THE MEANEST of the HEAVYWEIGHT Champions

Joe Louis was nice guy except while fight was on, he had what theycalled Killer Instinct. So did Dempsey or anyone else that was champ.

Max Baer was nasty ****, his fight with Canera showed that. Ali was a scum bag for what he did to Ernie Terrell, plus his calling Frazier ugly and a gorilla repeatedly. He also took unsportsmenship to a disgusting level.
Dempsy like dBaer, I think, sinc ethey boxed long series of exhibits together while Baer was champ (I' d love to see films of tose if they exist)

 

Louis and Marciano wanted to get you out of there no matter what... i wouldn't say they were mean, but rather just cold, emotionless boxing machines. Must be very scary to fight. Tyson and Liston were scarier perhaps, but they could be discouraged and quit mentally when things weren't going their way, something Louis/Marciano never did. Dempsey is a bit of mix of them... he was like Tyson/Liston, but unlike them, he never showed any "quit" in him.


I think Patterson was much of the same mold of Louis; very nice guy outside of the ring (somewhat shy, even), but once inside the ropes, he did what he could to get the KO.


I think Ali during the 60's was pretty mean as well. Borderline sadistic at times. He treated Archie Moore with little respect, and if you look at the rally that makes him stagger Liston in the 3rd round of their fight, HE looks like the bully, not Liston.

In the mid to late 70's, he lost a lot a lot of that and became more of an entertainer.


Lennox Lewis could be very mean with his holding and hitting, even hit Ruddock while he was down.. but he could also fight strategically, i.e. against Tua.

 

Foneda Cox ,Liston's long term sparring partner said Sonny was a great guy till he had a certain amount of drink in him, then his personality changed.Dempsey was murder on his sparring partners and known for his rough practical jokes but got on well with his camp and had many friends among his opponents including Miske ,and Brennan.Louis was rather withdrawn when he first came to the fore ,but with coaching from Roxborough he grew into his title and his personality thawed out and he demonstrated an impish sense of humour, he was pretty easy on his sparring partners like George Nicholson ,but woe betide anyone who took a liberty.Corbett showed a nasty streak punching the huge unskilled Jeffries around when the Boilermaker was his sparring partner.Every Champion has to know how to finish an opponent,its his job ,I hazard a guess that most dont get any vicarious pleasure from it,its business.

 

Sonny Liston and George Foreman were the meanest. Mike Tyson was the nastiest. Joe Frazier was the roughest and the toughest. Ali was the fastest. Larry Holmes was the smartest.

 

George Foreman was an angry fustrated young man & admitted that when he was youger he actually wanted to kill someone in the ring to prove a point about his toughness .(Even dispatched 5? men in one day) The man had issues & that break from boxing is what he needed.

 

Holyfield was pretty brutal inside of that ring ... look at his face when he is stopping Dokes or Tyson ... he looks like he wants to kill them ...

 

John L made the mold.

 

Tuesday, August 7
Updated: August 8, 4:13 PM ET
Murray: Dempsey was the meanest
[FONT=arial, geneva]By Jim Murray[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, geneva]

This content is protected

[/FONT]

This content is protected

sorry i screwed up my post but this is a good read

 

Tuesday, August 7
Updated: August 8, 4:13 PM ET
Murray: Dempsey was the meanest
[FONT=arial, geneva]By Jim Murray[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, geneva]

This content is protected

[/FONT]

This content is protected

Editor's note: This column originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times on November 17, 1965.
There are all kinds of ways to get ready for a heavyweight championship fight. You work on what you need.
Joe Louis used to practice going to the farthest neutral corner. Gene Tunney practiced running for his life, Floyd Patterson should practice getting up and Muhammad Whatisname should practice shutting up.
Lots of fighters practice hooks to the head but Gene Fullmer used to practice hooks with the head. Rocky Marciano threw so many punches in so many directions he just had to make sure he didn't hit the referee -- or the ring posts.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

This content is protected

[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica, sans-serif]SportsCentury will profile Jack Dempsey on Friday, August 10 at 8 and 11 p.m. ET. [/FONT]

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

The man who can best testify to the terrible tornadic frenzy of the Dempsey attack is a tall, graceful, New Orleans-born Irishman named Marty Burke.
Martin Burke, now 70 and still blondhaired, is known around the sound stages of Hollywood as the father of 20th Century Fox's television star, Paul Burke ("12 O'Clock High") but he was known around the gyms and barges of New Orleans' "Irish Channel" section as "The Turk," the best left-hook artist who ever came out of bayou country.
Marty's book, if he writes it, is going to be called "1,000 Rounds with Jack Dempsey, or Did You Think I Got This Ear Answering the Telephone?"

This content is protected

Marty began to train with Dempsey well before the Dempsey-Willard fight. The two of them toured the tank towns of New Jersey and Pennsylvania where Dempsey's manager, Doc Kearns, posted a ritual $500 fee for anyone who could go the route against the tigerish Dempsey. Doc used to post himself behind the curtain with a bung starter in case any of the tank palookas got lucky, but Marty recalls the few who squared off against Dempsey went out on a stretcher. Marty had to take up the slack and keep the show going.

This content is protected

This content is protected

Marty's next-hardest fight was with Harry Greb. "He hit me so often, I actually turned around to see who was helping him. With Greb, it was a good thing he couldn't hit hard because he hit often. With Dempsey, it was a good thing he didn't hit often because he hit hard."
At 6 feet 3 inches, Marty had altitude going for him in most fights. Also, he presented a slim target. He weighed as little as 154 when he first began to tour with Dempsey. He fought George Godfrey, on of the great Negro fighters of the '20s, only after the boxing commission told him to put on four more pounds on the afternoon of the fight. Marty spent the rest of the day draining down bootleg ale and Guinness Stout. He not only made the weight, he almost made the drunk tank. This was the first time they ever had to give a fighter a shower BEFORE the fight. Marty showed up at 175 pounds, singing "Mother Machree." Godfrey, a two-bottle man himself, just looked jealous.
Marty even won the fight. At 220 and cold sober, Godfrey was no match for him, and this was at a time when all the ranking heavyweights were ducking behind the color line and keeping Godfrey, known variously as the "Baron of Leiperville" or the "Leopard of Leiperville" and other alliterations, at bay. In time, Godfrey came up to Marty after the bout and allowed, "Turk, you're the first fighter I met in a long time didn't ax me to handcuff myself."
After Dempsey, Burke didn't see any need to ask anybody to handcuff himself. In fact, he was the first to know it when Dempsey began to lose it all. "I told him before the Tunney fight, 'Jack, you know you can't fight anymore. Tunney shouldn't lose a round.'" It turned out, Tunney didn't. Not even the one he was knocked down in for 14 seconds in the second fight.
Marty drifted around the fight game for several more years after that -- or until he got knocked out in one round by Young Stribling. "Five years before, Stribling couldn't have hit me with a handful of birdseed."
Back in New Orleans, Marty opened a French Quarter saloon so tough the shore patrol used to walk it in platoon strength. Some of Marty's last fights were with longshoreman half his age and twice his weight and one night when business was good, Marty sat down after he had stacked a few customers in a neat pile outside the front door, and reached in his mouth and extracted three teeth by hand which had already been loosened by fists.
He spoke in a lisp as he inspected the bloody molars. "I wonder," he questioned, "how Dempsey missed these?"
Thi

 

Dempsey fought every minute like he wanted to kill his opponent. Got mean as a hobo riding the trains.

 

Got schooled by Tunney.

Seriously, he won 1 out of 20 rounds against the great Gene.