Do You Think Jack Dempsey Is Overrated?

Check on who k.o.'ed Lennox Lewis. To paraphrase Joe Frazier: 'My opponent has 2 hands, and as a Heavyweight, everybody can hit'.

 

I beg to differ here. When you examine the state of some his best "names" at the time he met them, it starts to look a lot less impressive. Per example, there was more wagering on whether Carl Morris would actually show up to the fight (he had become so unreliable) than would he win. Pelkey was barely a .500 fighter at that point and was on a losing streak. Levinsky was 250 fights or so into his career at that point. You add getting coldcocked by Flynn, a couple losses to Meehan over 4 and a draw with Miske, it's not as amazing as it may first appear.

Two of these were pure Rickard hype. Firpo and Carpentier. Those two would never have sniffed a title challenge in later decades. Firpo is possibly the worst looking challenger ever filmed. Carpentier's claim relied on a victory 9 years before (?). He had almost zero heavyweight resume. Brennan was a stiff Jack had already beaten and who had lost to lil' Harry Greb 5 times already. Miske was terminally ill and hardly eating at the time. And Gibbons, who had no pedigree at heavyweight, lost what was supposed to be an eliminator match. I'll give you Tunney. That was a good title defense.

 

Those guys weren't 5-10, 180 pounders on losing streaks.

 

Lewis was 240-250lbs, and the 2 opponents who defeated him were in the 240 lb range.

Dempsey was 190 lbs, and was defeated by proportionally similar sized men.
Dempsey a year later after losing to Flynn, TKO'ed "Fireman Flynn" Flynn in one round also.

Note: Dempsey was soon to appear at the Chicago Theatre in a 4 day performance
as an "actor" in 1918.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045211/1918-02-15/ed-1/seq-16/

 

I think the Dempsey "myth" or rep outran his resume to a greater extent than any sports star I can think of.

The bottom line is he didn't beat the three best fighters out there during his own era. Wills fell victim to the color line. Greb generally proved superior to most of Dempsey's opposition but a fight between them never came off. Dempsey lost to Tunney.

The era between 1915 and about 1935, between Jack Johnson and Joe Louis, is the black hole of the heavyweight division because of a fiercely drawn color line. Considering how prominent black fighters were prior to this era, and especially after the later fall of the color line, it becomes just a guess about how good Dempsey really was, the hype aside.

It is kind of like the National baseball league drawing an American League line in the 1920 to 1950 era by refusing to play in the World Series but declaring themselves the champions, with a lot of talk about how Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio would be helpless against their pitchers, but never stepping on the field with them. (But they did play, so we know the American League was the stronger league. Off what happened before and after, I think the African-American boxing league would have been stronger than the white league during the 1915 to 1937 era also.)

 

To answer the question. No I do not think he is overrated.

 

"The sad part about dempsey is that he should have been the only guy anybody ever thought of when they thought about the greatest heavyweight champion. I mean he had everything. He could box. He could punch. He was mean and determined. ". The one and only arcel on dempsey

 

The one and only mickey walker on dempsey " i think dempsey was the greatest fighter who ever stepped into the ring". 1970

 

Willis would never have been Prime for him, and too early in Dempsey's career he would not have been prime to fight Wills, the entire time Wills was #1 he was well past his prime which shows either how good he was or how bad the top 10 was at that time.

 

The way he fought was important. He helped bring the sport along to the modern age. He was exciting, he brought the same type air of danger that Tyson would later.
In a pure boxing sense? Yes he is overrated. Mostly myth.

 

Garbage.

The greatest p4p fighter ever and the greatest trainer stated Dempsey was the greatest they ever saw. This is only two of a laundry list of experts who stated similar accolades.

Sam Langford:
“Dempsey is the greatest fighter I have ever seen.”

If you spend the time watching Dempsey’s skills in the ring and walk away unimpressed you don’t know the sport.

Carpentier was light hwt champion of the world and that in of itself is enough to get a hwt title shot. Think Mike Spinks as one example. However add to this that Carp was a multi division European champion including hwt champion. Add to this that Carp was world famous.

The three most famous stars of the 1920’s were Ruth. Still considered by many baseballs greatest player. Houdini, still considered the greatest magician who ever lived. And Dempsey.

 

In terms of speed and power he's not overrated. In terms of his level of competition, and defense, he's very over rated.

 

Apart from Wills which black fighter was a realistic,credible challenger for champion Dempsey?

 

If most consider a fighter overrated, is he even really overrated anymore?

The term itself is a measurement on the fans doing the rating, not the fighter himself. In the years since this thread came about, there's been way more Dempsey debunkers than Dempsey die-hards.

If anything, he's probably sold a bit short today as a result.

 

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Dempsey is not overrated.