Jack Johnson rips Jack Dempsey

Right on C ! Yes, as a hobo living amongst wild west characters,young
Dempsey to no one's surprise was no Saint.
Yes, he was rough on his sparring partners [he dropped massive George Godfrey several times in camp]. Yes, his rough beginning was responsible for his kill-or-be-killed vicious attitude in the ring. But he gave no quarter in the ring, and asked no quarter in the ring.
But the fact remains,when Dempsey aged,and retired from the ring in 1927,
his personality became much less hardened, he became a much beloved icon in his life as the owner of his very popular restaurant on Broadway, where he held court everyday, sitting by the large window, waving to fans.
To the day he died in 1983, Jack Dempsey was still called the champ,
56 years after his last bout in 1927...Was he the greatest heavyweight at his best, is open to opinion, but he became a beloved figure ,and along with my man Joe Louis, were revered for the rest of their lives....Cheers.

 

Jack was definitely one of the greats.

 

A great article and very possibly dead on ... as far as the sour grapes claims and JOhnson never fighting great black fighters we all know that is incorrect as he fought and defeated them all on his way up ...

 

The amount of times he fought Langford,Jeanette etc is incredible !

 

He really never fought them as a heavyweight of note, only on the way up. He was a scrawny 180-185 pounds last time he fought any of them. Langford was the equivalent of a junior-middle. McVea was a teenager. Joe Jeanette hadn't even gotten into double digits in his fight total. Johnson gets a bit too much credit for those efforts, IMO.

 

You could say the same thing about most politicans as well.

I think most people behave differently according to the context of their circumstances, nothing wrong with that. One would hope that a guy in a room full of boxers is going to behave differently than at a funeral of a beloved grandparent.

Or a guy bar hoping is going to be a very different individual behaviour wise than a guy attending a formal gala.

The only time I would call this a bad trait would be if the guy always acted like he was bar hoping or was hanging out with a group of boxers and he was trust into these other situations where that type of behaviour would be grossly inappropriate.

As for Dempsey being a pimp, not sure if I care but if was simply one woman, like his wife, I'm sure the money went in both directions, so it's really her occupation that's being questioned, as opposed to him being a user of woman. And certainly Jack Johnson was no sait in that department either, but since it has nothing to do with their boxing ability I don't know why it's even an issue.

 

I would lash out at you you yellow punk if you had had the guts to meet me when you slipped into the UK.

 

You are spot on, it was an insult.
All Gallico knew about Dempsey was the two rounds he spent being held up by him in a spar ,do some research, and stop repeating bull****. My issues are with anyone who traduces the name of a longdead Champ who cannot defend himself.I call that repugnant .

 

McVey is excellent, calls a spade a spade and a fool a fool. Good poster.

 

Johnson was way more technical than J.D....... Johnson threw tight combo's and well placed shots via combination; Dempsey swung from the parking lot in abandon seeking paydirt..... Jack Johnson is a pioneer technician, while Dempsey was very aggressive, mauling and wild puncher....
:deal

MR.BILL:hat

 

So you's two are fighters then? What's your background Mendoza? I assume good ol' McVey was in his 60s

 

Jack Johnson was the original Bernard Hopkins in the sense that he aged well, could give anyone fits with his defense and ring generalship, and no one was going to dominate him, until he got really really old and shot.

Keep in mind that Johnson still looked pretty darn good against Willard and was beating him in a points sense, and only lost in the 26th round. That's round 26 folks. Dempsey fought 15 rounds once in his entire career, against Gibbons. Johnson fought 15 and 20 rounds so many times it would take a while to count them up. Johnson was expert at going rounds with guys who could punch.

I think Johnson's style gives Dempsey troubles. Most likely Demspey winds up winning somehow, given Johnson's age and Dempsey's sheer strength, youth, activity and consistency of punches, and two-fisted ferocity, but it wouldn't be easy for him and it would possibly be a stinker. Could even be a draw type fight. I don't think it would be a great performance for Dempsey. So there's that.

Plus, after Johnson was defeated, the color line was tightly re-drawn when it came to the heavyweight championship. Remember, Johnson lost in 1915 and it wasn't until 22 years later, in 1937, when Louis got his shot.

I look at Johnson as an anomaly rather than a trend breaker. He was an experiment, and when folks realized just how unhappy they were with a black heavyweight champion, when he lost, they went back to the way things were before he was around.

 

Sweet points.

 

Good post!
Jack Welsh, the referee in the Johnson v Willard bout ,stated that if it had been a 20rds bout he would have given the decision to
Johnson.
Johnson described himself as a "composite fighter",a mixture of the old and the new.