The eight champions before Dempsey set the expectations: capture the title, fall back to vaudeville tours and keep the public wanting more. The only one to buck the trend was Tommy Burns, who audaciously defended the heavyweight title on a semi-regular schedule.

Apart from providing income for celebrities and sports figures, vaudeville circuits helped popularize boxing and professional wrestling. In their early days, both sports relied on the same flimflam, the same razzle dazzle sideshow barking. Rubes in every small town were yanked from crowds for a chance to punch or rassle an athlete, and the displays were often choreographed or outright fake. But there were also simpler exhibitions that were acknowledged as soft or for pure entertainment.

During the reign of Jack Johnson, boxing’s first Black world heavyweight champion, the paths of boxing and wrestling diverged while the methods temporarily remained. Increased interest shifted both sports’ biggest events to large venues where a live gate became financially more important than ringside betting, and vaudeville lost its grip on the wider public as technology allowed spectators to see photos, and eventually videos, of fights.

Even so, stale visuals were no substitute for the flesh. After defeating Johnson, lumbering giant Jess Willard famously signed a contract to appear on tour with one of the best-known vaudeville acts, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows. Shortly thereafter, he joined a circus act for a massive six-figure contract, making only one defense of the heavyweight title in four years.

Photos and moving pictures of Jack Dempsey punching the much larger Willard into a crimson oblivion changed everything. There was nothing to misinterpret, no controversy, no mistaking the fact that Dempsey was a feral, grimacing monster who had to be seen up close. His $20,000 purse for the Willard fight was eclipsed by appearance fees in just a few days after he won the title. Suddenly, Dempsey went from a man who slipped in and out of vagrancy and rode the rails like a locomotive bum to the toast of the town from Broadway to Hollywood.

In his autobiography, Dempsey said: “I went to Hollywood parties that people are still talking about, for they don’t happen any more and haven't happened for years. I enjoyed every one of them. If they were orgies — as they came to be called in the papers — I sure didn’t know. Everybody drank though.”

Just as quickly as Dempsey became a hero, lawsuits concerning his previous marriage and draft evasion during World War I complicated his image and sidelined him as champion. He fought a few low profile exhibitions, but it wasn’t until September 6, 1920, 106 years ago and more than a year after winning the championship, that Dempsey stepped back into the ring for a true title defense.

According to Dempsey, an old friend and foe Billy Miske, was dying of kidney disease and literally begged the champion for a third fight between the two and one last payday. The champion also longed to return to the ring, where the thunderous cheering provided a sharp contrast to quiet exhibition halls that seemed to only amplify hooligans yelping out how Dempsey was a “slacker,” or draft dodger.

Benton Harbor, Michigan, promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons built an arena intending to promote Dempsey’s next fight, but had to settle for lightweight champion Benny Leonard’s title defense against Charley White in July 1920 instead. Leonard missed weight, nixing the title defense portion of the bout, but scored a knockout of White that inspired the crowd to rush the ring, causing thousands of dollars of damage. Fitzsimmons needed a do-over, and he met with Dempsey’s manager Jack “Doc” Kearns, eventually striking a deal to fight for a percentage of the gate while Miske would receive a fixed purse.

Benton Harbor is just across the southern tip of Lake Michigan from Chicago and Milwaukee, which meant access to boxing’s biggest fighters and the country’s busiest nearby fighting cities. Joe Woodman and James Mason, managers of Sam Langford and Harry Greb, latched their fighters onto the undercard of Dempsey-Miske.

These days a heavyweight championship fight requires no undercard. But even having a meaningful undercard for a heavyweight fight of that magnitude would have been a new development in 1920.

One of the more popular songs at vaudeville shows contained the lyrics, “Let me shake the hand that shook the hand of Sullivan,” about heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan, who died in 1918. Sullivan’s most famous bout, an 1892 loss to James Corbett that ended his career, was the crescendo of a days-long festival in New Orleans featuring different fights on subsequent days. Stacking the Dempsey-Miske card with two of boxing’s best technicians wasn’t even necessary, but Fitzsimmons did it anyway.

