Simple Question: Which Fighter Was Better? Dempsey or Tyson?

You're scaling them because you know physically Dempsey simply was no match for Tyson.

You may as well cut one of Tysons arms off to make it competitive.

 

Tyson was better in nearly every conceivable aspect.

 

No, I'm scaling them because I'm suggesting a POUND-FOR-POUND COMPARISON.

Everyone talks about "pound for pound" but rarely want to think about it in real terms.

All I'm saying is : let's make them the same weight, with the same proportions so they can fight their normal style.
And then consider how they do against each other's opponents.

If you feel Tyson would be at the disdvantage then you don't have much faith in his p4p worth compared to Dempsey's.
On the other hand, maybe a 5'6 or 5'7 Tyson at 188 pounds would do as well as Dempsey, or better.

As far as HEAVYWEIGHTS go, anyone at 188 pounds would deserve a ton of credit for even getting in the ring with a 220 pound Tyson, imo.

 

Fair enough.

 

P4P Dempsey > Tyson quite handily.

But in a straight fight at no weight limit, fresh-from-Cus Tyson should be favoured and rightly so.

 

No, I'm not interested in changing Willard.
Willard scaled down to Tyson's weight or Dempsey's weight would be shorter than 6'6.

Yeah, it's the called pound-for-pound, "if they were the same weight ..." scenario.

Everyone talks about "pound for pound" but rarely address the 'reality' of the hypothesis.

 

Because it's interesting.
To me, anyway.

 

It makes sense to anyone who actually understands a "pound-for-pound" hypothesis.

Weight is considered an advantage in boxing, hence weight classes.

By the same token, you should give Mike Tyson significant credit for beating bigger men than himself.

Not similar at all.
I already explain that in the context of Tyson's style matching up against Liston's, in my opinion. Liston exploits the same holes, etc. etc. You don't have to agree but don't pretend not to understand it. You're not that stupid.
If I'd known it would cause you this permanent distress I would never have phrased it that way, believe me.

 

Yeah, very possibly. :good

 

Boxing was not a sport to either one: it was combat. Kill or be killed. The fact that Tyson never got up from a knockdown to win a fight settles it for me. Dempsey was far tougher mentally. Dempsey would KO Tyson, IMO.

 

Pound-for-pound is merely an expression. It never has literally meant "if everyone were the same size." That's absurd.

 

It's an expression with a meaning. It's not just irrelevant words.

It means "pound for pound". Like what is worth more, pound for pound, manure or gold ?
Obviously the gold.
It doesn't matter if there's such a large amount of manure that is actually worth more than a tiny piece of gold, in a pound for pound sense the gold is always of greater value.

In boxing sense, it obviously and originally meant which fighter is greater PER POUND ? Pound for pound, weight for weight, equal and equal.
If we could take the substance known as Sugar Ray Robinson and build him to the size of Joe Louis, who would be worth more ?

That's simply and clearly the origin and meaning of the expression.

I guess some boxing fans have been parroting it around for so many years without even stopping to think about it.
Most of them would probably say "Errr .... Mayweather"

 

'Pound-for-pound' is the most useless term in boxing because...where is the middle ground? Do you shrink Louis down or blow Robinson up? Or a bit of both to make it fair? How does a heavyweight Robinson fight? Or welterweight Louis?

It's completely absurd to think of it literally as 'pound for pound.'

 

Well, the aim is to make them the same WEIGHT, so we keep the same proportions which would allow them to operate in the same style relatively.
Yes, obviously there's a problem when the gulfs in weight are so big, and we're adjusting/comparing flyweights or featherweights to heavyweights. The laws of physics brings complications. With a man of 188 and a man of 220 it is not so much of a problem, but i do imagine a 188 sawed-off Tyson to have even faster hands than the real one had at 220.

You can shrink Louis down OR blow Robinson up.
That's exactly what I was suggesting with Dempsey and Tyson.
Since I wasn't doing so to match them against one another, but against the other's opposition, I suggested scaling one up and one down and swapping them around.

I thought it was an interesting idea anyway. It seems most others here took against it though. Fair enough, can't please everyone.

It's more absurd to not think about it at all, yet still talk about 'pound for pound' as if it has another (vague and undefinable) meaning.

 

Sorry, I honestly can't subscribe to this view at all. Magically shrinking or blowing fighters up to reach some sort of weird science fiction outcome blows my mind, even if fhe weight disparity isn't that great.

For all we know, Louis at 147 would be a completely different fighter. Robinson at 205 likewise. It's a bit bonkers.

I have always taken 'pound for pound' to mean evaluating fighters of all weight classes by means of looking at their quality of opposition, their respective strengths and weaknesses, their overall record, their legacy as a whole etc.
and drawing conclusions off of that.

I am sure that if you could magically blow up a spider or a beetle to the size of a cheetah, it would be the faster animal. Only...it would be crushed under it's own weight if it were that size. As you say, physics and all that.