Dempsey's pre-title run, quality of opposition

I know this much Prime Dempsey would have made Jack Johnson look like a fool with his primitive skills and holding and clinching. :deal

 

haha right now Rico is definately making more sense than you McGrain - welcome Rico :hi: stick around

Dempsey famously avoided Langford on the way up did he???:roll: It's funny how that was never EVER mentioned anywhere in print that I have read - and thats covering collections of the Ring Magazine dating back to the 1940's and also the original editionof the ring magazine also and numerous documentaries I've watched on Dempsey and numerous books on the man and his career???? Yeah he must have REEAAALLLLY FAAAAMMMMOUSLY avoided Langford?!!! I doubt he was even on Langford's radar on the in 1915/1916 - Langford still hadn't quite dropped from frying bigger fish in bigger ponds even at that stage - and I wouldn't have blamed the young Dempsey from giving Langford a wide birth at that stage anyway?? It would have been beyond crazy at that early stage - Dempsey himself said Langford was far to experienced for him at that stage in his career - the likes of Andre Anderson and Bert Kenny were baptisms of fire for him at that stage without even thinking about Sam Langford - Greb I know sparred with Dempsey on a few occassions and as with everyone gave him a real run for his money but again I don't genuinely think Greb would've been able to live with Dempsey properly in a real fight.

PS Nobodies stating that Dempsey was fighting the best around on his way up - that would be ridiculous??? You fight the best around when you get to that level?? Otherwise everyone would just take on the heavyweight champion of the world in their very first fight and forget wasting their time with their first 40 or so fights?? Whats your point??

 

You have to decide if it worth your time to try serious debate with fanatics who care nothing of the facts and spew endless nonsense ... there are a handful of fanatics here who do Marciano a serious diservice with their childish rants ..

 

You obviously decided it was worth your time to type that - pr1ck

 

Sorry McGrain just had to get that one back at the arrogant SOB HeGrant

Yeah genuinely I've never ever seen in print anywhere in 25 years of being a 'fanatical' follower of all things boxing history anything about a young Dempsey 'refusing to fight Langford' - not being funny or anything - just haven't but as I said previously - it would've been a crazy decision to throw Dempsey in with someone like Sam Langford at that raw stage - it was crazy enough throwing him in with full blown heavyweights when he was just a growing middleweight - no wonder he was getting knocked down left right and centre on the way up?!!

 

For Dempsey to have taken on Langford when he's criticized for not having done so would have been sheer lunacy. (More like a Darwin Award type stunt.) Sam was shorter, but he was also competing at 200 pounds as early as 1913 (around the weight he was at for Jeannette X in Paris, which we've all scrutinized the film of), and already had well over 100 fights by 1912. Jack wouldn't have been ready for him prior to 1918 and Brennan I, by which time Langford was past it.

To look at Dempsey's pre-title run means to look at 1918, when he was 22 to 23 years of age, and everything came together with Kearns. He'd already made an impression on eyewitnesses, but what he did to 67 fight veteran Brennan in February was stunning. Battling Levinski was near peak, and nobody had stopped him in 250 bouts. Sure, he could be beaten, but taking him out the way Dempsey did was another matter.

 

While it serves no purpose to think about such things, if Jack Dempsey indeed weighed 170 in a bout it would with modern day weigh-ins be possible for him to fight Hagler at middleweight at that instance.

It does put into perspective how size has changed, and how older fighters might be better matched against modern fighters competing in one or even two lighter classes.

For instance, I wonder how clear the size difference between Jack Dempsey and a man like Gerald McLellan really was.

 

Marvin Hagler would outclass Jack Dempsey

 

Dempsey is underrated on this board...Jack had a nice run and he had a strong pre-title resume if you compare him to most

 

If we compare Dempsey's pre-title run with Liston's then:

For the Jack the best wins are Fulton, Brennan and Miske with Gunboat Smith and Flynn making up the second tier.

For Sonny the best are Folley, Machen, Williams and Valdes with Whitehurst, Bethea and perhaps De John making up the second tier (Westphal?).

So?

 

So, which one to you consider the most impressive?