Was Wills better than McVea, Jeannette or Langford?

I think part of this has to do with styles. Dempsey if he wanted to could have boxed rings around Fripo. But he opted to slug, and floored him multiple times, ending in a 2nd round KO over a pretty big and durable opponent.


Wills victory to me was not as dominant. It was a decision.

 

I hope I'm not intruding here.
Wills did win pretty easily , but he was castigated in the press for not stopping Firpo.
Rightly or wrongly ,his performance was seen as underwhelming

 

No offense McGrain but Firpo was down like 50 times in the first round. In modern boxing, even with half as many knockdowns. Dempsey would have won before he was knocked through the ropes.

 

Which is more dominant..... JCC stopping Taylor or Whitaker getting a UD in his second Ramirez fight? Getting a KO isn't always more dominant.

 

Under a modern ruleset, though, would Dempsey have been able to score so many knockdowns. It helps to be able to stand behind a guy and hit him when he is getting up.

According to Bert Sugar, certainly not normally a critic of Dempsey, Firpo had him down for a seven count at the beginning of the fight in an unedited film Sugar saw in South America.

Interestingly, the Firpo film is also clearly edited at the part in which Dempsey was knocked out of the ring. Tunney who was at ringside went on record as saying Dempsey did not make it back into the ring within a normal ten count.

 

Actually Dempsey didnt just violate the modern rules by standing over Firpo but he also violated the rules of the New York State Athletic Commission at the time.

When Dempsey fought Firpo there had recently been implemented a neutral corner rule. Dempsey was also criticized for hitting on the break, hitting Firpo while he was down, and hitting after the bell.

In addition to this it was argued that Dempsey had been assisted back into the ring in violation of the rules. The film was edited to hide this fact, although Rickard denied this and made excuses as to why the film had been edited at that particular moment.

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The rules about neutral corners were pretty vague at the time ,it was the Firpo fight that caused Nat Fleischer to ask for clarification, and an ammendment to them, this was done and the rule was then clarified to ," in a the event of a knockdown the man scoring it must go to the farthest neutral corner," this was NOT in the rules prior to the fight.

 

Lord Tywin

Thank you for the interesting postings.

The editing seems to have been done right away, and rather extensively.

 

My point was that under modern rules Dempsey might (would), not have scored 7 knockdowns Burr he still might have scored enough to cause a stoppage, depending on the rules.

And didn't the sportswriters at ringside.shove Dempsey off them and.back into the ring? Aren't you supposed to get back in unaided?

 

There was nothing vague about the rule. Under the Walker Law it was written as:

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When the new law was put into effect in 1920 Jack Skelly commented in The New York Evening Telegram:​

"How few referees have enforced this rule even under t h e Queensberry code? But now the new regulation states it in such a clear, positive manner,

there is no getting away from it. There'll be no more standing over the man down with the other chap posed to hit really before the victim gets his footing. "


That was three full years before Dempsey-Firpo. Nat Fleisher had nothing to do with it.


It was clearly stated in the rules and both fighters were instructed on this rule prior to the bout. Dempsey just chose to ignore that rule and got away with it.


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