Jack Dempsey in the Klitschko era

Willard was a lummox, but yes, Dempsey was great in that fight. However one fight doesn't define a career. Have you seen Dempsey-Firpo? Because I see Dempsey getting backed up against the ropes and knocked out of the ring by wide, clubbing shots from a fighter whose only assets were size, power and toughness. Yet the giant Firpo would merely be an average sized heavyweight at best nowadays.

 

If he were fighting today he'd have four title holders to choose from ( unless I've missed one. )

Tyson Fury
Deontay Wilder
Charles Martin
Lucas Browne.

 

Right. Bizarre that people can't fathom how a man who was knocked out the ring by an oafish 216-lb "giant" might get knocked unconscious by a 250-lb one with greater power, handspeed, and coordination (like Sam Peter).

 

:deal

This is exactly right but you're arguing with at least one person who admittedly believes that stylistic differences don't matter when you're talking about ATG superheroes. The Haye-Dempsey an*logy doesn't work at all, for a number of reasons.

 

Ok, what does it mean? If you're saying that he hit as hard as the Foremans and Tuas of the world, I disagree. If you're saying that his combinations were as formidable and dangerous as Tyson's or Louis', I disagree. The term "great" (and "greater"/"greatest") isn't very useful, imo, as it usually masks value judgments as if they were describing objective characteristics of a fighter. Why not be more specific?

 

Both of you are spot on. Logic can't penetrate some people's bias's. The tiny talent pool that Dempey took advantage of 100 years ago would compare to today's in the same way a small 200 student school compares to a 2,000 person school today. They are separated into different divisions for a reason. The best I could say for Dempsey is that maybe if he was brought up and trained in this era, he could be a cruiserweight champ or top 10 HW, but I think its fairly unlikely.

The other interesting thing is that all the criticisms of the K's would also apply to Dempsey, but even more so; never beat an ATG (Sanders is a MUCH better win for Vitali than anyone Dempsey ever beat), had bad losses to subpar opposition, lost to the best fighter he faced.

 

Haye bulked up from cruiserweight and was 210 pounds vs Valuev. Not a small man and basically as big as prime Muhammad Ali.

Dempsey was much smaller than both Haye and Ali and he had a different style. Haye was a counter puncher and a ambush fighter which means he is fundamentally completely different than Dempsey who was a swarmer, which means more risks coming forward for the smaller fighter. Vs bigger men, Dempsey would have some knockout losses because he was inconsistent even in his prime.

There's a reason you don't see more bulked up crusierweights try to fight like Dempsey or Marciano. There haven't been any elite level small swarmers @ heavyweight since Tyson, who is a complete anomaly. There is a reason for that. i'll let you draw your own conclusions.

I don't want to compare Willard to today's super heavyweights. It doesn't make any sense. Someone like Tyson Fury is definitely more skilled & more advanced than the likes of Carnera, Willard or Buddy Baer. I think Fury would outbox Dempsey.

 

That's what I've been saying.

Several times.

With specific examples.

Funny how people manage to skim over the less impressive aspects of his resume and keep banging on the same tin pot of how he'd blast through Wlad's (better) resume without breaking a sweat. :roll:

 

Here I disagree.

I think he'd do very well at cruiser and if he could dry off enough weight to make LHW they'd have the coroners waiting by the ringside to sweep up the remains of his opponents into a wooden box after each match.

I also think that he would likely do quite well at heavyweight, at least for a while, until the damage from his brawling style accumulated and he became shot.

 

Liar, you said that Dempsey "transcends styles" in this very thread.

I can count jabs fine. You're the one who on the basis of one unrepresentative fight makes bogus claims about fighting styles from the early 20th century, claims that are belied by the preponderance of the available film.

 

The descriptive term "greatness" is more often than not a worthless platitude that adds nothing of value to any discussion. Even worse, it is often abused by lazy, mythology-loving sheep who parrot the mythologies of boxing fans past and who can only evaluate the sport through simplistic hierarchies.

 

And not sure that it has any bearing on any of this but for the record, you and I were originally talking about different Baer-LevinsKY fights.