Is it weird that I don't see anything special in Jack Dempsey?

I'm not questioning his boxing knowledge one bit, of course not. Ray Arcel is a trainning legend for several reasons.

But his views on Dempsey don't match, strikes me as just partiality to a fighter that he loved to watch/heard about in his young days.
Psychologists know all about it, maybe the experiences that he lived as a youngster clouded his judgment about a guy that he used to love when he (Arcel) was a young man discovering the life and the best of it.

Maybe not though, maybe Dempsey was the greatest H2H or near that, I'm not saying it's impossible !

 

Maybe, maybe, maybe, Ray Arcel knew a tad bit better than you. Maybe a Max Schmeling or Jack Sharkey were correct in their evaluation of a prime Jack Dempsey and knew a little more than you about boxing. Maybe Ray Arcel who was born in 1899 saw an iota more than you of Dempsey...
Why not just put an asterisk on every old time fighter, and be done with..
I saw a prime Willie Pep fight before his plane accident, I also saw Ray
Robinson in his welterweight glory, so according to your theory, I laud these 2 guys because I saw them in my youth, so they deserve an asterisk
today...I thought this is "classic boxing", not the latest is always the greatest boxing...

 

Sam Langford called Dempsey the greatest too.:think

 

Watch it Mc. or they will put an asterisk after your name.!

 

This for me is the most interesting post in this thread.

It details opinions from shortly after Louis retired, that align very closely with those that we see on this site today.

 

Well since we don't know either way, what's the point in speculating?

 

What else is this forum about?

 

Never said those things about past fighters, pay attention to my words. I never attacked a era.
Also never said that you can't give a fair and cleared view on a fighter that you loved when you were a young kid. But are we going to say that nostalgia is a myth? No.

Secondly, you clearly are passionate about what you saw and heard in those great days (with no sarcasm I say this) so let's not get too passionate here since it is the enemy of reason in sports discussions.

Also, I never ever said anything regarding Arcel knowing less than me anyone in here. Period.

But why people think he is immune to partially while EVERYBODY on this world is partial to certain things because of several reasons and sports fans are the best in this ! He strikes me as very partial when he talks about Dempsey. That's all.

I'm wondering how Schmeling watched prime Dempsey to give us a fair evaluation about him. I love Schmeling and all, but yeah we probably know more about Dempsey today that he did.

Maybe Arcel was also a Saint immune to partially to a few fighters. I don't know.

 

Well generally speaking you try and back up an opinon with something. You don't just say well maybe Arcel was reminiscing about a fighter in his youth and so he enhanced that fighters abilities. I mean you can say that all you want, but unless you can substantiate it in some way then it's pure fiction.

 

Well, I hate clinches and I'm not here to repeat that fighter X was "the most fearsome" or the "most ferocious". I like to post here as a matter of reflection. I think it gets more interesting.
I say one thing about Ray Arcel's words on Dempsey and people act like I'm cursing him and calling him names now.

 

What exactly did Arcel say? If you make a claim that one fighter is likely to beat another, you have to provide reasoning. Otherwise, why would anyone pay attention to such claims? Especially if you are a great trainer, you are supposed to give more than just "A would have beaten B". Say, when Ed Dickerson was making predictions of big fights in Grand Rapids Press and Rocky Mountain News (making 50 successful predictions out of 55), he explained what he expected to happen in the ring, not just "I pick fighter A beat fighter B".

 

On the value of contemporary opinion:

Yes contemporary people can be wrong, they can be subject to wishful thinking, and era bias, but they cant all be these things all of the time.

There will always be people who call it the way it is, both at the time, and in subsequent years.

I think that the sheer volume of support given by contemporary observers, to fighters like Jeffries and Dempsey, is simply too great to dismiss it all.

 

Ray Arcel: “He should’ve been the only heavyweight anybody ever thought of when they thought about the greatest heavyweight champion. I mean he had everything. He could punch, he could box. He was mean and determined.”

from a article on cox corner (I can't post links here apparently)

ps - again, that he obviously knew boxing a lot, no one here denied. Because he knew boxing more than anyone here it doesn't mean he was right 100% of the time.

 

Ok, found it.
"In Roger Khan’s excellent biography of Jack Dempsey, he observes that while the skills of Georges Carpentier have dimmed over the decades, the skills of Harry Wills have grown. He also quotes Trainer Ray Arcel in describing Wills as “a very good journeyman.” Arcel, who had apprenticed with Wills’ trainer Dai Dollings, also told referee Arthur Mercante, “Wills was big and none too fast. It was a terrible injustice that Wills never got a title shot, but those big, slower guys were made to order for Dempsey.” The sportswriter James P. Dawson, who wrote for The New York Times, testified after Wills’ loss to Sharkey, “None who saw last night’s battle can doubt that Dempsey would have annihilated Wills four years ago, three years ago, or a year ago.” "

Such BS.

 

Yes I have that book . That's where I read about it when I posted earlier. I also had a video called something like HBO presents the great heavyweights or something like it and Arcel called Dempsey the best HW he ever saw. This video was very early 1980's