Floyd Patterson vs Jack Dempsey

I mean "the more quickly Dempsey will get to him".

 

I've decided the Firpo fight was an anomalous performance and one he was able to recover from.

The clearest footage of Dempsey is his defensive mastery against Tunney and if he could do it then he could do it in his prime.

We saw him stalk and destroy Willard, we saw him bully and batter Gibbons. That's enough for me to say that whilst he was a bit overhyped imo, he was a fantastic fighter h2h.

Against Patterson we have a man who is quicker and less durable against a man who is very two fisted and doesn't mind tearing it up.

If Patterson makes it a battle of jabs and never let's Dempsey in close, he obviously wins as pretty much no one was able to out jab him during his career when he fought on the back foot.

If he comes in square on as he did against Firpo, Patterson will spark him.

But if, as I imagine, he comes in weaving with his advantage in head and foot speed, if he can close the gap and get within range, he will bomb Floyd out.

My pick is Dempsey in the first round.

 

Of course those are factors. Style isn't the only thing that influences a fight. A club fighter isn't likely to beat Joe Frazier even if he uses the same style as George Foreman. If Brennan could hurt Dempsey, so could Patterson. If Brennan could out-box Dempsey, so could Patterson. Since he was superior to Brennan, there's a good chance he'd do better.

Firpo hurt Dempsey. So could Patterson. If Patterson hurt Dempsey, he'd be better equipped to take advantage. If Dempsey wades in against Patterson the way he did against Firpo then there's a good chance of that happening.

It's not ambiguous. The main evidence for a fix is Dempsey's ex-wife, who was proven to be completely unreliable as a witness. Are you equally open minded about the claim that Dempsey used loaded gloves against Willard?

Why, because he couldn't against Sonny Liston? Dempsey wasn't Sonny Liston.

I've pointed out various Dempsey fights where he showed ch1nks in his armour, that an accomplished quick handed, skilled fighter with power could exploit.

I could say the same for you. You're overrating Dempsey and underrating Patterson. Sure I could see the case for Patterson having no chance if Dempsey really was this indestructible force of nature and Patterson really was a scared glass jawed rabbit, but neither was the case. In reality, they're much more evenly matched IMO. Even their title reigns were pretty similar. Perhaps I'm just not as impressed with Dempsey as most people are.

How do you think Brennan would fare against Ali, Liston and Johansson?

Earlier you said Brennan was shot when he fought Firpo. Knocking out a 41 year old Willard who'd had two fights in seven years isn't that impressive.

His success, such as it was, was mostly down to him being carefully built up to a title shot by Rickard.

Then why bring it up? Dempsey having marginally bigger measurements doesn't give him any significant advantage over Patterson. As I said, they were more or less the same size.

More likely he didn't need any more embarrassments against Meehan.

What tells you that Dempsey is simply going to walk through Patterson? What fighter as good as Patterson did he walk through? As I said, Dempsey isn't Liston. He's not going to have the kind of physical advantages over Patterson that Liston did. Which leaves the Johannson KO. You can make the case for Dempsey based on that, but seems a little silly to me to completely write Patterson off based on one fight in a pretty successful 20 year career. It would be like writing off Dempsey because Flynn flattened him. And if you want to use the styles argument, Johansson didn't fight anything like Dempsey.

I'm not dismissing Rademacher. You said most of the men who put Louis down were rated. Well, apart from Rademacher, so were the men who put Patterson down.

So Patterson getting KO'd by Johannson means he lacked durability and would have little chance against Dempsey, but someone who got KO'd cold by Johansson in one round would do a lot better?

 

No one has been on these boards so long but knows so little as Seamust. Really beyond belief.

 

Whereas you are one of the more long-term respected posters here right?

 

Marginally bigger? Dempsey's biceps were the same size as Liston's ,this of course does not detemine who wins , but lets not pretend he is only marginally bigger. Firpo hurt Dempsey ? Yes he did,Firpo may have hit as hard as Johannson, I've no doubt he would have floored Floyd as he did Jack, the difference is Dempsey won his fight .

 

No one comments so often with blowhard insults but zero substance.

Refute my arguments if you are able to. But at least rise above 4th grade playground insults. It's embarrassing and pointless.

 

According to this, Dempsey had 15" biceps. According to this, Patterson had 14.5" biceps. So yes I'd say the size difference between them was negligible. Jermain Taylor had bigger biceps than both so too much can be read into these stats anyway.

 

Dempsey's biceps were 16.25 inches when he was measured for the second Tunney fight.