Prime Dempsey v Prime Tunney?

I do think that version of JD was rusty and not near as good as the Charles that fought Marciano. He was better than the Ali that fought Holmes but IMO on par with the Holmes that fought Tyson, not shot but a difference. Point is he was a bit diminished from his best, that being said Dempsey came close in fight 2 (close to putting a serious hurt on Tunney) other than that Tunney dominated so my conclusion would be a prime,less rusty Dempsey does better with his more active legs and catches Gene at least in fight 2 but stylistically Gene still a problem but may be short of a victory or 2

 

That's a reasonable response. Obviously the longer the fight lasts the better it is for Tunney.

 

I find this hilarious.

Charles was struggling him ham and eggers like Rex Layne, losing to underdogs Valdes and Johnson, the latter a light heavy who staggered him multiple times. Charles would never win a significant fight again. Dempsey was coming off a layoff but had won 6 title fights in a row. He also sandwiched a victory over future title holder Sharkey in between fights.

Dempsey was definitely the better of the two. If I had to pick my adjectives, I would say that Charles was shopworn while Dempsey was stale.

 

In a single encounter I'd pick Tunney. His style was naturally difficult to Dempsey's and in a first encounter would also be alien territory. In a session he might have better chances.

 

Going int the fight Carpintier held the European Heavyweight Title, the White Heavyweight title, and the Lineal Light Heavyweigth title.

Any one of these could have made him a credible title challenger.

When Carpintier defeated Gunboat Smith, he had been coming off a win over Sam Langford, and Carpintier had not lost since then.

Indeed his only loss in the past nine years, was the disputed newspaper decision against Joe Jeanette.

So while I think that Carpintier was overrated at the time, I have to conclude that it is very reasonable that people put him forward as a potential title challenger.

 

Much of Dempsey´s fame is based on the Willard slaughter. Does anybody truly believe that a prime Tunney would´ve taken the same kind of beating ? Tunney trained and formed his career for one purpose: Dempsey and Dempsey´s aggression was completely neutralized by Tunney. The myth of the long count overshadows the fact that Dempsey was completely outboxed and badly beaten for 19 rounds by a greater and better boxer. An aggressive Dempsey would´ve have left himself open for counterpunches and the result would´ve been the same.

 

What you wrote is actually a myth .. Dempsey was not badly beaten for the entire fight both times excluding the famous seventh .. he was out punched and out landed but was pretty competitive in both fights in the early rounds but he wore down .. the man had fought only two fights in five years and came off three years to fight Tunney the first time .. he was no where near prime physically ... not to go against a highly trained athlete in his own physical prime ... if you carefully watch the fight films in slow motion, something I do sometimes based on film quality, Dempsey comes extremely close many , many times even in the version he was .. I just think the best Dempsey puts a hurting on Gene .. no knock on Gene ..

 

I'm sorry H.G. but the time I've watched the fights I came away with the impression that Gene thoroughly beat Dempsey and convincingly so. Even punishing him at certain points pretty badly.

 

And that was 7 years before the Dempsey match? Why didn't he just fight Johnson or Willard? Not as hard to lose when there is a war on and you are out of action for 5 years. What relevance did those fights have to the best possible contender at heavyweight 7 years later?

 

In 13 fights leading up to Marciano, Charles was 11-2 over top contenders, Charles had 8 fights in 1953 alone and he had wins over Bernie Reynolds,Cesar Brion,Rex Layne and Billy Gilliam (who just beat Valdes) he lost a disputed close decision to Harold Johnson and a Miami fight against Valdes (who would not rematch him) then he had an explosive KO over Coley Wallace and Bob Satterfield and fought a competitive war with Marciano and held up fine and his opponents were the best of the division

Jack Dempsey had not fought in over 3 years leading up to Tunney, his last fight was Firpo 9/14/23 and the 1st Tunney fight was 9/23/26....over 3 years of rust...the Charles of 1954 would have been the best heavyweight either man fought had he fought either man at that point in time. Charles was active and he was fighting heavyweights and Charles did not draw the color line.

 

I don't think we can judge Dempsey too harshly for not fighting Carpintier several years before he held the title.

Since the rankings were frozen in World War II, I see no reason why the same logic could not have been applied to World War I.

Dempsey Willard II almost happened, but of course Willard lost to Firpo.

Johnson was not really in the picture then.

It is hard to see what you are getting at here.

Could Dempsey have found a better challenger than Carpintier?

Probably in hindsight.

Was Carpintier a credible challenger?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

 

In regards to the assertion that Gene Tunney took more of a beating from Jack Dempsey than from Harry Greb simply because Dempsey was a far greater puncher than Greb, how long was Tunney bedridden from either of his bouts with Dempsey? In an earlier post on this thread, Steve Compton stated that Tunney was confined to a bed for two weeks after sustaining a brutal beat in his first bout with Greb. I doubt if Tunney was confined to a bed as long after either of his bouts with Dempsey.

- Chuck Johnston

 

No, he wasn't. You pulled one fight from 7 years previous to make this case. Even you can't believe that is sturdy grounds.

Which good heavyweights did he beat within the previous 6 years to qualify him as such. I could name others who were much more deserving. At some point in moving down the ranks of deserving challengers credibility is completely lost.

Carpentier was scared to death of Greb, for Crissakes. He wouldn't even take on the best of his own division. But for a giant paycheck, I guess he was willing to get whacked out by Dempsey.