Who was Jack Dempsey's third most deserving title opponent who never got a title shot?

Why do YOU need an "official positive result?" Did you need the judges to tell you that Bradley beat Pac? Officials arent infallible. Theres a reason why even today we put great stock into a consensus of opinion. Go look up the boxrec wiki for Pac-Bradley 1 and tell me what you see: a consensus of 125 written opinions. Why? We already have the "official positive result" why the need for those opinions? They are meaningless arent they? Or are they? I know when two judges split on their vote for Greb-Tunney 2 and the referee who had prior to the fight been called biased for Tunney breaks the tie in Tunney's favor and an overwhelming majority of opinions thought that not only did Greb win but that the decision was criminal to the point of needing an investigation thats an important statistic "official positive result" or not. When I can read about Greb fighting some guy like Renault in his hometown and winning ALL of the local newspaper decisions do I really need to quibble about whether or not some guy in a white shirt with a bowtie rendered a decision. You might. I dont because I know in that era the vast majority of boxing writers were every bit as expert if not more expert than the officials and indeed often served as officials, judges, referees, trainers, promoters, managers, etc. So yeah, when a guy can consistently win the vast majority of actual ringside newspaper decisions across the board and fight to that level of consistency then it means something. Its rare to find that in any era.

 

Greb was a MW and thus was too small for the public to demand he fight Dempsey, where was the offers that made any sense? Many writers of the time said he was too small. Are you going to dismiss those, why? Where was the million dollar gate when Greb did fight all those HW's? No matter how you spin it and tell us he fought this guy and that guy and did this and did that the fight was never made. On the Dempsey side he had Kearns and Rickard men who were about making money. If the demand was so great by the public which it wasnt and you have yet to prove it. The Pittsburgh offer was a joke, and you stating that Kearns killed the fight by "stalling", is tripe. Where were these legitimate huge offers to fight Dempsey and who would have promoted them? Dempsey didnt fight Greb cos he was too SMALL and apparently the public and writers of the time thought so.

 

Thank you for such an in depth response. I appreciate the information you use to back up your point and respect your knowledge of this era. However, it cannot be impossible not to say that a percentile of all the no decision contests, large or small were glorified sparring sessions since we see them in all other eras. Boxing is a business and its just not good business to get beat up so often. Winning real fights you get beat up winning. It is an insult to the intelligence of real boxing people to insist a total career of ANY fighter was 100% made up only of competative fights where Both guys gave it their fullest capacity, each and every time. It's impossible. You can't fight for real that often. Something has to be held back, some of the time.

 

It depends on how the fight was promoted and officiated. If it was promoted as a strict exhibition an actual exhibition where they used big gloves, short rounds, etc. Then no, it shouldnt be counted, knockout or not. This was a big debate decades ago when a few jokers tried to pad Dempsey's KO record using his exhibition KOs. It was settled that those KOs were not official and should not be (although some have stayed on his record to this day). For instance, in New York when boxing decisions were illegal and they were simply called (by the law) exhibitions you had exhibitions and then you EXHIBITIONS. The real exhibitions were fought using big gloves, short rounds etc. You sometimes even find reports trying to promote these fights saying "these boys will be doing some real fighting" but you have to look at the intent. Of course they were trying to sell tickets. It doesnt change the fact that those were exhibitions. ND fights, called exhibitions by the governing bodies whether they were state, municipal, or whatever, were still actual boxing matches period. Fought with small gloves no headgear, 3 min rounds to the duration of a pro fight (as stipulated by those bodies) etc. They were fought on their merits and in fact in that era it was much more likely that if a fighter was perceived to be taking it easy or not giving his best or pulling his punches he would be thrown out of the ring, banned, and have his purse withheld. In that regard the rules in that era where much more conducive to giving the fans a good fight than they are even today.

 

I don't disagree with the specific points here, and, no, I didn't mean that referees and judges are infallible at all.
I was just pointing out that technically the fights were fought under the rules that no winner would be declared unless in the event of a KO or retirement. That's how some champions retained their titles in spite of being outboxed in title fights. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Battling Levinsky recognized as light-heavy champion when he faced Carpentier despite him losing several "no decisions" at the weight?

Newspaper men aren't infallible either, and may well have been at least as corrupted as officials are.
Perhaps more so, since the press could censor its own misdeeds.
I'd hope that wasn't the case often, and generally we can assume things were usually fairly reported.

 

I never implied that Greb would not fight any of them, who avoided the fight doesn't mean he is automatically the loser if they had met.

Greb of course did beat A young Renault twice and also Weinert.

Godfrey wasnt ,"a total non entity" during Dempsey's reign as he was ranked number 8 in1924 and number 6 in1925. I disagree with Choklab regarding the no decisions.

 

That is simply not true, because as I said in my other post, there were much more stringent rules in effect in that era to prevent just such an occurence. Fighters who were thought to be taking it easy or pulling their punches were often fined, banned, had their purses revoked, etc. When was the last time you saw a shitty fight on TV where the fighters clearly werent trying and wished something could be done. Well, in the ND they had that. The occurences of Mayweather-Pac phoning in a performance were a lot less often then than they are now because the clubs had carte blanche. They wanted the fans to be entertained so they would come back for more and as such if a fighter put on a shitty exhibition he wasnt going to be asked back any time soon and might not even get paid. Your comment that "winning real fights you get beat up winning" is bizarre in the least. Do you really think fighters didnt get beat up? I think Ive illustrated that quite well. Fighters suffered broken noses, cut eyes, broken hands, broken ribs, lost teeth, split lips, and even death in ND bouts. The idea that these guys were just waltzing around is bizarre. That comment alone makes me question what you really know about this era.

 

Everyone wears "big gloves" nowadays.
It would be difficult to say which of the "exhibitions" were in fact real fights.
Joe Louis has a KO win over Roscoe Toles in April 1935 that appears on his record sometimes, but is sometimes left off.

 

No but I dont give a guy any credit for running from a fight either. Greb was game and wanted it. Firpo, in his own words wanted someone less threatening. That says enough for me. If Deontay Wider wants to fight Fury and Fury says no Id rather fight Oliver McCall hes obviously going to suffer the consequences of that decision, at the very least in the court of public opinion. Firpo shouldnt be any less.

Id have to question the motivation of that ranking and who ranked him. His record during those years was nothing special by even a modest accounting.

 

Unfortunately most fights nowadays are more like exhibitions. Thats why I live in a black and white world

But, I dont think its difficult at all to say which are fights and which are exhibitions as long as you research the buildup. For the record Greb, for years, had an exhibition or two counted as a real fight which I took off (at least in my book). So Im not simply trying to pad out his record. I could have easily left those on and nobody would have ever said a word. In fact some people disagree to this day and count those as real fights but they werent.

 

My point is you cant give the one pursuing the fight a win because the other guy isn't keen and wont accept one.
I'd guess that Greb was about as game as a fighter could be.

The rating of Godfrey was from the Ring you may question it and believe it was undeserved but it indicates without any argument that Godfrey was a ranked contender in the first 2 years of the Ring rankings and therefore not a total non- entity.

 

I really think referees should go back to throwing fighters out for not trying.
But that won't happen.

 

Yeah, there's possibly going to be some borderline cases, debatable ones.

 

Malik Scott would have been a good start!

 

Thrown out of the sport for not trying !