Question about Marciano and Dempsey

They will probably say Joe Louis was old. And ignore that Willard was just as old, not to mention he had less talent than Louis had in his little pinkie.

 

I don't think it's one individual performance, it's that Willard wasn't the only highly rated big man Dempsey absolutely destroyed like that. In that regard of small destroying big, Dempsey may still be unmatched or at the top with Louis.

The other thing to remember is that Willard may not've been much, but he had great toughness- which he proved especially in the Dempsey and Johnson fights. Getting Jess out of there that early and in that manner is impressive, just like it would be if a small heavyweight today took out Valuev like that. Imagine the hype if Haye destroyed Valuev when they fought.

Those counterpoints made, on a strictly Louis vs Willard standpoint, an old Louis was still more dangerous. But Dempsey's got the better body of work against big fighters as a whole- not that Rocky was bad against them, he just didn't have the same opportunities to prove it.

 

How the heck do you know if Fred Fulton, Carl Morris, Arthur Pelkey, Gunboat Smith were "clumsy, untalented, uncoordinated"as you posted ?...
How the heck do you "know" that the prime Jack Dempsey couldn't have ko'd the THIRTY SEVEN year old Joe Louis , much sooner than the 8th round that it took for Rocky Marciano to do ?... You don't know...
You post that what you imply is a "given"...Dempsey's opponents who were flattened by the peak Dempsey who just hooked up with Jack Kearns, were if nothing else, big, strong men of his time, fighting with smaller gloves,
and more often than today, poised a threat to a 187 pound Dempsey and Jack went through these guys like Sherman went through Georgia...Give
Dempsey credit where credit was due...
And remember S, Dempsey flattened these guys in ONE round or more...
EVERYTHING that YOU or I know about boxing history, or history in general, we accrue from reading of accounts of historians who were there
and reported on those events...That is how you and I form an OPINION of
a boxer of the past's ability, in the scheme of things...So when I read of the opinions of astute boxing historians who saw the peak Dempsey from
1918 when he hooked up with Jack Kearns til 1923, and were reporting on Rocky Marciano after Rocky won the title in 1952, and virtually to the man opined that Dempsey because of his much greater hand speed and accuracy, would have kod Marciano, I TAKE HEED of the opinions who were THERE at the time...And in horse racing odds are formed by opinions of experts, and the favorite most often wins...Cheers...

 

How about starting with the fact that Louis was not all that big?

It was a good win for sure, but it would have been informative from a stylistic standpoint, to see Marciano in with somebody like Willard or Fulton.

 

Had to be two of the hardest punchers ever for their respective weights (185lbs.)
Guys like Fitz, Ketchel, Dempsey, Langford, Satterfield, Marciano, Bob Foster, etc. were among the best in the 160-185lb. range. These men punched with much more force than their sizes would indicate.

 

To add to your case, why did Dempsey have to cheat with plaster of paris in his gloves against dumb tree log Willard?

 

6'3, 210, 6'2, 215...those guys still wouldn't be what I'd call big. Those are solid sized heavies, but it wouldn't give us a sense of what the Rock does against the big boys even if he'd faced Baker and Valdes. It would give us a better idea of how he'd do against an average sized heavy today, though.

 

This is the critical point.

If we match Marciano against a Klitschko brother in a fantasy fight, there are significant stylistic unknowns, because we have never seen him in with an elite fighter of that size or style.

Even if you don't think that Willard was any good, he was absolutely an elite fighter as big and durable as any of the curent crop of superheavyweights, and Dempsey not only beat him but anihilated him.

This absolutely has to be weighed in his favour when matching him against bigger fighters from later eras, as it should for Joe Louis and even Max Baer or Jack Sharkey.

 

Absolutely...and that's not to say that guys like Marciano and Liston couldn't adapt to today's king-sized heavyweights, it's just that we don't have enough of a track record to know either way what happens with as much certainty. And when the style of bulldogs like the Rock and Sonny depended on phsyicality like wearing their opponents down or utilizing size/reach advantages, respectively, it can be tougher to project.

For a modern day equivalent, it's also tough to project how Lennox does against a southpaw or a slicker, smaller pure boxer because he was an expert at fighting the bigger, orthodox sluggers that made up the mid 90's, early 2000's scene.

 

Nobody wanted to see Lewis fight Byrd, but in hindsight it might have been informative.

 

I think it is relevant here that we don't have much footage of prime Dempsey, and as such, the image we have of him is less three-dimensional. We might have missed certain aspects of his game as a fighter and a puncher.

His record seems to suggest he was a hell of a puncher.

 

On the basis that it is unique.

 

It wasnt just that Louis was old. He was shot. Joe was a one handed fighter that night. Louis had no right hand. None. Rocky Marciano said after the fight that Louis righthand was nothing.

Joe was 213lbs at that point in his career. We know that his best fighting weight was about 200lbs. That is the only elite or close to elite fighter that Marciano beat that was even close to be considered big.