Best Machine Won Fight, Asserts Inventor Tesla

Considers Champion 'Tuned' Finer and Seventh Round Only 'an Error of Judgment'

Nikola Tesla, inventor and electrical genius, modestly admitted last night that he had been right in his forecast printed Thursday in the Herald Tribune, that Tunney would beat Dempsey in Chicago. Mr. Tesla, who added prizefight experting to his other accomplishments because of his friendship with John L. Sullivan, based his forecast upon a mechanical theory which he applies to all human events.

"It was no surprise to me to find after reading a report of the battle that my forecast was accurate, not only as regards final result, but even in details," Mr. Tesla declared last night. "I am in the habit of applying scientific reasoning and calculation to every event, and invariably I arrive at nearly correct conclusions in this manner."

He pointed out, for instance, that at the beginning of the war, when some were predicting that it would last a few months, and others were predicting ten years, his own estimate of five years, based upon a careful weighing of the scientific factors entering into the problem, was within six weeks of the actual duration of the conflict.

His method in predicting prize fights, he said. was similar.

"The two fights between Dempsey and Tunney, one in Philadelphia and the other in Chicago, bear a striking resemblance." he explained, "and prove to an extent at least the correctness of my theory of the automatic character of the action. In both cases we find Dempsey at the end of the tenth round, with his sight impaired and practically helpless against the ropes. This result, according to my views, was almost inevitable.

"I earlier stated that Tunney was the favorite by 10 to 1, but it would have expressed my views more completely if I had said 100 to 1.”

Mr. Tesla said he could not explain his views completely to a non-technical audience, but that anybody should be able to understand that human beings were nothing but automatic engines, responding, not according to free will, but to primary impressions from the outside.

"This fight," he said, "was nothing but a complex action resulting from a multitude of impressions which the combatants received, chiefly through the eyes. They may themselves have imagined that they were acting according to their own wills, but that was simply because they did not observe the primary causes which prompted their actions.

"Considering the two fighters, then, as automata, we find that one had very much more sensitive organs of reception and a more accurate and quicker control than the other. This being the case, barring unforeseen occurrences, the final result, no matter how many times they met, would be inevitably the same.

"The general impression created among the spectators was that Dempsey had a strong chance to win, but I say that he had virtually none. Dempsey had to lose, but he has shown in this fight and in others that there probably never was in the ring a man capable of standing as much punishment as he."

The flooring of Tunney in the seventh round resulted, according to Mr. Tesla, from an error of judgment on the part of the champion. This accident, he declared, does not vitiate his theory.