Jack Dempsey's Ranking

Next sentence from the same interview is "He hits twice as hard as Jim Jeffries and is as fast in the ring as James J. Corbett." As though Langford had any actual experience to make such comparisons. That makes his opinion meaningless.

 

Senya ,Langford was fighting in 1902, 1903, 1904 the very same years Jim Jeffries was fighting, so methinks Sam Langford knew a tad more about James J Jeffries than you or I for that matter...And you who I respect know that Langford had to have a more valid opinion of what a Jim Jeffries brought to the table than we do 110 years later. Methinks...
I did not have had to have been in the ring to gage the merits of a Ray Robinson though I happened to see SRR several times as a WW.
If Langford was quoted as saying " Jim Jeffries hit twice as hard as Jack Dempsey " and was the greatest heavyweight that I ever saw", what would be your response in your post ? I think I know ?

 

And yet you're one of the top posters on this board for citing newspaper reports as meaningful.

Reports written by guys who weren't actually in the ring. Ever. Giving their views about fights none of us will ever see. Meaningless opinions probably.

 

Harry Wills should not be degraded. On that I agree.

But perhaps George Underwood was paid to write good things about Harry Wills.
You know, that's how it works.

You seem to have cottoned on to the whole idea of orchestrated hype and media manipulation in regards to the career of Jack Dempsey.
If you're honest you'd acknowledge that other well-regarded fighters get similar treatment.

And of course TEX RICKARD was promoting Harry Wills at the time (the fight with Kid Norfolk), and you've already expressed your admiration for Rickard's media manipulation.
And Rickard went on to make A LOT MORE money off of the public perception of Harry Wills as something special too.

 

Burt's reply was BETTER! : ) but....nice come back too! HA HA!

 

Geeze! Dempsey KO-2 George Foreman straight out of "TIME TUNNEL". Then.....Foreman KO-3 HOLMES.
Shuffle the deck and turn over on a new day and MAYBE we have brand new.
Elite fighters of their time..it's gonna be unending argument outcome. Outcome. Outcome. We could even throw a RON STANDER into the mix [KO by 4 Joe Frazier, for title; KO-6 (6?) Shavers, early career..] who could confuse - things!
Burt in first few pages here is VERY RIGHT talking as he does about "modern diet" and how such certainly adds bulk to the body!
Boxing a very MISTIC sort of subject when you get to these sort of debates. REALLY HARD TO MIX ERAS. OF COURSE THE "OLDER AGES" get "dissed". "EVERYTHING MODERN IS SO FANTASTIC" [that's why WWII was "*****EY" and......don't think we see that "picture" Repeat!]
Some of you all give fantastic scope about all of this! It's interesting.
By the way: who ever it was who "graded" JJW here as LESS.....I think you may be underselling that one!

 

How many fights did Langford have during this time outside of MA/RI area, or more exact question, on the West Coast? But regardless, Langford never fought Jeffries or sparred with him that I'm aware of, to know how hard he hit.

 

One of the things that have to be considered is the context. Who wrote the report, how much did he know on the subject (on Jeffries' punching power or on Corbett's speed, in this particular case), was his knowledge first-hand or acquired from other people, did he have a reason to be biased, etc etc. I don't just take every report for granted. Also, this is one of the reasons why I'm trying to find out who was or could be the author of this or that report, and am keeping a list of old-time sporting writers, with notes which newspapers they worked for and during which time.

 

I thought Langford sparred with Jeffries before the Johnson-Jeffries fight ?

And I'd be very surprised if Langford hadn't at least SEEN Jeffries and/or Corbett fight or spar.

 

Senya is very young and lives as far away as possible from the US. Would say his opinion is highly tainted.

Again we have the greatest boxing trainer ever, the greatest technical boxer ever to hold the hwt championship and the greatest p4p fighter ever saying the same things about Dempsey. The few Dempsey haters are missing and have missed the boat.

 

I expect Langford would have seen Jeffries as early as 1903 when Jeffries boxed several exhibitions around Boston.
Jeffries was in Boston when Langford and Gans were fighting there. So perhaps Jeffries saw Langford in action too.

 

I must say this again. I have been reading about boxing, been around fighters since I was a young pup and watching boxers ringside. As a kid my dad who saw many of the top fighters since about 1917 or so including Harry Greb, Mickey walker, Gene tunney, Benny Leonard, johnny Dundee, and many other fighters in the Metopolitan area instilled in me a love of the brave fighters who defied injury and even death to entertain us...As a youngster I would see the fighters walking down the aisle to enter the ring with their bashed in beaks and
scarred faces and had great admiration for their courage. ALL of them. Having said this until I started on ESB in 2010, I have NEVER read such animosity to a fighter as I have read on ESB by a ego driven bunch of revisionists who
absolutely detest the fighter named Jack Dempsey. NEVER EVER had I read
such bile to discredit a great fighter who was watched in the ring, read about
his exploits in the ring, lauded by the likes of Sam Langford, Gene Tunney, Jack Sharkey, Max Schmeling and other great boxers who saw him at his best and
the fighters who followed him after he retired. He became the idol of millions for a damned good reason... He was a great and tough fighter in the ring who went all out every time, never rope-a- doped, never made any excuses ever , took his licking when past his peak. Retired a beloved figure til the day he passed away 33 long years ago. Yet today on mainly ESB there are some posters
who with their vast ego's think that they know more about the fighter named Jack Dempsey than the hundreds of thousands of boxing figures who saw this man and his successors who followed him...Was Dempsey flawed as a human being ? Sure he was, but NO MORE than multitudes of other fighters who get a free pass....I am pretty certain were Dempsey still living along with his admirers
these same "revisionists" would have chosen a softer target to lambast...
Jack Dempsey along with my man Joe Louis remain my two favorite heavyweights ever...Sue me...adios...

 

Well, even if we all agreed with the idea that Carpentier is more skilled than Wills, so what. These men aren't even close in size.
Carpentier's official weight was 172 for Dempsey, and many argued that he was lighter than that. Wills is several inches taller and at least 40 lbs. and perhaps more, heavier.

I don't believe Carpentier would even have been competitive with Wills, both off common sense and off their records.

Kahn was mainly a great baseball writer, not a boxing aficionado, and making this sort of argument shows it.
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James P. Dawson

I am glad you take his opinion as gospel. Here is his comment on Dempsey after the first Tunney fight:

"In defeat, Dempsey was revealed as an overrated fighter, a man who was good, but never great."

"Dempsey won the title from a cumbersome hulk in Willard. . . he beat a broken man in Miske, and a comparative middleweight in Carpentier; he couldn't do anything with a better fighter like Gibbons; he battered an unschooled floundering giant in Firpo, and fell when he faced his first real opposition from a man who was determined and unafraid and who could fight as well as box."

None of the "revisionists" on this board are harsher than this.

 

Are you suggesting I made up the quote, that it is fiction?

 

"Perhaps George Underwood was paid to write good things about Harry Wills."

Possible, but why are any of these quotes above this criticism? Langford could certainly have gotten money from Kearns or Rickard to put down Wills in contrast to Dempsey.

Hell, if I had been Wills, I would have paid Langford myself to say I didn't have a chance against Dempsey. Only if the powers that be were certain Wills didn't stand a chance could he hope to get a shot.