Why the polarised views on Dempsey?

As for Miske, it is well documented in several primary articles that he was known to be terminally ill at this point.

The odds were 7:1 in Dempsey's favor. Stop and sit for a while to think how incredibly long those odds are. Paul McClosky right now is given 7:1 odds against Amir Khan. Just to make it clear, 7:1 really means you have no chance at all.

But, wait. Didn't Billy Miske drew with Dempsey in a 10 rounder before, and had another very close bout over 6? So if he was at 1:1 odds two years earlier, why did he all of a sudden fall to shitfaced **** odds at 7:1? You do the math..

This is true. Only the really dangerous black man were avoided. Oh, the convenience of being able to draw the color line and pulling the race card to get out of jail free.. Even Jack Johnson used the color line*.


*He didn't, he just refused to fight the dangerous opponents out there; just like Dempsey did with Wills and Greb, only the latter didn't have such an easy excuse, so he ended up fighting the loser of title eliminators..

 

I think it's relevant. ChrisPontius was suggesting Wills was fighting all the better fighters Dempsey should have been fighting.
In fact, Wills spent much of Dempsey's reign coasting along with easy set-ups, and had some horrible performances, as well as a couple of year-long layoffs.

To use a current example for analogy, I think Povetkin's stock has dropped since he established himself in 2007-'08, because he's been fighting meaningless fights since. If it carries on, surely we're allowed to question his status as a leading contender.

Firstly, I was countering ChrisPontius's claims.
I think people are quick to glorify what Wills was doing, and quick to scrutinize Dempsey's performances.

Looking bad against Clem Johnson and Bill Tate in 1922 and fighting guys like Ray Bennett, Buddy Jackson, Denver Ed Martin ...... or Jack Thompson for the umpteenth time .... this is largely what the great Harry Wills was up to during his looming-over-Dempsey years.

Billy Miske arguably had as good a 1922 and 1923 as Harry Wills had, and he was just about to keel over and die.

 

Wills was the second-best heavyweight of the era due to him being near the top over a long period of time.
He had longevity.

(And that's why he deserved a shot. He'd paid his dues, he'd earned the payday.)

That's not the same thing as him being the best contender continuously throughout the period.

Also, he didn't beat "everyone out there except for Jack" - he never fought Willard, Greb, Gibbons, Miske, Tunney to name a few.

I agree, everyone would have liked to have seen the fight.

But whether promoters and mayors and governors were really prepared to promote it deserves to be seriously doubted.

If you want to dwell on that one five-word sentence ("he exposed the Carpentier hype") which, I think, is self-evidently true, then go ahead.

No, I don't think Carpentier was a legitimate threat.

Of course there's a element (on Dempsey/Kearns part) of lowering the risk, and milking the title, but the challengers they chose were mostly genuinely very good fighters, contenders - and the best of them not the light years away from Wills and Greb that people are claiming they were.

 

Jack Thompson and Jeff Clark again, I suppose.

Not Bill Tate though, he's getting too hard to beat.

 

..... because Dempsey had since kicked the holy crap out of Willard ?

 

18 Pages of this? :roflatsch

 

1920s HW boxing is like the 2011 Cricket World Cup with India, pak1stan and Sri Lanka barred from entering and the best white challenger to the champions, in NZ, being banned for being too small. Australia are again the 2011 World Cricket Cup winners

 

That alone doesn't make him the "unqestionably best" HW for the coming 7 years. In that case Douglas would have been the unqestionably best HW until 1997. You know what the main difference between Douglas and Dempsey is? Douglas took on his most dangerous contender. That's how he lost his crown. That's often how champions lose their crowns.

Who was that? The nr. 1 contender for 7 years?

This was a none issue when Lewis was champion, since Bowe was retired.

Cooper was nowehere near top contender, Johansson was retired when Liston became champ (and was KO'd twice by the man Liston KO'd twice)

No, it isn't. Holmes gets just criticism for this. Even though Thomas hardly was a Wills.

