Dempsey's greatness.

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by VG_Addict, Aug 16, 2013.


  1. edward morbius

    edward morbius Boxing Addict Full Member

    6,986
    1,262
    Sep 5, 2011
    Off the odds posted in the 1976 Ring Record Book,

    Miske was not considered very highly in 1920

    Dempsey was 7-1 over Miske

    Dempsey was 3-1 over Carpentier and Firpo

    Dempsey was 4-1 over Brennan

    Dempsey was 11-5 over Gibbons

    So Miske was judged to be by far the least threatening of Dempsey's title opponents
     
  2. klompton2

    klompton2 Boxing Junkie banned Full Member

    10,974
    5,433
    Feb 10, 2013
    The odds on Miske are hard to figure, probably because betting was so light and most of it was centered around whether Miske would finish the fight.

    I have seen odds quoted as 3-1 but I believe that those were based on Miske finishing, not who would win. I have also seen 5-1 quoted. A day or two before the fight one reporter went around and offered odds of 3.5-1 and got no takers. He then raised that to 4.5-1 and still got no offers. As I said above Greb and his manager tried to place a bet on Dempsey and got no takers. Most reports state that betting was very very light. This leads me to believe that you cannot accurately judge the odds (I certainly wouldnt trust the record book on this one).
     
  3. he grant

    he grant Historian/Film Maker

    25,486
    9,480
    Jul 15, 2008
    According to Clay's excellent book on Miske, Billy looked inconsistent in sparring and even lacked quality sparring partners for the fight ... meanwhile , Dempsey was at his all time prime, a shape he never hit again .. his sparring sessions , which even briefly ( three days ) included a prime Greb, were viscous ... The bottom line is that in every Dempsey book I have ever read, at least seven, Dempsey remarked how much weaker Miske was from minute one ..
     
  4. edward morbius

    edward morbius Boxing Addict Full Member

    6,986
    1,262
    Sep 5, 2011
    klompton2

    Your post does back up that Miske was not viewed as a serious threat to Dempsey

    as these quoted odds imply
     
  5. HOUDINI

    HOUDINI Boxing Addict Full Member

    5,519
    1,675
    Aug 18, 2012
    No one is denying he was a sick man. The issue is how sick when he stepped in the ring that day. He certainly was not sick enough to come in either with retained fluid or the typical weight loss from kidney disease. His weight of 187 would be his prime hwt fighting weight. He certainly looked in shape in the photos of him prior to the bout and there are far more articles that praise his training camp workouts than say differently. Add to this starting after losing to Dempsey he went 23-1-1 so how sick could he have been?
     
  6. burt bienstock

    burt bienstock Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

    18,285
    400
    Jan 22, 2010
    Not surprising for the fact that at this time Jack Dempsey was viewed as seeming unbeatable, as was a Joe Louis later on, and a young Mike Tyson was in his early days...The perception of boxing fans viewed Dempsey as
    a "man-killer " those heady days, and whoever he fought was considered an underdog...Today some posters cannot put themselves in the "shoes" of the times so darn different than today...For a slight example as a young 16 year old boy I would travel by subway to the Bronx late at night from B'klyn
    NY for a date, coming home 3AM, safe and sound almost weekly, with nary a worry from my parents...Could anyone today in NY City conceive such a happening today ? Hell No...Different times bring different perceptions, and
    we are ALL products of our times, even dare I say his name, Jack Dempsey.
     
  7. klompton2

    klompton2 Boxing Junkie banned Full Member

    10,974
    5,433
    Feb 10, 2013
    Yes I agree Edward. I didnt mean to imply that Miske was not considered a big underdog. He was. Ive just seen the odds quoted all over the board for this fight (with Miske always the underdog) due to the factors I listed above. My point was that I wouldnt be surprised to find odds greater than 7-1 quoted from some sources but that very few people were placing bets because Miske was considered such a heavy underdog. It was a situation not at all unlike the Buster Douglas-Tyson fight where despite odds having been quoted publicly they were kind of meaningless because so few bets were being taken.

    Grant: Dempsey sparred for more than three days. He sparred for three days with Greb but Greb came to camp late because of his busy schedule. Dempsey arrived in Benton Harbor in mid August and was sparring at least as early as two weeks prior to the fight. Before arriving at Benton Harbor he had been in New York and sparred quite a bit there as well.
     
  8. klompton2

    klompton2 Boxing Junkie banned Full Member

    10,974
    5,433
    Feb 10, 2013
    And he had fought ONCE in the year previous to facing Dempsey against nobody of consequence. Including that meaningless win his record over his previous 5 fights was a dismal 1-2-2. So I ask again, what exactly had Miske done to show that he was a credible challenger? Particularly at heavyweight?

    I mean, here we have a situation where Dempsey writes an article for the newspapers talking about how Miske is no longer as good as he was the last time Dempsey beat him (stating that merely the act of going the distance with Dempsey qualified him as a challenger...) and saying hes been sick for the last year and then signs to fight him the next day. You cant make stuff like this up. Can you imagine how that would go over today? HA! Its hilarious. Yet you guys are so blinded by Dempsey-love that you want to argue that Miske was a credible challenger and you qualify it by using his record AFTER he lost to Dempsey. Sometimes I think Ive entered the twilight zone when these arguments are thrown out there. Lets have a Klitchko brother pick a cruiserweight out of his sick bed, admit that hes no longer as good as we was when he was a cruiserweight, knock him out in 3 easy rounds after carrying him for 2, and tell me people wouldnt be calling it a travesty. Yet because this makes a good story to some "the last christmas" we lose sight of the fact that it was an absolute joke of a championship contest.
     
