Orchid Man
At the age of 14, French youth Georges Carpentier had become welterweight champion of Europe. Five years later, the slim Carpentier was so highly regarded that he was chosen to referee Jack Johnson's heavyweight title defense in Paris. His World War I service as an aviator earned Carpentier multiple decorations, including a Croix de Guerre. After the War, he resumed boxing, and he quickly won European championships in both the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.
Perhaps no boxer of the era appealed more to women, who found him cultured and handsome (he later would appear in several films). Rickard may have been dapper, but Georges Carpentier was positively suave, and downright graceful. Even as a heavyweight he still looked slender; someone dubbed him The Orchid Man. Whatever it was supposed to suggest, the name seemed to suit him, and it stuck. He fought in the U.S. in 1920, winning the light heavyweight world championship by defeating the wonderfully-nicknamed Battling Levitsky. That one fight was enough to make Georges Carpentier the favorite of a great many American fans, not all of whom were female.
Georges Carpentier in training at Manhasset NY, June 2, 1921
New York Daily News, June 3, 1921
Tex Rickard realized that the public would see Carpentier as the perfect opponent for heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. Both men had begun boxing at an early age; both had well-honed instincts. The Frenchman was fast, agile, and determined, and maybe quick enough to make some of Dempsey's blockbuster punches miss their mark. Even better, the public would see Carpentier as a natural-born hero - and in their eyes, that would make him the antithesis of Dempsey.
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