Jack Dempsey's Ranking

Burt is manhandling these peanut gallery bums with class and grace!

 

The primary job of newspapers is to sell copy. Truth and fact are merely secondary considerations. If they manage to get the date right that is quite an achievement in itself.

 

This is true.

As a consumer, separating truth from fiction in the media is an art in itself.

 

Succintly and accurately put.

 

Who is ranking Wills among the top 10 heavyweights ever? I'm certainly not.

You can say anything you want about him.

I said Wills was the best black heavyweight of Dempsey's era (he was) and he was Dempsey's top contender for years (he was), and Dempsey avoided him because of his skin color (he did).

I'm saying Dempsey is not among the ten best heavyweights ever. And I've stated why. (His big wins don't measure up, and he ducked his top contenders.)

Fouling Jack Sharkey and beating Willard don't make you top 10 all-timer. Simple as that.

You're the one making excuses for Dempsey ... blaming everything in the world for it not happening EXCEPT FOR the guy who refused to fight him.:deal

 

For his time, Ruth was more domain in his sport ( Baseball ) than anyone who preceded or succeeded him. He changed the game. Back then, managers would work to get their players around the bases, and home runs were far less common.

In his first season with the Yankees, Ruth hit 54 home runs: more, on his own, than any team except for the Phillies. And he did it with a ball that was not manufactured for distance.

When you compare the some of the average stats for a player between 1918 (Near the end of the “Dead-Ball Era”) and 1921 (the beginning of live-ball), it’s clear that the game of baseball was changing:

1918: 1,989 stolen bases, 7,382 runs scored and 235 Homeruns

1921: 1,487 stolen bases, 11,928 runs scored and 937 Homeruns


In three years time, stolen bases decreased 25%, runs scored increased 61% and home runs increased almost 300%. Given the evolving approach, fans responded with an increased enthusiasm for the game.

Attendance at ballparks improved significantly. In 1908, the New York Giants established the record for the most spectators in a season with close to 900,000 fans. In 1920, the Yankees broke that mark and set the new record of 1,289,422. In fact, ballclubs in six other cities broke their previous attendance records during that same year.

Ruth was a boxing fan. I've seen him screw around with Gloves. You could say he choose the right sport. He;d never make it as a boxer, but put a bat in his hands and ask him to hit a baseball...

 

More like a sobbing cheerleader ... waving her pom poms at fans exiting the stadium before the final whistle with their team down by 35 ... crying: "I've got spirit ... how bout you?!"

 

You missed Rajah.

 

Did you mean " dominant " as opposed to domain?

 

While it's not remotely the same as drawing a color line, it's interesting that the Canelo-Golovkin fight fell apart this week.

Canelo stood in the ring a week and a half ago, with his smiling promoter behind him, and said he wanted to fight Golovkin.

A week and a half later, he drops his title because the organizations were demanding he face Golovkin and wanted no more stalling.

Now it looks like Canelo will likely fight a guy Golovkin already destroyed in Lemieux.

People are pointing so many fingers at who is to blame. But, ultimately, Canelo is to blame.

Golovkin is Canelo's top challenger. There is nothing blocking a Canelo-Golovkin fight except for Canelo's insistence that the fight be held at 155 - the middleweight bare minimum. Canelo and his team won't allow Golovkin to weigh in at 156, 157, 158, 159 or 160 ... just 155.

The last time Golovkin weighed in remotely close to that was in 2002 (14 years ago) as an amateur. And even then he was 156.

It's a nonsensical, dumb, arbitrary excuse to not fight his top contender ... because he knows the guy can't make 155 ... similar to how the color line was arbitrary and nonsensical (and morally reprehensible).

There were no laws barring Dempsey from fighting Wills anywhere in the world, just like there are no rules anywhere stating a challenger for a middleweight title HAS TO WEIGH 155 or the fight is off.

They were both just a way out of the fight, essentially.

The bottom line is when arbitrary barriers are put up by a fighter and his team to avoid an opponent, the ultimate blame goes on the fighter who refuses to fight. Not on the people whispering in his ear.

That's all.

 

That's fair enough. The champion should fight the leading contender and is if doesn't then it's a mark against him, whatever the reason.

But how can we assume that Wills was willing to fight Dempsey ?

 

People who haven't done any serious research on old timers are going to tell us about using old newspapers? I'm pretty sure if I ask the same people to tell me what they know about historiography, they'd tell me it's the first time they heard that word.