Would Canelo Alverez dominate a prime Jack Dempsey from round 1 (Boxing Evolution Theory)

Look, this post hurts. We want Dempsey to KO Canelo (just anyone doing it would be good). But we know in our hearts what is going to happen.
You can see just by the way Dempsey throws that he's not hitting Canelo clean once.
People need to remember how hard it was for top amateurs like Golovkin, Kovalev, Saunders to hit Canelo clean with straight 'well-schooled' power shots. Did Callum Smith even land one RH on him?
I honestly don't see how Dempsey lands anything.
Canelo will absolutely land on him though. Question is whether he can KO him.
I think Canelo by points is a good bet.

 

Are you really not aware, that this is gonna end badly for you guys?

 

This. The same Canelo that demanded a catchweight and rehydration clause to fight a 40 year old Badu Jack would never get in the ring with Dempsey.

 

This

 

It makes no sense as to why you didn’t just ask who would have won, had they have fought.

You didn’t need to question the sport’s evolvement.

It has nothing to do with the evolvement of the sport.


All fights are determined by how the guys match up stylistically.

And that would apply to any era.

That is all you need to focus upon.


In every era, we’ve had pure, skilful boxers, pressure fighters and box-fighters etc.

In any/every era, all fighters have a stylistic nemesis.


If a fighter today has huge issues with fast pressure fighters, then they’d have had huge issues with that same style of fighter, from any era, if he was a top level guy.

Now if anybody here thinks that Canelo would have won, then do a breakdown.

Don’t just automatically choose Canelo, because he’s the modern fighter.


Now if people are going to completely ignore height, reach, power (the clash of styles and attributes) where their only focus is in on the time between the two eras, then with that logic, we could just say that Canelo would have beaten Marciano and Louis too, as they came only 20-30’s later.

With that logic, we could also say that he’d have beaten a prime Ali.

If we’re not looking at anything other than time, then we could say that.

Yet that would be terrible ignorant.


Forget for a minute what era Dempsey fought in.

Look at his stature.

His style.

His attributes.


Yes, he wouldn’t be a HW today.

He’d have been a CW.


Here’s the thing:

If Jack existed today, but as a current CW, then many people reading this thread would think completely differently.

Because they wouldn’t be swayed by the amount of time between the different eras.

They’d be looking more at the styles etc.


So let’s not be ignorant here.

The sport has evolved for sure.

But it doesn’t keep evolving continuously.

And no new punches have been invented.

A jab is a jab from any era.

Balance, leverage, technique and timing, will always be balance, leverage, technique and timing.


The only major differences are:

The smaller gloves.

Far less protection from the referees.


Other than that, there’s been nothing.

Not all the fighters today are more skilled than in previous eras. But even if they were, again, it wouldn’t make anything a foregone conclusion, as again: styles make fights.

In boxing, the biggest guy doesn’t always win. The strongest guy doesn’t always win. Even the most skilled fighter with the most technical ability doesn’t always win. And that’s a fact. We have proof of that.


Now Jack would have had a realistic chance here, irrespective of the era that he fought in.

Canelo is a small, defensive counterpuncher, with slow feet. He’s also had stamina issues in the past.

Whereas Jack was the same size as David Benavidas, who Canelo won’t fight, where he was a fast and ferocious, pressure fighter with huge power.

So he could absolutely could have given Canelo a great fight.

That would have been a tough stylistic match up for Canelo.

 

That’s simply because ALL fights are determined by the stylistic match ups.

How the two fighters match up on the night stylistically.

It’s literally 2 guys fighting, pitting their various skills, sizes, styles and attributes up against each other.

EVERY fighter, all throughout history has a stylistic nemesis.

We have ALWAYS had weight divisions.


Canelo is a SMW.

Yes, it’s 2025.

But that doesn’t mean that Canelo could have beaten ANY fighter from the 20’s, 30’s or 40’s etc, just because it’s 2025.


It doesn’t mean that he could have beaten every fighter of those eras, including all of the HW’s.

You can’t seriously believe that.

 

Jack never fought out of the Queensbury rules, which were the mainstream rules from the mid 1880s.