  9. HOUDINI

    HOUDINI Boxing Addict Full Member

    5,519
    1,675
    Aug 18, 2012
    His weight was perfect for him, predominantly the reports from his training camp were not what you are posting...they were predominantly very good. Photos of him show that he was in good shape. Is it hard to believe that indeed his condition was in remission at this point in time? If he were as ill as you are trying to implicate going into this specific bout why were there not obvious signs? Why did he right after this bout dominate most every fighter he faced? Is it too difficult to believe that his remission also included this bout for the championship?

    This does not change the original point that Dempsey was just as active...more or less... than any other champion prior aside from Burns and up to Louis.
     
  10. klompton2

    klompton2 Boxing Junkie banned Full Member

    10,974
    5,433
    Feb 10, 2013
    You cant answer the question.

    No, the reports were not predominantly good for Miske. Do you really want to match reports head for head with me on this? Because everyone here knows that I wouldnt be saying so if I couldnt come back with an avalanche of information to bury you. Miske was conceded no chance to win. He was given long odds to finish on his feet. Are those good reports to you? Dempsey carried that promotion because nobody had seen him fight in over a year. It says something that Miske spent the balance of the promotion trying to convince people he was healthy, much less a credible challenger. That one simple fact escapes the people trying to trumpet this pathetic argument and pathetic excuse for a challenger. I say again: Miske's weight has nothing to do with his condition. Miske was sick, people on the ground, at the time, knew it including his own family which they related to me personally. Regardless of that simple, yet important fact. WHAT HAD MISKE DONE TO DESERVE A SHOT AT THE HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE? If you cant answer that question and continue to steer around it for the third or fourth time I guess we can assume the answer is squat which means it was a pointless, worthless title defense by Dempsey against a man that both he and his sparring partner (who most agreed was a better challenger) had beaten which was followed up by another title defense against a guy who had already been knocked out by Dempsey and dominated by his sparring partner 4 times (and lost to Miske between those four beatings). And Dempsey damn near lost to that guy. Hell, after Brennan went 0-6 against Greb and Miske he ducked his head in the sand and did absolutely nothing because Kearns had already floated his name as a possible challenger. Face it. For the first two years of his reign Dempsey accomplished nothing as a champion. The only reason I even give his fight with Carpentier a pass is because the money was so astronomical for the times that you cant possibly fault him or anyone else for making that match but Carp didnt have a shot in hell of winning that bout either. Then Dempsey stays idle for two years before defending against a guy who lost his title eliminator in one sided fashion. You can go around and act like Dempsey is the indestructible force of nature but his record is **** poor as a champion.
     
  11. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

    113,079
    48,259
    Mar 21, 2007
    Yeah, his record afterwards is good. His form prior to his title shot though, can be written 3-2-3. Horrendous form. Easily the worst form of his career. Before the title fight, he rips his record up to 50.50 by knocking out Jack Moran who, according to Boxrec, had lost five in a row.

    If you want to say, "look at his record after Dempsey, that proves he wasn't sick", surely his record before the title fight proves that he was?
     
  12. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

    113,079
    48,259
    Mar 21, 2007
    It's definitely possible, i'm just telling you that his weight doesn't "prove" it.

    What I do know, is that in the words of Jack Kearns, Dempsey found Miske's style very difficult to solve. On prior occasions he gave Dempsey a great deal of trouble. In the title fight he was utterly thrashed and not in the fight. Something changed. Could have been Dempsey, could have been Miske.

    Given that Miske was suffering from kidney disease which was soon to kill him, I tend to believe it was Miske.
     
  13. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

    58,748
    21,579
    Nov 24, 2005
    I tend to believe most champions in history just fought whoever their manager tells them to fight. Especially in those days. I doubt Joe Louis, for example, had even heard of some of those guys he fought.
    Almost every old school fighter in history, with a few exceptions, deferred such matters to their managers. It's only within my lifetime that more of the top fighters like to be seen to have any input in those decisions. But in specific cases we can only speculate, so whatever.

    I don't believe Dempsey actively wanted to fight Wills in particular, but that's a far cry from doing everything in his power to avoid it.
    In fact, I see little reason to believe he would have feared a Wills match to the point where he'd have turned down a significantly large world record paycheck. It defies all reason.
     
  14. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

    58,748
    21,579
    Nov 24, 2005
    Making money is the object. Always.
     
  15. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

    58,748
    21,579
    Nov 24, 2005
    I don't know about that. I know he had the movie gigs and stuff but maybe he would have made more money fighting more often, so I don't believe he was as well-managed during his reign as it might look. Then again, he generated far more money than any fighter had done before.

    Point is, a Wills fight was clearly a viable financial option for Jack Dempsey , because he didn't have that much to lose, since he missed out on fighting often anyway and plenty of other potential paydays ! He was sitting around for much of his reign.
    I mean, Dempsey had reason to believe he could knock out any man if he was in his best shape .. and no one ever rated Wills as invincible .... and in the event Wills takes his title, there's a rematch and another massive payday.
    I can see how a Wills as champion might not have appealed as much to the long term interests of Rickard and other big promoters though. Logically, Dempsey was a commodity worth "protecting", especially in contrast to the prospect of another black champion and the uncertainty that might bring in racist America.