Jack Dempsey vesus Mike Tyson's Opposition

I dunno.
Some of the guys Tyson was beating hadn't looked good for quite a while, some were coming off long layoffs, some were even coming back from drug-related melt-downs (or heading towards them !).

There were about thirteen active "former champs" floating around when Tyson came along, due to the ridiculous proliferation of alphabet titles and titlists who dutily lost their titles on their first defense that occurred in the 1978-'87 period.
At the time, it was considered embarrassing that Tony Tubbs and Pinklon Thomas, Greg Page, Mike Dokes, Trevor Berbick and Gerrie Coetzee et al. could all lay claim to have been the world's heavyweight champion within the last 3 or 4 years ... Witherspoon could claim to be two-time champ in that time !
No amount of revisionism can make that a great thing.

I'm not saying Dempsey's opposition or era was any better, but let's not embellish the Tyson era by hiking up the value of the alphabet champs and the rest of the bunch.

 

:rofl

 

Seamus was this really a genuine question or a test?

 

I don't know who he beats ... you have a ruiner against super heavyweights ...

Maybe he beats Berbick
He likely decisions Smith
He likely decisions the shot Thomas
He may or may not defeat Tucker .. I would not pick Jack
He would likely chop down Briggs
He could have fits w Tubbs
He likely catches and over powers Spinks ...

Still, he may not ... not sure ... only factoring for the 1919 - 1920 version of Dempsey, the absolute best version ...

 

Seamus just likes stirring the pot a bit guys.. you all know this by now... He makes people support their argument by taking the extreme opposite stance... It makes for funny and good arguments sometimes... That aside, Williard really was pretty bad.. I mean honestly... Dempsey beating a "Giant" the way he did... LITERALLY made Dempsey the most ferocious power HW that ever lived for some people. If he beat some ham and egger for the title.. this mystique wouldn't be close to what it's still today. Just my opinion anyways...

 

Janitor... please let me know WHERE you think Jess skills tier really is for a HW

give me a few fighters you think his skills compare favorably with...

 

What Willard did and how he did it, actualy isn't that different from what the Klitschko brothers do (no offece to their suporters).

He had that "big fighter skilleset" and actualy had a much better inside game than a lot of the recent superheavyweights. You don't have to be that skillful in the grand scheme of things to implement that style, if you have been born with the necesary physical attributes.

I wouldn't necesarily say that Willard is more skillful than many of the fighters on the initial list, but when you combine his skillset with his size, power, durability and stamina, he is more dangerous than most of them.

 

Willard is an interesting and misunderstood figure ... for starters he did not start till his late 20's ... that's a huge disadvantage ... he was a rank amateur thrown in with the lions based on his size and strength ... his assets were his size, freakish strength that was natural, from brutal poverty and work, a tremendous chin, toughness, stamina and a terrific punch .. he looked awkward but all giants do ... look at a giraffe run .. just look sloppy ... in another era and time with proper long term training to learn the sport he easily could have been one of our better champions ...