BTW, how many Dempsey fights did Arcel even watch? Which ones? Dempsey was clearly a hero of Arcel's when he was a very young man just getting involved in boxing and I think that's colored his perspective over the years. Recognizing that is no slight to Arcel.
Arcel gets the credit for training Roberto Duran, when it was Freddie Brown who did all the heavy lifting. Arcel's strength seemed to be in the corner, just like Nacho Beristian, Angelo Dundee, Lou Duva and Mexican great Arturo "Cuyo" Hernandez, all had somebody else get the fighters ready
The point is he worked with THE Benny Leonard! It's never the idea he taught Leonard it's the fact he was able to up close and personal understand details of Leonard's abilities and draw from them himself. Everyone looks at the experiences of a trainer like Arcel from a static standpoint......not so. Arcel was not just looking from 200 feet away he was right there up close working with these great all time fighters. He was just not attending Dempseys bouts with Firpo, Sharkey and Tunney he was watching Dempsey train within feet, interacting with Dempsey, watching his skills and abilities as an expert in the sport. Arcel is so highly regarded in boxing for a reason. Listen to him speak and if you are true to yourself you will hear a guy who knows what he is talking about.
They dont align with my expectations, but I would still ask what made Arcel arrive at those conclusions. A persons testimony should not be dismissed, simply because it goes against what you expect.
Arcel was known to train right along side of his fighters. Getting them out of bed in the morning and running with them in the wee hours.
Just saw that a bunch of people here had a similar argument about Arcel's over-the-top hyperbole on checkhook last year! (Bukkake even used the same "fanboy" language).
Only the illiterate "Kevin" would do his best to degrade the greatest trainer in boxing history. Why? Because the man watched Dempsey live and in person and rated him very very highly right along with Louis and Ali. "Kevin", who never stepped into a boxing gym, continues to show his true colors.
Unable to answer any of my questions or address any of my substantive points so you respond with this worthless waste of a post?
"Tunney" Well, your original quote from post 426 is "Dempsey beat all the best heavyweights that Wills wouldn't fight." Dempsey didn't beat Tunney, so whether Tunney would have beaten Wills is somewhat of a mute point, I think. "Wills didn't fight" This is stated more fairly. What is your evidence that Brennan, for example, would ever have gotten into the ring with Wills? --------------------------------------------------------- "an open contract doesn't mean anything" Oh. This is Tex Rickard quoted in the Time Magazine issue of 4-7-1924 "Wills agrees to fight any heavyweight I select, leading up to a meeting with Dempsey." "Any heavyweight" seems to me to pretty much cover the field. ---------------------------------------------------------------- "In 1924 Wills has two recorded fights" Two more than Dempsey. "they were underwhelming" Why was beating Firpo underwhelming exactly? He was considered a top contender and picked by Rickard to fight the elimination with Wills. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Didn't Dempsey have an open contract he signed with Wills?" When this contract was signed, Tex Rickard was quoted by Time Magazine I the 10-19-1925 issue: "I have what I consider an ironclad contract for him to box Wills for me." Was Rickard lying? If Dempsey was legally obligated to fight only for Rickard, was this signing any more than a charade? ---------------------------------------------------------------- As for what kind of challenge Wills would have been, he was 35 by 1924. It is certainly possible he was going severely downhill. Yet he beat Firpo in 1924 and KO'd Weinert in 1925. The bottom line is Wills had earned his shot.
Yeah, I remember that... I simply never understood, how serious people can quote Arcel (or Tunney, for that matter!) in an attempt to build up Dempsey. I don't care how many fighters he trained, or how much he knew about boxing... to think, that when discussing Dempsey, he was this unbiased expert we all should listen to, is ridiculous.