Not a Bad Argument Pro-Dempsey ..

The beautiful thing about champs defending often is we get the occassional Braddock or Spinks or Douglas... or at the very least a Conn, a Snipes or Cooper to make things really interesting. Perhaps Brennan and Firpo soured Dempsey & Co to this fantastic fact.

 

Brennan for sure, but Firpo no!

Brennan was an easy touch that turned sour, but Firpo was a legitimate attempt to fight the best!

 

Kid Norfolk had just KO'd Flowers in 1, Tut Jackson in 3, beaten John Lester Johnson and Battling Siki in the previous year… But of course Wills dispatched him.

 

S, I don't get your drift ? Kid Norfolk was a lightheavyweight at 175 abouts ,who kod the 3 LHs as Siki, Jackson and John Lester Johnson...A Harry Wills at about 210, was a big 6ft4" heavyweight who was supposed to "dispatch" those lightheavyweights...No big deal...

 

No.
Dempsey made his first defence (Miske) 15 months after beating Willard, so I doubt there was ever a focused plan or possibility of defending often.
I'm guessing Miske/Brennan and Gibbons/Firpo were so close together mostly because Dempsey, Kearns or whoever needed some quick money.

 

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Full of inaccuracies to twist the truth in favour of Dempsey. The part about the rest of the white contenders 'not drawing the colour line' is blatant untrue, either a lie or poorly researched.

No it wasn't, Rickard hyped Firpo up and gave him soft touches to increase the hype. Firpo never earned his title shot and the title shot was breaking the court order to face Wills

 

It's funny that people still argue about Wills and Dempsey 90 years afterwards.

 

I doubt either of them was the best heavyweight in the world at the time anyway.

 

The two sparred. There is a guy on the web who says he has Greb vs Dempsey sparring. Don't believe it.

Yes--Greb deserved a title shot. He beat some of the same guys Dempsey did, and sometimes had an easier time doing it!

 

Let's clarify this… He beat 4 of Dempsey's 6 title challengers… multiple times each.

 

Yep.

 

discounting war years (Willard in 1917 & 1918-Louis 1943-45), how many years of the 20th century saw a champion not even make one defense. I think Johnson in 1911 & Braddock in 1936. Is there another? But Dempsey alone has more than that-1922, 1924, 1925.

Kid Norfolk has been mentioned. Why knock him as a contender? He beat Miske twice and did better against Greb than Brennan, and was as big as Carpentier and Gibbons.

On the article (and earlier Roger Kahn) comparing Carpentier to Wills, and how apparently we should be more impressed with Carpentier these days. But it all seems beside the point to me when Carpentier was about the same size as **** Tiger and Wills the same size as Sonny Liston. Arguing about relative skill levels strikes me as silly with that size disparity.

 

It is well within the rules of the game to match a fighter carefully, and hype them up.

If nothing else, Firpo deserved a title shot due to beating Willard.

You could argue that Wills should have got one first, but Firpo should have been very high on the list of candidates.