Jack Dempsey's Ranking

Right. Lots of the writers were biased in favour of the African-American

 

Can you share them here? Not now, if you're busy, but at some point? Because you and I carried out the same excersise in...I don't know, 2009, and we couldn't find anything criticising him in relation to a title shot. That same month, after the second fight, there were several articles which continued to call for the fight as if Tate hadn't happened. You were surprised but accepting of this at the time. I'd genuinely love to see articles claiming otherwise - even one that was primarily about Firpo, naming him the man most likely to beat Dempsey, referencing Tate as a disaster for Wills, whatever - I would like to see that.

As late as the 1940s, Ring's policy was to ignore some losses for some fighters depending on prior achievement, reputation, etc. Charley Burley, for example, suffered no slippage after losing to after his loss to Leto. That's from memory - i hope it's right.

The whole Tate fiasco "feels" that way to me currently, but it's only based upon what i've read. If that needs to be corrected, i'd definitely welcome it.

 

It's one win over Greb. At heavy.

This is not true in strict terms - Greb was about 40 days from thrashing Rojas, one of his better HW wins. He was utterly dominant. However, you are right in the sense that he hadn't been busy in the HWs in the run up to that fight.

For Ring? This was because Ring then ranked each fighter only in one division. Greb was the MW champ, from memory.

He has nine fights as a dedicated HW and about fifteen overall at the weight allowing for some over-the-weight LHW bouts. His two best wins are always going to be of enormous importance with such small numbers, this is undeniable.

However, I'd suggest that any HW outside of Ali and Louis and possible Wills, shorn of his two best wins, would absolutely plumit down any ATG ranking. Frazier, no longer top 25. Foreman, no longer great for anything other than his comeback. Maybe Holyfield would be spared a little bit because he'd be left with either Bowe or Tyson, that's interesting.

All the numbers in teh above post are from memory and might be a little shaky.

 

"At the time" - I think there's an argument.

Was Spinks among the best HW fighters his era was capable of producing? I'd suggest probably not - and it was certainly unproven given that he had - 5? 6? - fights at the weight? And is 4-1 ish. However, I think it is fair to answer that he might have been, and if he was, it's absolutely fair to compare him to Tunney as a test in an era-on-era sense. That would help to reinforce your position on Tunney as haloed by the Dempsey wins - but remember, my position is that he absolutely needed to be haloed in that way to prove himself at the highest level.

To surmise, I think you are right to say that Dempsey KO1 Tunney removing Tunney as the highest possible level of test when really in some way he might have remained so in an objective sense is reasonable.

However, I disagree that this is the case with Wills, though I agree i might have trouble in saying it here with KO1 before his name - but I feel satisfied I would have been saying it.

Furthermore I would just say that a fighter has to prove how good he is to me before I can so appraise him - if you want to say that some "highest possible tests" go missing because of the result in that given fight, I would support that position.