Aside from Wills and Langford, who are the best men of his day Dempsey never fought?

Well, the first contract had no date, no location, no purse, no nothing. It simply stated that of a promoter deemed credible by both parties could promote the show Dempsey would sign. Then Kearns refused to entertain any offer as credible. Easy way out. The second one was signed on the eve of Dempsey being stripped and put forth by his close friend with terms they had no intention of fulfilling. When the terms werent met Dempsey acted incredulous and then backed out of the fight saying he wouldnt have anything else to do with Fitzsimmons (the promoter). Then Fitzsimmons spent the winter at Dempseys home in LA. Dempseys business manager at the time stated publicly it was a sham and it was later shown Dempsey was already negotiating with Rickard for a Tunney fight, had no intention of fighting Wills, and likely had already signed to fight Tunney.

 

I'm not concerned with how credible either Gibbons or Brennan were , or what Dempsey cared about.We are discussing who would be a credible opponent for Champ Dempsey,and all Im saying is, off his annihilation by Wills I can't give him a realistic chance of troubling Dempsey.Just my opinion.

 

Was all this before his break with Rickard? Could the duck be attributed to Dempsey not wanting Rickard to benefit from his bouts?

 

Roberts may have been wrong or Kearns may have been bragging like he often did but there is no way they paid sparring partners that much when you could have paid them one third of that and they would have been happy to get it. At that point in Godfreys career that would have been a kings ransom for sparring work.

 

He never split with Rickard.

 

And Im saying he was at least as credible as half of Dempseys defenses so why shouldnt he be in the mix?

 

It might be inaccurate but I have no other information.Godfrey sparred with Firpo for the Willard fight.Firpo certainly was very parsimonius.

 

That's your opinion and of course its as valid as the next man's.

 

My bad.... I'm confusing him with Jack Kearns. So , replace Rickard with Kearns in my comment above.

 

In a order to one up Dempsey when he tried to split with Kearns Kearns signed Fempsey to fight Wills and Dempsey repudiated the contract. It had nothing to do with preventing Kearns from earning. If so, why fight Tunney on almost the same date you signed to fight Wills? Dempsey just didnt want anything to do with Wills. It was testified in court at Tunneys trial against Tim Mara that Rickard was avtively pushing Tunney because he thought he was the easier fight for Dempsey.

 

I get it now. Dempsey repudiated the contract because he was fed up with Kearns, just as you describe it. Similar to the issues Witherspoon had with Don King and lately Bertiev with his management. Perfectly understandable act on Dempsey's part IMO.

 

Are you sure? Godfrey was with Dempsey in Montana until after the Gibbons fight by the time he made it back to the east coast he would have only had a few days to be in Firpos camp before the fight with Willard and he told the press he intended to go home, rest, and then join Dempsey at Saratoga Springs to begin training for the Firpo fight, which he did. Id never heard he sparred Firpo for Willard.

 

No that was a different contract. When Dempsey split with Kearns Kearns, in a last ditch effort to stab at Dempsey, tried to obligate him to fight Wills (which he was legally able to do). Dempsey flipped out, repudiated Kearns and said he had no authority to sign (even though Kearns was still his manager). The one Dempsey signed with Fitzsimmons was done on his own, after he had repudiated the one Kearns obligated him to. He signed the Fitzsimmons contract because the New York State Athletic commission was in the process forcing him to fight Wills. They were days away from declaring his title vacant and banning him in all reciprocal states. Dempsey countered this by signing a bogus contract to fight Wills in a state that had no relationship with New York and a promoter who did no business there. This way when it went belly up he could say he did his best to the public at large. It was the same bogus tactic kearns used in 1922. Dempsey learned his lessons well. Thats why when he signed to fight Tunney the fight was banned in New York and had to be moved to Philadelphia. Dempsey fooled the rubes but not the people who actually dealt with the business of boxing on a daily basis. None of this is secret by the way.

 

When you fight someone 7 or 8 times, winning once by a DQ after being knocked down and hit while down isn’t very impressive. More of a fluke. Wills scored several knockouts over him

 

He does have a point. Norfolk was a better fighter than Miske who was credible enough in your eyes to challenge Dempsey. Shouldn’t Norfolk be given the same respect?

Norfolk’s issues with wills could have been stylistically. Dempsey may have been a better matchup for him