Jack Dempsey v Gene Tunney at 100: when a great champion met his greatest inquisitor

On 23 September 1926, two of the best heavyweights in American history met in front of 120,000 fans in Philadelphia. The fight drew in a nation

The two fights between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney rank with boxing's most-storied championship bouts and are among the greatest sports spectacles ever seen in America. Wednesday marks the one hundredth anniversary of their first encounter.

Dempsey bridged boxing's old and modern eras and was one of the most charismatic fighters in history. When Dempsey was young, biographer Randy Roberts recounts, he lived in mining camps and hobo jungles, rode the rods, and more than once begged for food. What separated him was his willingness, even eagerness, to work. He accepted any type of employment from washing dishes, cutting lawns, and scrubbing floors to the harder work of coal-mining, digging ditches, and picking fruit."