They didn't stop fights as soon back then either, so any 'advantage' a fighters gets by standing close to his fallen opponent is offset by the fact that's he's going to have to repeat the feat, several times, and most probably for a ten-count.
What you're forgetting is Dempsey may have 90lbs of muscle mass on his skeleton, Tyson will have around 130lbs of muscle mass, where as Wlad will probably have 155lbs of muscle mass. The percentage difference in raw muscle mass is much greater between Tyson and Dempsey. It also depends how explosive and how much white muscle fibre is present and how you can torque your whole body into punches. Tyson is more explosive than Wlad though but I do think Wlad probably hits harder than Tyson with 1 punch when he commits to it, he just rarely does.
Wlad makes that weight mainly through height and muscle he has gained from weights, modern diets and possibly steroids. He is not a naturally big guy like Foreman or Tyson as is obvious from his smaller bone frame eg 11 inch fists. Dempsey, Tyson and Foreman all had delrived childhoods and didn't lift weights however Tyson and Foreman were about 40-60 lbs heavier than him. Foreman starved himself and sat in a sauna to make 215. It's not the same.
Muscle mass is hardly a factor. For example, Thomas Hearns was clearly in possession of a large skeleton for a 146 pound man, but he hit harder than all those other welters who were carrying more muscle. Well, yeah, kinda. It's largely technique, explosiveness, that's what we're saying. Dempsey knew all about it.
I gave up long ago, trying to find the common physical factors, in the hardest punchers. How do you find common factors between Barbados Joe Walcott, and Tommy Hearns?
This is true - the Willard fight would've been instantly stopped after the very first knockdown in this day and age - and that was a Willard who was super tough/never been knocked down before in his entire career/never really been remotely hurt his entire career/never really properly hurt by Jack Johnson over the course of 25 rounds?? That's one of the most amazing aspects of that fight for me it would've been over end of after one vicious left hook and a caved in cheekbone? You could throw in the Firpo fight aswell for me even without a 3 knockdown rule no ref in the world today would be letting that one go on after the 4th knockdown at the very least - by no means Willard-like in his durability but a hard hard,if caveman-like, none the less - he smashed people who didn't generally get smashed like that ever if at all? Even down to the likes of dropping Tunney and arguably coming this close to knocking him out - who else did that?? Who else dropped Sharkey writhing like that at that time?? Even Carp no one else ever did that to him really? Fulton getting blitzed in 20 seconds or whatever? Even Bill Brennan - aside from Firpo and Miske in his last fights ever and in horrendous shape - nobody other than Dempsey stopped Brennan in his whole career over his other 61 fights?
Welcome aboard Rocky...But be prepared for the naysayers who rate Dempsey on a par with Butterbean , if that...Only on ESB Rocky, only on ESB, by a few egoists 90 years later ...They after all can judge the greatness of Dempsey more so than the thousands of boxing experts, boxers, and trainers who saw the peak Manassa Mauler and were in awe of his prowess...Were they ALL wrong and today's revisionists correct ? A RESOUNDING NO...:good
So when Dempsey was knocked out of the ring by Firpo, and saved by the typwriter...the ref wouldn't have stopped that under modern rules awarding a TKO win for Firpo?
so you think a boxer like langford who fought closer to the bare knuckle era can beat fighters like ali, tyson, holmes, foreman, etc.
First of all Dempsey was tagged by the bullish Firpo and PUSHED by Firpo out of the ring and fell on a writer and his typewriter... Did he give Dempsey smelling salts and resuscitation and carry Jack into the ring.? Hell No. The writer Lawrence I believe instinctively protected himself by Dempsey falling on him. At any rate Dempsey got back in the ring and soon after murdered Firpo by dropping him several times, and then ended the show in the second round with the most destructive one-two combinations ever...Of course s in your utter bias against Jack Dempsey, you conveniently forget the outcome...