“If those fighters were so superior than their styles would have transcended time, their stances would still be the same today, and boxing demographics would not have changed so drasticall”

The stances and guards were bound to change drastically with how much the gloves have changed. Even then I don’t think the guard changes are radical enough to have become obsolete.

 

Just out of interest, have you got a cut off point?

Could a fighter from the 50’s beat somebody of today?

Or a fighter from the 70’s?

The stylistic clash isn’t important to you?

 

Brother please...

The most major difference between boxers of 1920s and 2020s is the fact that boxing was way more aking to street brawling and bare knuckle boxing and only later evolved into a science that was perfected over generations. In short, fighters from that era were, by todays standards, incredibly sloppy. I mean it. Look at Dempseys fight with Firpo

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. The lack relative lack of skill and basic defensive habits/footwork that are taugh in every boxing gym today is *very* apparent. Just look at the very first seconds of the first round where Dempsey lunges in hands low trying to press Fripo and promptly gets sat down on his ass. Or how off balance and sloppy they thow their shots at 1:27. Or pretty much the whole fight really. You wont catch a single ranked boxer doing this **** today. "Style matchup" does not matter when one of the opponents leagues below skill wise.

Look, Dempsey walked so Canelo could run and I respect that, but Depsey just wouldnt be **** nowdays. If he was born and trained in this era, sure, we can speculate but that is not what we are discussing.

 

The only thing that would evolve would be the shape of Canelo's swede. Ask Tommy Gibbons. Don't be blinded by the Willard onslaught and the Firpo slugfest. Jack could be measured if he wanted. Canelo open's up - which he has to if he wants to win - he's done.

 

Boxing doesn’t keep evolving.

There were fighters from decades ago who had more ability than many of today’s fighters.


And we’ve always had fighters with lots of different styles.

Boxers, swarmers, box-fighters etc.

In every era.


The training today is made up of 90% of what it’s always been for decades.

The only drastic thing, is the size.


In the modern era, Jack would have been at CW.

He wouldn’t have been a HW.


So, yes, he wouldn’t have beaten the modern day big guys.

But at CW, or even possibly LHW, if he could have gotten down to it, he’d have been a great fighter there.

Now with his size, style and his attributes, it’s only logical to believe that he’d have had mixed results in any era, at those weights, where he’d have won and lost, simply depending on who he’d have fought, and how he’d have matched up with them on the night stylistically.


Now nobody thinks that Canelo could go through all of the LHW’s and CW’s of today.

Nobody thinks that Canelo could have gone through all of the LHW’s and CW’s of the past.

That isn’t logical.


So then why is it a foregone conclusion that a 5’8, SMW, who’s a defensive counterpuncher with slow feet, would have smacked up Jack Dempsey with absolute ease??

Forget the eras.

Just look realistically, at how they’d have both matched up on the night stylistically.


Also, Canelo has literally been running from Benavidas, who is Jack’s size.

 

You’ve both got an awful lot to learn.

 

I think using the most infamous bar room brawl of the era to assess the era’s technical abilities as a whole is unfair, it was far from Dempsey’s best performance as its clear how little respect he had for Firpo from the opening bell as evident by being put on his ass in the opening 5 seconds. Writers from the time even made fun of Jack for that one.
Even then, Dempsey still rolls with Firpo’s punches (0:55-1:00, 1:58), he also shows some effective infighting and punches short on the inside for the most part.

Still, I’d say Dempsey’s best technical performances in his prime were the Tommy Gibbons fight and Bill Brennan rematch, both available on YouTube. His sparring footage against Big Bill Tate is also a far greater display of his technical abilities and speed. Even his past prime performances against Tunney and Sharkey were more technically proficient than the Firpo fight. Dempsey always struck me as someone who fought at the level of his opponent, or could easily get sucked into a brawl.

 

We still have great technicians.

We still have pressure fighters.

We still have swarmers.

We’ve had the same styles in just about every era.

The only drastic changes are the gloves and the rules from the referee.

 

Don’t make it like that.

We can have a logical debate.