Lennox Lewis vs Jack Dempsey

Well it's not the last thing professional trainers look at. Professional trainers look at weight early and make of it a target that is generally larger than the one the fighter would naturally carry. Do you acknowledge this? That weight is, at the very least, so important to professional heavyweights and trainers these days that they don't stop at 200lbs but head directly for 215-225, almost exclusively? That weight is so important to modern heavyweights that they will sacrifice natural speed and engine in order to add it?

I promise you that whether it is a CW moving up or a trainer make a fight plan for his fighter, the fighter's weight or the opponent's weight is NOT the last thing pro trainers look at.

Of course, but when skill and fighting heart are established - when both fighters know how to fight as well as any other heavy ever born - physical characteristics become crucial. One of these is size.

I don't know why you keep saying this? Heavyweights mentioned include Tyson, Holyfield, Wladimir Dempsey, Tunney...i'm not even sure Ali would have beaten all those heavyweights the night he met Liston at 206lbs, never mind "embarrass" them.

That is correct, but when you compare two fighters who DO have these things, surely you understand that the much bigger fighter has a significant advantage??

 

I mean you seem to be saying you know better than guys like George Benton and Ronnie Shields? I always feel it's time to get off a conversation when people start making such claims. These trainers and others like them recognise the importance of their heavyweights holding more weight than is strictly necessary in most cases because it's necessary in most cases.

Right, but the division changed you see? The champion, since 2000, has been a fighter that weights 245 and is 6'6 ish. You can't fight such men weighing 200lbs, or 186lbs. Sports science, boxing culture and professional trainers have recognised this fact now.

There is no emphasis on size over ability. This is not true. Fighters don't gain weight instead of training boxing. They do both. This is what makes guys like Wladimir, Vitali and Lewis so dangerous.

I agree it's a bad era. But the politics and culture isn't that different to the division that birthed Bowe, Lewis, Holyfield etc. Like every other division, bar none, heavies go through peaks and valleys historically. We need more than the eight years or so of data you are working with to draw these enormous conclusions.

Very clearly. Very obviously. It's both. Inarguably, it is both.

Then how do you explain away Carnera's decision win over the much more talented Lougrhan? Max Schmeling's devastation of the p4p much more talented Walker? The total failure of the incredible Bob Foster to make so much as a dent up at HW where he lost every meaningful contest he ever fought? Foster's ruination of the otherwise invulnerable Tiger? Literally hundreds of others?

The failure of countless light-heavies more talented than their bigger
cousins to make clamber into and dominat the heavyweight division?

It's obvious we wont' be able to make any progress here because it's obvious to me that size matters and somehow it's become obvious to you that size doesn't matter. I have no idea how someone could reach this conclusion but you're obviously rooted to it, so fair enough.

If Lewis was the same size as Dempsey he would be canon-fodder for Dempsey. Yes, if he wins, it's because he's bigger. Specifically. It's literally the only thing that you could change about him that would make Dempsey a guaranteed winner. 6'1 186lb Lewis has almost no chance to beat Jack Dempsey.

6'5 Lewis is a favourite.

Firstly, this isn't true. He was KO'd once by a single blow. The first time, he was TKO'd, and in Dempsey's era, he would have been allowed to continue.

However, I expect that if Dempsey landed a proper punch on Lewis's chin, he could go. The reverse is also true, so i'm not sure how much further on this gets us. When two huge punchers meet it's almost always the case that they have the ability to take one-another out.