Do you hold it against Jack Dempsey for not fighting Harry Greb?

70 professional fights and stopped only once. In the big boy division against many of the best fighters. I would say that is a great chin. Especially for an offensive fighter like Dempsey was.
I’ve watched the Sharkey Dempsey fight numerous times, if the Times had it 5-1 Sharkey i’m fine with that, for me the rounds were competitive and after the early onslaught Dempsey continued to slowly improve throughout the course of the fight. Yeah Jack three some borderline to low punches everyone knows that, maybe it was retaliation for the late shot Sharkey shipped him after the bell the preceding round. Whatever it was, at the Time Dempsey ko’d Sharkey he himself was not in danger of being stopped and seemed to be as game as ever in the fight.

 

Straw man argument I never made any prediction on how well Dempsey would fare against Greb.
Dempsey took years off between fights during his title reign. We all know this it’s been well covered. Yes Tunney boxed his ears off, It’s evident, but it’s also clearly evident Tunney was in his absolute prime and Jack was a shadow of himself on stiff plodding legs. Not the tiger of 1919. Even still he floored Tunney badly. How many other men in Tunneys career managed that.
I rate Tunney and Sharkey as two very quality heavyweights. A well past prime Dempsey managed to floor one and defeat another.
Judging how Dempsey looks in the footage of these fights compared to his bouts against Willard, and Firpo and his sparring with Bill Tate I believe a prime Dempsey would have a good chance to defeat these men in his prime.

 

Well I disagree I find the fight to be a competitive and enjoyable fight to watch despite the fact I too have Sharkey in the lead at the time of the stoppage. I also believe Dempsey was improving as the fight went along.
Dempsey’s quote is that in context? Is he referring to the barrage in the first round or referring to the fight in its entirety that he thought Sharkey was going to knock him out? I thought it was referencing the first round but I could be mistaken.
Dempsey was coming on imo but if you disagree that’s fine I think it’s debatable.
And yes I never said against the best fighter but he did face top fighters as any top contender would- as for Wills he fared even more poorly against Sharkey at that point in his career- so Sharkey was better than Wills and yes Dempsey who pulled the win off against him.

 

Gene would of always posed problems for Dempsey I don’t deny that- but it’s impossible for me to believe that a peak Dempsey would not have fared much better- it’s just very evident on film to me that Jack was very diminished from the man he was in earlier fights. Faster legs, more spring more pop. It would of still been matador vs bull but a much livelier bull.

Styles do make fights and I believe Dempsey Ko’s Wills. He was too fast and explosive for the big men. Fulton, Willard, Firpo, etc. plus unfortunately for Wills the footage available of him do him no favors imo. He looks made to order for Dempsey. Unlike Tunney.
Styles

 

Yes Wills was old and a pro for a long time in the footage available to us- it does a disservice to him- he does not impress imo in the footage.
I think Dempsey defeated Fulton and Firpo better (and faced better versions of both men) than Wills did. If you want to say Firpo dropped Dempsey and gave him trouble i’ll Concede but I believe Dempsey demolishing a much more fit Firpo to the tune of 9 knockdowns in two rounds is better than the waltz I have seen with Wills on film.
I also think it’s a disservice to say Fulton didn’t know how to fight - we have no footage of him and he does have a pretty decent resume. Even if his durability declined as he got older.
Wills deserved his shot and he was better than both men but we have no prime footage of him and of what we do have he looks style wise of the same ilk of guys Dempsey would defeat. Also not to hate on Wills but he fought so many of the same opponents over and over I do question how “level” some of these bouts were.

 

