Adam Weinberg: In 1924, artist George Bellows attended a boxing match on assignment for the New York Evening Journal. He made several drawings on which this painting is based. American writer George Plimpton describes the painting. George Plimpton: It shows Firpo, the Argentinean boxer—quite untutored, almost an amateur—in what is considered one of the most dramatic moments in fistic history, namely knocking the champion, Jack Dempsey, through the ropes. Somewhat romanticized here, in Bellows' painting. Firpo looking like sort of a great god, looking indestructible...tree-like limbs there, legs. And Dempsey, of course, looked like a beetle falling out of a tree here. Dempsey was destroying Firpo when Firpo hit him with his left, as you can see, and knocked him through the ropes. Dempsey was a killer. He was referred to as the Manassa Mauler, and simply destroyed people in the ring with him. It's the sort of painting that I think...photography really does it now. It's over dramatic, this picture. Dempsey was not a popular champion at all. He was famous for hitting low blows, hitting fighters when they were rising from the canvas. So he was not liked by anybody, by the scribes, by the fans, when he entered the ring on this particular fight in the Polo Grounds in 1924. Everybody's sitting there—Babe Ruth, all these people, dignitaries. Great choruses of boos. And I think they really wanted Firpo, this great amateur, to take him out. He was that unpopular, Dempsey was. But that wasn't the way it turned out, at all. Adam Weinberg: The fight lasted only four minutes, and Dempsey was declared the winner. But the moment that became boxing legend was when Firpo knocked Dempsey out of the ring.