Dempsey acknowledged rumors of a “fix” in the Miske fight in the lead-up, though it wasn’t clear what kind of fix he meant, and reports said the challenger looked surprisingly fit. Most boxing people knew about Miske’s Bright’s Disease diagnosis after his year-long absence from the ring. “The St. Paul Thunderbolt” continued ravaging his kidneys, sweating in the gym and shedding weight for fights despite being told he shouldn’t fight again, because his family needed the money. It wasn’t chivalry or bravery, just a man doing what was necessary.

The heavyweight champion, revered and reviled, pitied his old friend. But pity wouldn’t stay his hand in the ring. Dempsey rarely held back, even in sparring, and he showed up for most fights in top physical condition. Against Miske, Dempsey found a boxer-puncher similar in size and relatively quick-handed, which called for a busy, fast sparring partner such as Greb.

Dempsey and Greb sparred a few times the week before the bout, with different newspapers offering accounts that all varied. One report said Dempsey struggled badly with Greb, who delivered the heavyweight champion a nonstop torrent of punches. Others claimed their sparring sessions went back and forth before suggesting Greb could soon become Dempsey’s next challenger. In any case, sparring has never truly counted toward what is or what may be in real fights.

The only problem with bringing Dempsey, Greb and Langford to Benton Harbor was the state law prohibiting a decision being rendered at the end of a fight. When Billy Allen died as a result of his 1913 fight, Michigan’s then-governor Woodbridge Ferris attempted to stymie combat sports development by hunting down and arresting boxers, wrestlers and their associates. By 1920, Michigan’s laws allowed for winners to be announced following a knockout, but not a fight that went the distance.

Langford, a diminutive fighter with a short reach and laughably explosive punching power, was first to enter the ring at the Floyd Fitzsimmons Arena just before 4 p.m. Bill Tate, Dempsey’s primary sparring partner, entered the ring a few moments later. Langford, a decade older, blind in his left eye and growing pudgy, lost the Black heavyweight championship to Tate. That Langford remained dangerous at half-vision and fighting at a physical disadvantage against heavyweights speaks to his incredible skill.

In this six-round battle with Tate, Langford failed to grasp any offensive momentum and continuously ran into Tate’s jab. Had a decision been given, Tate would have clearly won it.

Greb and Chuck Wiggins entered the ring for the second bout, a rematch of their fight a few weeks earlier that thrilled a Kalamazoo crowd. They washed away any hint of bitterness from the Tate-Langford sparring by exchanging to the tune of “great applause” for half of their six rounds. Curiously, a Benton Harbor newspaper called the fight even despite describing action that obviously favored the much busier Greb.

Just over 11,000 were in attendance as the main event proceedings began, though Fitzsimmons estimated more than 5,000 locals stood outside with a perfect view of the action, refusing to fill the remaining 1,000 empty seats.

Somehow Miske moved through the crowd and into the ring before anyone had even noticed, confusing officials who delayed matters while they looked for the challenger. Dempsey then walked through the crowd wearing a red, white and blue outfit and snarled through the announcer’s updated carnival barking.

Halfway through Round 1, Dempsey connected with a body shot that left Miske and the crowd gasping for air. The challenger survived the round and cautiously made his way through much of Round 2 before absorbing another body punch that sent him down and onto his side. After Miske rose for more punishment, he all but covered up to last the round.

Miske lashed out and briefly rocked Dempsey in Round 3. The champion then put his head down and tenderized his opponent downstairs once more, putting him down for a count of nine. Miske’s team shouted from the corner that he needed more recovery time, but their man went back to fighting only to eat a right hand to the jaw that sent him under the bottom rope for the full count.

Dempsey later said: “Kearns and I split $55,000, the biggest touch we had ever had. It wasn’t enough for such filthy work. The only good feeling I had about the fight was that Billy got his payday, about $25,000 which was double or triple the best purse he had ever had. Or ever would. He didn’t live long after that.”

Miske actually lived another three years and kept fighting until his body no longer allowed him. In the early days of 1924, his kidneys gave up and he died at only 29.

After more than a century, the lawsuits, draft dodging and filthy work are all but forgotten. What remains are those images of Dempsey, the last of the vaudeville heavyweight champions, in motion, thrashing Willard, crushing Georges Carpentier, somersaulting through the ropes against Luis Ángel Firpo, and, yes, violently pitying his friend Billy Miske, saving him from a pauper’s grave in a Minneapolis field.