Just 364 days before, on September 23, 1926, Tunney had beaten Dempsey in ten rounds by unanimous decision to lift the world heavyweight title, at Sesquicentennial Stadium in Philadelphia.

[2] Despite the fact that Tunney had won the first fight by a wide margin on the scorecards, the prospect of a second bout created tremendous public interest.

Dempsey was one of the so-called "big five" sports legends of the 1920s,[citation needed] and it was widely rumored that he had refused to join the military during World War I.

[citation needed] He actually had attempted to enlist in the Army, but had been turned down; a jury later exonerated Dempsey of draft evasion.

The fight took place under new rules regarding knockdowns: the fallen fighter would have 10 seconds to rise to his feet under his own power after his opponent had moved to a neutral corner (i.e., one with no trainers).

Tunney was, by most accounts, dominating the fight from rounds one to six, using his familiar style of boxing from a distance while looking for openings and, at the same time, building a points lead.

Some believe that if Dempsey had responded to the referee's order in time, he would have likely regained the world heavyweight crown with a seventh-round knockout.

In the fight film, a clock was superimposed that recorded Tunney's time on the floor as 13 seconds, from the moment he fell until he got up.

A significant factor in prolonging the controversy was that, at the time, U.S. law prohibited the transportation of boxing match movies across state lines (the law had been passed in 1912 in reaction to riots that broke out after Jack Johnson's 1910 victory over James J. Jeffries[5][failed verification]; the fight had been filmed, though was banned in areas of the US.)

Dempsey later joined the United States Coast Guard, and he and Tunney became good friends who visited each other frequently.

In March 2011, the family of Gene Tunney donated the gloves he wore in the fight to The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.