Only in your head.

In some cases they should. Holmes' ranking take a big beating on my list for not having wins against Thomas, Greb, Coetzee etc.

In your mind. But he didn't prove it.

So was Douglas. Tunney wasn't counted out. Neither was Douglas.

Yeah, except the best fighter he met.

 

So apart from Wills, who were the best black contenders of that period?

 

I don't view myself as politically correct normally, but this one I have some trouble with. It just is so clear that Wills' precarious position as the outstanding challenger that couldn't get a title shot for 7 has to do with his race. Denying it just to make Dempsey look better... I have a hard time swallowing this. I'm sorry.

You've kept in on a decent level, Burt, and I hate to be the first with name calling.... So, yes, I'll retract what I said about moral fibre. I apologize for that. But I do think it's a clouded stance to the issue not calling the treatment of Wills for what it was.

 

Lets have a look at what rankings we have for Dempsey's era. Ring magazine did not start compiling their anual ratings untill 1924.

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1924

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4. Charley Weinert
5. Quintin Romero Rojas
6. Jack Renault
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9. Jim Maloney
10. Erminio Spalla

1925

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4. Jack Renault
5. Bud Gorman
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8. Bob Fitzsimmons
9. Paolino Uzcudun
10. Jim Maloney
11. Harry Persson
12. King Solomon
13. Johnny Risko
14. Ray Neuman
15. Jim Keeley

1926

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4. Jim Maloney
5. Paolino Uzcudun
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7. Jack Renault
8. Harry Persson
9. Knute Hansen
10. Johnny Risko
11. Sully Montgomery
12. Sandy Seifert
13. Jack DeMave
14. Monte Munn
15. Arthur De Kuh

1927

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4. Tom Heeney
5. Johnny Risko
6. Paolino Uzcudun
7. Jack Delaney
8. Vittorio Campolo
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10. Knute Hansen
11. Jack Dorval
12. Jack Renault
13. Arthur De Kuh
14. Phil Scott
15. George Cook

Harry Wills retains the #1 spot until Jack Sharkey beats him. However it has to be noted that Dempsey fights both Tunney and Sharkey while they are right at the top of the division.

Tommy Gibbons is prety solidly in the #2 spot untill Tunney beats him.

Luis Firpo is in the #7 spot by 1924, but this is following his losses to both Dempsey and Wills. Going into the Dempsey fight he would certainly have been top 5 and possibly top 3.

Here is where it gets interesting.

Outside of Wills there isn't realy any top black contender with a strong position in the rankins, so the issue is not so much the fact that he drew the colour line as the fac tthat he specificaly failed to fight Wills.

 

And this is exactly the point I made earlier. Wills wasn't so much avoided because of the color of his skin. He was avoided because the threat he represented, as was Greb. The fact that Wills was black provided Dempsey with an excuse not to fight him, though. He was held on a leash, after several promises ("we'll fight you after a tuneup") that were never held, Wills was promised a title shot if he got by Firpo. He beat Firpo by one-sided decision and of course what happens? He never got his shot, but Dempsey goes on the fight the guys losing to Greb, the other guy he steered clear off.

Tell me then, who clearly had a better claim to the #1 contender spot in the period of 1917-1926?

It's true that he didn't beat everyone out there. For the same reason he never beat Dempsey - you can't beat a man who refuses the fight you.

It can be even more seriously doubted whether Dempsey and/or his manager wanted Wills in the first place.

Okay, thank you for the honesty.

Wills make most people's top15, some people's top10 heavyweight of all time-lists. He went undefeated for 10 years while facing top opposition. None of Dempsey's title challengers or even other conquests (Willard, Fulton) even come close to that.

On top of that, Wills and Greb have in fact beaten many Dempsey opponents one or two years before or after Dempsey beat them. So Wills and Greb they're not lightyears ahead, at least they are head-to-head ahead.