This one was NOT staged:
“Dempsey could also take a punch. He would recall the time when he was a young fellow working in the mines of Colorado and fighting on the side for a few bucks. ‘’I was knocked down plenty,’’ he said. ‘’I wanted to stay down, but I couldn’t. I had to collect that $2 for winning or go hungry. I was one of those hungry fighters. You could hit me on the chin with a sledgehammer for $5. When you haven’t eaten for two days, you’ll understand.’
Dempsey is remembered outside the ring as a gentle, amiable man, but he was not to be trifled with. And when two muggers attacked an old man one afternoon, he knocked one down with a right and the other with a left. They had no idea the old man was Jack Dempsey.
‘’I don’t know why I did that,’’ Dempsey told me one day. ‘’I guess it was just instinct. But later I thought to myself, ‘My God, they could have shot or stabbed me.’ ‘’
[Note: He was 75 when they tried to mug him.]
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/04/sports/sports-of-the-times-the-toughest-man-in-the-world.html
There are a bunch of true stories like this. I grew up on St Thomas USVI. We had a cray older fellow I. His late 60’s who loved a good brawl. He had professionally boxed and wrestled as the “Masked Marvel.” Some idiot would start picking on him etc. The Marvel would take off his ring, take off his watch and glasses etc until he got to his false teeth. He ended up being black listed from a lot of bars. Then is the story of another old fellow who walked with a cane. Three muggers attacked him. The old fellow had literally written a book on self defense with canes, short sticks , and unarmed combat. It did not go well with the attackers. My mom was a nurse. She told me the story of a young fellow who came into the ER pretty badly cut up. The young man was brought by the police. There was a little old fellow with them. My mom asked if this was the young man’s father. Police said Nope, he cut up the young guy. I guess the young guy thought the old man was easy. One of the cuts went through his face into his mouth. Then there is video of the guy messing with an old fellow called “champ”. Champ knocks out the young guy. My favorite is George Forman at Madison Square Garden when a major brawl broke out. George had been doing color commentary on the fight. A couple of guys thought they were going to attack the ring announcers. You could hear George in the back ground saying “ Son, you really don’t want to do that” and they didn’t.