S,how you are so stubborn in your false evaluation in your above statement!!! YOU ARE SAYING THAT ALL THE GREAT FIGHTERS I MENTIONED BEFORE, WHO WERE IN AWE OF JACK DEMPSEY "cling to their sentimental estimations", whilst you are the only poster whose opinion we should value over the likes of Sam Langford, Mickey Walker, Gene Tunney, Jack Sharkey, Max Schmeling, Ray Arcel and dozens of veteran sportswriters who saw Dempsey in his prime fight... I bow to you Mahatma...
Again, how many of these saw Liston, Ali, Holmes, Tyson, Lewis or Klitschko fight in their primes? Arcel? Schmeling? And have you ever heard someone who saw DiMaggio or Mantle and in later age Bonds say that Bonds was better? People just don't work that way.
All you can really say about Dempsey is that he looked awesome against middling competition (for a top man) and that it's unfortunate that he never proved himself against Wills or Greb.
You can say the same about Wlad awesome against some of the worst collection of scrubs I have known, and never proved himself against the second best man of his time.
We're talking about a safety first fighter against a guy who had to fight much bigger guys in mining camps and hobo camps in the early 20th century just to survive...Dempsey tears his head off and shits down his neck...prime Dempsey by KO...
Bonds was on STEROIDS for sure. Schmeling, Jack Sharkey, Arcel all saw Ali, Frazier etc. Of course we may never know the outcome of a Dempsey, a Joe Louis, against the modern mastodons as Lewis, Klitchko, etc, but a Dempsey, a Joe Louis, THRIVED on the bigger, slower moving ,less agile big boys of today...Say what you may, Dempsey and Joe Louis with their speed and torque power toppled rugged big men as Carl Morris, Fred Fulton, Jess Willard, Luis Angel Firpo, Primo Carnera, Abe Simon, Buddy Baer, though not great fighters TOOK and could absorb more punishment than the Klitchkos today...Give Jack Dempsey his due on the basis of his power, speed, and innate toughness, culled from a MUCH tougher time...Ciao.
Are you saying, that those fighters mentioned had better chins and could take more punishment than Vitali??