A Quick Jack Dempsey Story; becareful who you try to mug.

One version of the story goes . . .(there are several floating about)

Back in the late seventies, in New York City, the taxi cabs did not yet have auto-locks on them, and it was a common sting for gang-bangers to spot a taxi cab caught in traffic and jump the passenger in the back seat – they would swing open both back doors and jump the passenger from both sides – one would grab the passenger while the other would rip at his clothes until the wallet was found, then they would make their escape.

One day a couple of thugs saw such an opportunity, and old man just sitting outside of Dempsey's Stake House, waiting to be robbed – they jumped the car – but the old man turned out to be a seventy-something year old Jack Dempsey.

When the first kid reached for him, Dempsey nailed him with a right hand, knocking the kid on his butt back into the street, then Dempsey turned and nailed the other kid with his left sending the kid spawling onto the sidewalk. Dempsey jumped from the car, grabbed the one kid by the collar and threw him up onto the hood of the taxi and held him there until the police arrived.

It must have been a funny scene in the lock-up that night when that gang banger had to explain to his compatriots that he got his butt kicked by a seventy-something year old man.