I think you miss my point. Everybody in that era fought more no decision bouts than not. Period. It was simply the rule of the day. So to suggest that one fighter was rightly neglected as a contender because he fought a lot of no decision bouts is historically inaccurate. You could certainly generate a lot of appeal scoring knockouts but the converse argument by that is that the run of KOs that got guys like Firpo and Gibbons and dare I say even Dempsey were largely suspect to one degree or another. In the instance of Firpo and Gibbons their KO runs were against retreads and ham and eggers. In Dempsey’s case several of his KOs in the run up to the title were considered outright fixes by some (Fulton, Morris, Pelkey, Fred Saddy). In that era it was all about the hype and ballyhoo around a fighter. Tommy Gibbons wasn’t a puncher at all until his manager started matching him with setups to build momentum for a title shot. His own brother criticized it as smoke and mirrors. If you look at his record he had two KOs in more than six years of fighting between 1914 and 1921 ONLY SIX. As soon as his level of competition dips his KO string shoots through the roof there are calls for a title shot. Would you rather see him fight Dempsey based on that KO percentage or Greb based on all of those wins in ND fights against live bodies? I know my answer. Believe me, I understand people’s confusion or frustration with the ND era and the reality is that at that time you didnt have as clear a picture of a guy like Greb as we do now. BUT the problem with disqualifying Greb for his multitude of perceived inconclusive ND is that Greb was one of the most prolific fighters of his era (he fought everywhere, all the time) and his results are ridiculously one sided compared to his peers. It would be one thing if I cherry picked sources to make him look better. For instance if a town had four papers and 2 picked Greb and 2 picked his opponent and I chose to report just the two that picked Greb. But I didn’t do that. I’ve said before and it’s true that I’m covering Greb there was a concern for long stretches about monotony because he would go into a town with three or four papers, dominate a guy to the point that papers said the opponent landed only 5 or 10 punches over the courses of the fight, all papers agreed, then he would move on and do it again to some else the following week in another town. Over and over and over. And that’s why you see newspaper and magazine polls that mention this middleweight as a Dempsey opponent, reporters talking about it, fighters seriously discussing the outcome, and promoters devising elimination bouts featuring Greb, including two promoted by two of three promoters Dempsey used as Champion. So if a large segment of the public and the experts or industry insiders understood this man to be a contender then I’m not going to second guess his credentials as such based on a modern perception of the ND era. Johnny Dundee and KO Chaney both got FW title shots with Kilbane on the strength of previous ND wins. Greb got his MW title shot on the strength of his ND wins. The only possible argument for Billy Miske getting a title shot was on the strength of performances against Jack Dempsey himself in ND bouts held two years earlier. So where is line drawn? ND bouts were good enough to propel Greb to a MW title shot but not a HW fight? They were good enough to give a terminally ill Miske a HW shot at Dempsey but Greb, who posted better results than Miske can’t? In fact I think the whole ND mark against Greb is obfuscation. The guy defeated Brennan, Gibbons, Tunney, Bob Roper, Jack Renault, Gunboat Smith, Clay Turner, Battling Levinsky, Charlie Weinert, and Tommy Loughran in decisions or KOs before he ever even won the MW title while Dempsey was champ. Who did Dempsey face prior to mid 1923 who posted a better immediate resume than that? Then when you throw in Grebs voluminous body of work in ND bouts it only adds to his resume. So I just can’t agree with either side of an argument that states Greb wasn’t a legit contender for Dempsey or could have been ignored legitimately in that era based on optics.

As I said, if you are going after bigger, equally or better accomplished contenders than Greb (i.e. Wills) then there is the argument “he didn’t need Greb, he had Wills to contend with.” But if you exclude wills for any of the numerous reasons Dempsey used when it suited him, then fighting Carpentier, Brennan, Miske, and Gibbons is pretty unforgivable in my opinion. At that point you are literally going out of your way to fight lesser competition. I give him a pass for Carpentier because the money was just crazy high. He would have been nuts to turn it down. But you only get one pass from me in four years. And all of that is to say nothing of the guys that Dempsey and Kearns tried to get approved as a challenger during this period like human punching bag Bartley Madden who they shopped around to numerous venues for a year or so without success, or Fat old inactive Jess Willard who New York had to ban based on age and inactivity to prevent such a contest.

 

It's a pity we never found out,for me Dempsey stops Wills and before the halfway.I think Harry is a little overated.There is no doubt however that he deserved his title chance.

 

I think the fact that he had no example before him is true, Jeffries, Johnson etc. all got that title & laid back for the most part Johnson beat Moran and old man Jeffries middleweight Ketchel and avoided the black guys probaly because of $ Willard beat Johnson then Moran then fought Dempsey 3 years later,Jeffries beat Corbett in 1900 then next 3 year fought once a year monroe in 1904 then didnt fight in 6 years then came back losing 80 + lbs and fought Johnson in 1910

Sad examples and after that the title changed hands pretty quickly until the Brown Bomber who set an example by fight everyone, all colors, sizes and shapes but mostly most deserving, Marciano also fought the best & most deserving and Ali as well all until Holmes who ducked and weaved around too may in his era, Tyson set an example again and now Joshua seems to be ready to do the same

 

I'm not judging him on the footage, I just don't think big men with average speed hold up too well against Jack.
Wills didn't start getting the better of Langford until the little guy was getting a bit past his sell date.

Was Wills better than Tommy Gibbons?
Why didn't he fight Greb,Brennan,Miske? Did they duck him ? IDK
ps. Lets not judge Dempsey on his fight with Sharkey either.