11:36.549 --> 00:11:39.809 in. They launched an effort to raise funds to 00:11:39.809 --> 00:11:42.129 erect a grand monument over Dempsey's grave. 00:11:42.649 --> 00:11:44.710 They felt the first middleweight king deserved 00:11:44.710 --> 00:11:48.129 a memorial fitting his legendary status. But 00:11:48.129 --> 00:11:50.230 the collision of the bombastic boxing culture 00:11:50.230 --> 00:11:53.070 and the quiet reality of Dempsey's greeting family 00:11:53.070 --> 00:11:56.870 created an unexpected roadblock. Dempsey's father 00:11:56.870 --> 00:11:59.830 -in -law, M. James Brady, flatly refused to permit 00:11:59.830 --> 00:12:01.830 the fundraising. Just shut it right down. He 00:12:01.830 --> 00:12:04.110 shut the entire initiative down. The family believed 00:12:04.110 --> 00:12:06.490 that a simple, unassuming four -foot marble shaft 00:12:06.490 --> 00:12:09.679 was a sufficient and dignified memorial. They 00:12:09.679 --> 00:12:12.220 rejected the grand monument. The matter was dropped, 00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:14.460 leaving a quiet practical grave for one of the 00:12:14.460 --> 00:12:16.500 most ferocious and celebrated fighters of the 00:12:16.500 --> 00:12:19.100 19th century. The ultimate irony of his father 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:20.919 -in -law rejecting a physical stone monument 00:12:20.919 --> 00:12:22.919 in that Portland cemetery is that a completely 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:24.840 different kind of monument was already being 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:28.039 constructed. One forged entirely out of the letters 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:30.320 of his adopted name. If we connect this to the 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:32.580 bigger picture, this is where the story shifts 00:12:32.580 --> 00:12:35.500 from a tragic biography into a phenomenon of 00:12:35.500 --> 00:12:39.289 cultural legacy. Two brothers, Bernie and William 00:12:39.289 --> 00:12:41.889 Harrison Dempsey, were entering the boxing world. 00:12:42.730 --> 00:12:45.490 Recognizing the raw mythic power associated with 00:12:45.490 --> 00:12:47.809 the legendary middleweight champion, they decided 00:12:47.809 --> 00:12:50.490 to adopt his name as a pseudonym. But it was 00:12:50.490 --> 00:12:53.129 the brother, William Harrison Dempsey, who took 00:12:53.129 --> 00:12:55.990 that stolen name and catapulted it into the global 00:12:55.990 --> 00:12:58.250 stratosphere. Exactly. He became the cultural 00:12:58.250 --> 00:13:01.529 icon. The Jack Dempsey of the roaring 20s. William 00:13:01.529 --> 00:13:04.330 Harrison achieved such monolithic success in 00:13:04.330 --> 00:13:07.789 the 1910s and 1920s that his fame completely 00:13:07.789 --> 00:13:11.230 consumed the original man's identity. When tens 00:13:11.230 --> 00:13:13.509 of thousands of people packed into stadiums to 00:13:13.509 --> 00:13:15.889 cheer for Jack Dempsey, they were cheering for 00:13:15.889 --> 00:13:18.120 William Harrison. While the original John Edward 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:21.620 Kelly, the pioneer who fought 69 times, the man 00:13:21.620 --> 00:13:24.200 who absorbed spinning backfists and refused to 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:26.840 yield to Fitzsimmons, was relegated to the footnotes 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:29.279 of history, mostly referenced by his nonpareil 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:31.220 nickname just to distinguish him from the man 00:13:31.220 --> 00:13:33.259 who borrowed his legacy. So what does this all 00:13:33.259 --> 00:13:35.299 mean? Does it mean John Edward Kelly's legacy 00:13:35.299 --> 00:13:37.830 was erased? I don't believe so. The institutional 00:13:37.830 --> 00:13:40.049 records ultimately validate his foundational 00:13:40.049 --> 00:13:42.789 greatness. He was inducted into the Ring Magazine 00:13:42.789 --> 00:13:46.389 Hall of Fame in 1954 and later enshrined in the 00:13:46.389 --> 00:13:50.049 International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992. His 00:13:50.049 --> 00:13:52.230 impact on the architecture of the sport was recognized, 00:13:52.549 --> 00:13:54.870 even if his chosen name was hijacked to launch 00:13:54.870 --> 00:13:58.309 the career of a 20th century titan. When we look 00:13:58.309 --> 00:14:00.289 at the totality of John Edward Kelly's life, 00:14:00.450 --> 00:14:03.370 we are examining a man who served as the bridge 00:14:03.370 --> 00:14:06.389 between the lawless brawls of the past and the 00:14:06.389 --> 00:14:09.750 regulated combat of the future. He set a standard 00:14:09.750 --> 00:14:12.570 so impossibly high that merely adopting his name 00:14:12.570 --> 00:14:15.269 was enough to inject an aura of invincibility 00:14:15.269 --> 00:14:18.009 into the next generation. True legacy isn't always 00:14:18.009 --> 00:14:20.269 a massive stone monument in a cemetery. No, it's 00:14:20.269 --> 00:14:22.470 not. Sometimes your legacy is simply the standard 00:14:22.470 --> 00:14:25.080 of excellence, the nonpareil. that you force 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:27.080 every subsequent generation to measure themselves 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:29.879 against. As we wrap up this deep dive, I want 00:14:29.879 --> 00:14:32.480 to leave you with one final thought to mull over, 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:35.279 something that pushes past the boxing ring and 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:38.460 into how we view history itself. Think about 00:14:38.460 --> 00:14:40.600 that spinning back fist that was banned after 00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:43.419 Dempsey's death. Consider how many of the rules, 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.259 protections, and boundaries we rely on in our 00:14:46.259 --> 00:14:48.960 modern systems today, whether in sports, workplace 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:52.220 safety, or law. Think about how many of those 00:14:52.220 --> 00:14:54.360 were written purely because of the unrecorded 00:14:54.360 --> 00:14:56.559 pain and endurance of forgotten pioneers who 00:14:56.559 --> 00:14:59.039 had to survive the Wild West first. We treat 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:01.779 the names of modern titans as immortal. But maybe 00:15:01.779 --> 00:15:03.700 ultimate greatness is building a standard so 00:15:03.700 --> 00:15:06.679 impossibly high, enduring so much struggle, that 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:08.820 the next generation has to literally steal your 00:15:08.820 --> 00:15:10.620 identity just to feel like they have a chance 00:15:10.620 --> 00:15:12.679 at time. touching the mountaintop. It makes you 00:15:12.679 --> 00:15:14.820 wonder how many modern titans are currently standing 00:15:14.820 --> 00:15:17.399 on the stolen names of forgotten pioneers. Thank 00:15:17.399 --> 00:15:19.100 you so much for joining us on this deep dive. 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:21.500 Stay curious, keep asking the hard questions, 00:15:21.559 --> 00:15:22.759 and we will see you next time.