Dempsey's greatness.

For those who want to defer to experts, okay, but I don't think you should cherry pick.

Nat Fleischer for example rated Sugar Ray Robinson behind Ketchel and Ryan and had this to say in the April, 1959 issue of the Ring Magazine--

"There is scarcely an old-timer who would give Robinson a chance against Stanley Ketchel."

Not even a chance.


Jack Johnson picked Tommy Ryan to defeat Joe Louis.

How much should we defer to that judgement.

 

Carpentier was rated way above Conn for many years. The point is that there is a long history of the lt heavyweight champion getting a shot at the hwt title. carp was to Dempsey as was Conn to Louis, Moore to Rocky and Foster to Frazier. Foster never beat a good hwt...they all knocked him out. Yet Dempsey gets flack for fighting not only the lt heavy champion but a fighter considered the among the best from that time period. such a horrible and obvious double standard.

 

After looking at Nat Fleischer's All Time Rankings, how can anyone take anything this man said seriously?

 

And Jack Blackburn, Joe Louis's great trainer and ex great fighter who
DESPISED Jack Johnson chose Jack Johnson to defeat Joe Louis were they to have met...Opinion. opinion, opinion...
Today it is impossible to understand how highly Stanley Ketchel was
considered to be in his prime as a middleweight...Today's fans see just a clip of Ketchel against the 45 pound heavier Jack Johnson, or his last bout with Billy Papke when he suffered a broken hand but still won a 20 round decision over a tough Papke...We have no film of the murderous punching Ketchel who flattened 49 opponents in his hayday....Ray Robinson was the best fighter I ever saw ringside as a welterweight. His one venture into the lightheavyweight division was in 1952 when he purposely chose the light hitting Joey Maxim, who DID NOT hit as hard as some middleweights of his time...We know the result...Ketchel truly flattened a great LH Phil Jack O'Brien twice...Their first bout ended with O'Briens head in the resin box unconscious...
My point is to say we cannot judge a Ketchel today on the basis of two clips, I prefer to judge Ketchel on the words of the mass majority of experts who saw him at his best ....

 

When champion fighters and trainers of champions come out saying a fightr is great and highlight technical details or particular attributes to explain why he is great, or what's so great about him .... then, yeah, it makes sense to defer to the experts ... especially when several are saying similar things.

I like these discussions, but is anyone still even disputing that Dempsey was great ?

 

I don't know if anyone is. It's a matter of degrees.

 

Indeed, how can you take him seriously when his rankings of fighters you have never seen, differ so much from your expectations?

 

And when exactly have I ever criticized a fighter I haven't seen?

 

My point is that people who criticise Nat Fleischers rankings, have usually seen little or nothing of the fighters whose placements they find most contentious.

Just putting it out there.

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Fleischers ranking make perfect sense when you consider that they were formed in the 50s after Marciano retired and that Nat died in 1972 prior to seeing Alis second championship run. No one was putting Ali in the top 10 in 72...or at least very few. Ali was considered a fringe all timer at that point in time. Nat made it no secret that he favored the old timers and gave logical reasons why he did so.

 

I didn't know Blackburn saw it that way and he would have seen Johnson live too like Fleisher, thanks Burt, I always appreciate the things you have seen and heard!

 

Yes Blackburn did feel that way, though he had a visceral hatred of Jack Johnson. He absolutely loved Joe Louis as a great hitter, but confessed his feelings to Joe Louis's close friend Freddie Guinyard, before Jack Blackburn died..."Chappie ", was replaced by the great trainer Manny Seaman...
For what it's worth !...

 

i guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. i have seen all the films available on langford, johnson, dempsey, tunney, louis, ali, frazier, holmes, foreman, tyson, holyfield, lewis and have seen some of the more recent champs in person sparring and or boxing. to me , dempsey is everybit as good as any of them and maybe the best , head to head.
he seemmed to have it all, along with real ko power in both hands and the fastest recuperative powers of any boxer i ever analized at any weight. i cant think of one boxer who regrouped faster
i have spoken to a number of old time pros through the years who went as far back as dempsey and to a man they thought he was the best heavyweight ever.and these guys realley, realley knew their boxing, to say the least.
i think louis was the best heavyweight and dempsey number two. but i dont know, thats for sure, and, neither does anyone else.
i think dempsey was a great fighter and if others think different thats their perogative

 

Burt, the issue with Johnson is not whether he could have beaten Louis, but his opinion that Tommy Ryan could have beaten Louis.

The issue with Robinson and Ketchel is the "no chance" point of view. It is one thing to favor Ketchel--another to say a fighter like Robinson would have no chance. That is just over the top.

As for Maxim, Jack Kearns is quoted as saying he took a punch better than Dempsey. Whatever, he took a punch very well. Robinson joined a whole bunch of big hitters, all the way up to heavyweight, who failed to stop Maxim. Robinson easily had the better of Maxim, and I don't see trashing him for failing to stop a bigger man who was so tough to stop.

 

"is anyone still even disputing that Dempsey was great?"

I never have. I thought the issue was whether he deserved to be ranked as greater than later champions such as Louis and Marciano and Frazier.