REVISED: Under 185lb Tournament, FINALS # 1 Rocky Marciano vs # 2 Jack Dempsey

But you are coneniently missing the point. Jones, McCallum,Froch and Ward,we all have seen today at their bests many times. You have seen a prime Dempsey on film 3or so times,while watching many of Marciano's
prime fights live, and on wonderful films. How the heck should you or I be closer to the real essence than experts who saw them ringside numerous times ? I have seen Marciano live,and he was a tremendously hard puncher with endurance, but he looped and MISSED half his punches, and in my heart,and in the experts who saw Dempsey and Marciano, Dempsey would
land FIRST,and with great power ,speed and accuracy,catching Rocky,and
Dempsey would score a fast ko in 3 rounds,when he was at his best.
And ditto with the young fast punching Joe Louis..Everything equal, SPEED KILLS. Cheers..
P.S. Yes there is a chance Rocky lands first and kos Dempsey or Louis,but
as in gambling odds,this scenario is less likely, because it all comes down to STYLES...

 

There were many boxing writers back then that use to go to as many fights as possible. Years ago I use to talk to several of them, and they all said that Dempsey was an animal in the ring.

 

There's no right or wrong, unless these two are duking it in pugilist paradise. But I'm no big believer in an afterlife.

I'm one of those who uses the old-timers testimony a lot, the recieved wisdom of actual eyewitness, but with fantasy match-ups it is hardly anything more than second-hand guesses.

The only thing I say regarding the "experts on Dempsey" issue is that it should be as thoroughly acceptable to rate Dempsey as one of the greatest fighters ever, in any weight class, NOWADAYS as it was 50 and 60 years ago. He was explicitly held in the same esteem as Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong, or even higher, as recently as the 1950s and 1960s, by just about everyone that mattered.

That doesn't mean you have to rate him up there, but several people here like to mock and insult those of us that do. That's basically the same as saying almost everyone who followed boxing (including the insiders and "experts", fighters, trainers, etc.) from the 1920s through to the 1960s was some sort of jackass or victim of some mass delusion.

 

This has all been explained to McGrain and others here before, to little avail.
Many of the boxing writers who rated Dempsey high were guys who been at all the fights and hung out at all the gyms and training camps. They'd seen them all. And they knew their stuff. And it wasn't just writers, it was trainers, fighters, etc.

McGrain is entitled to his opinion as much as anyone, and his opinion is valid as much as anyone's, and I'd say he's one of the best and most knowledgeable postors here. But minimizing, dismissing or trying to "explain away" the MASS of opinion of men who had more knowledge and first-hand experience of the subject than us is really a dead-end argument.
In my opinion.

 

I want to say that I am certainly not mocking Dempsey.

I think the two polls which rated them Ali, Louis, Marciano, Dempsey, Johnson are most reasonable.

Dempsey was my boyhood idol among old-timers.

It is just that I give Marciano, who after all swept his opposition, a very slight edge in this matchup.

 

It is interesting, and Dempsey will be revived, I'm sure.

(.... I mean, if Sonny Liston can quit on his stool after a nothing reign as champion, be outcast by his contemporaries, and enjoy a renaissance to the point he gets accepted as a top 3 or 5 HW ever forty or fifty years later, no one is beyond rebirth. )

The historical re-assessments of kings, prophets, warriors, and generals is very much loaded by cultural and political agendas. Maybe the same does happen with fighters. But there's far less resting on it. Therefore Dempsey is far more likely to be viewed again as on a par or close to Joe Louis, than historians are likely to start crediting Hitler with militay genius. For the time being anyway.

 

With Dempsey, to me, it's a case of a guy looking really good because his competition was subpar to say the least. He never ONCE beat any ATG fighters in his career.. EVER. The only ATG he did face and didn't avoid beat him, and beat him easily. Whether he was past his prime or not.. these are the facts not in question. Dempsey lived in a time where Romanticism was the way to write and view things.. Dempsey was the beneficiary of this and this increased his legend. As I stated before.. if the packers played the St. Louis rams each week or a team as good as them each week.. they would look like the and people would call them... the 72' dolphins.. 85' bears.. 89' 49ers all wrapped into one and the best team ever. Yet, would they really be since most can look like worldbeaters facing the St. Louis Rams all year long.

 

Your last paragraph is noteworthy. One irony is that Sullivan, the man least ashamed of the colour line, is enjoying something of an ascent at the moment.

 

The only great fighters that Larry Holmes faced were ali (corpse), Michael Spinks, Mike Tyson, and Evander Holyfield. That does not make him any less great.

Tommy Gibbons was a great fighter, at least at light heavyweight and pound for pound. So was Billy Miske in my humble opinion.

I could go further.

 

Well my friend, that is the exact reason I also question Larry Holmes ranking by some on here and in general.

 

Fair play mate!