Interesting Jack Johnson article by Monte Cox

Put away the rose-tinted glasses. ****** was good in his time though. Unfair to compare eras.

 

I'm willing to give frame rate the benefit of the doubt tbh.

Unless there's cleaned up versions of tape that show Dempsey and Wilde shipping consistent punches I'm willing to accept them as athletically defensive and monsters h2h. I class the Firpo fight as an aberration.

Irony is looking back today we'd probably say Wills had the better showing against Firpo by dominating him in a way that Ruiz would dominate Rahman a century later as opposed to Dempsey winning a shoot out. Yet at the time the dominant performance was a reason for some to justify Wills as not good enough for Jack.

Crazy looking back.

 

Firpo was also not in the same shape to fight Wills as he had been for Dempsey.

 

Pffft big ****ing deal. Whose fault is that? He was a whole six pounds heavier than when he fought dempsey. Guess who else was fighting over his best weight: Wills, it was a career high weight for him at thst point whereas Firpo had fought at or above his Wills several times. The lengths people will go to to discredit Wills to prop up Dempsey are ridiculous. Dempsey was almost six pounds over his best weight when he fought Firpo, maybe he was out of shape too and that accounts for his poor showing. Whatever, even Firpo admitted that Wills deserved the shot over him.

 

I don't understand the criticism for Dempsey not fighting Wills. Didn't Wills lose to Sharkey and Uzcudun? Or is there something more to it?


Speaking of Sharkey. Does anyone know who he rated higher between Louis and Dempsey? He seems to be the only one who fought both!

 

I'm not solely talking about his weight, Firpo was notoriously tight and wouldn't spend money on a proper camp or decent sparring partners. It was his own fault and I never tried to suggest otherwise but you can see for your self he is flabby.
Firpo was 8 lbs heavier not 6lbs, than he had been for the Dempsey fight
Wills had weighed 217 ,4 years earlier when he fought Tate
that's just 1 pound less than he weighed for Firpo and we don't know his weight for 71 of his 88 fights ,so you are talking out of your a*se yet again.
I don't have any reason to discredit Wills, he dominated the fight .
I never mentioned who deserved a title shot more,Wills or Firpo.
So back off silly b*ll*cks. And wipe that foam off your lips..
You just made a c*nt of yourself.

 

Wills was at the end of the line when he fought Paulino and Sharkey.
Sharkey said if you put both in a phone booth, Dempsey would be the one walking out.

 

Wow. And he fought a much younger, prime Louis!

 

If they had fought I fancy Dempsey early ,very early ,inside 2 rounds. If the fight goes past 6 I think the odds swing towards Louis and that he would begin to control the fight behind his jab. But everyone has their own theories ,

 

Thats a very interesting call. I could definitely see it play out that way too.

 

Yeah he lost to sharkey after being ducked for seven years and after dempsey had lost the title. So maybe under that logic you could understand how tunney didnt defend against wills but dempsey doesnt have an excuse. Now his fans on the other hand have a littany of excuses. Lol.

 

Sharkey who was a shot fighter when he was ko'd by Louis in 1936 chose Dempsey as the harder puncher than Louis, saying that wherever he hit you Dempsey "broke bones". It was Max Schmeling who sparred with Dempsey when Jack was on a tour in Berlin, stated in his autobiography published in Germany,that of all the great fighters he had seen in his long lifetime "Jack Dempsey was in a category above all other heavyweights ", unquote...As for me, I'm out on a limb between these two pulverizing punchers. Dempsey, Louis and Joe Frazier were my three favorite heavyweights in the ring.
As much for their modesty as their exploits in the ring...

 

As for the original topic, yes Johnson could not only compete but dominant the man knew what it took to win and that doesn't change whether today or 1900. His conditioning and strength would be his biggest assets just as it was back then. A lot of people say the sport has evolved and they're more people competing so larger talent pool. I say tell the guys were going to 4-6 ounce gloves and finish fights and a huge cut in pay and see what they look like and watch and see how many competitors there are.

 

That's amazing praise coming from Schmeling!

 

Gotcha. Makes sense. Also, Dempsey and Wills set up a fight at one point, didn't they? I recall seeing an image of them signing a contract. How did things fall apart?