Why the polarised views on Dempsey?

Not sure if I should be flattered by this or not!

 

Sullivans best days were well behind him by the time Jackson was a factor in the division, but that is an argument for another day.

 

McGrain,

All I can say is Wills must have started to slip sometime, and he slipped pretty far, because I don't believe his fight with Sharkey is at all representative of what a near-prime Wills can do.
I may be wrong, in which case I need to give Sharkey more credit.

Beating Firpo is like Holmes schooling Mercer.
Sure, Wills wasn't 42, he was about 35, but the gulf in boxing ability is probably even wider.
And Mercer is on a par with some of the better ones Holmes was beating in his prime.
But that doesn't mean Holmes hadn't slipped A LOT by 1992.

Another heavyweight - Tony Tucker - positively slipped, IMO, between 1987 and 1993, but remained unbeaten, and beat some rated fighters.

Ali reckoned Zora Folley had slipped a fair bit from his prime by '67, and Folley was on a good run too, and rated high.

Good enough for you for what ? To say that Wills hadn't slipped much ?

I think it more likely that Wills has been on the decline some time before he fought Sharkey, it wasn't some sudden slip.
His prime started around 1915, he seems completely finished by 1926/'27.

He may have still been top 4 all the way up to (and including) the fight with Sharkey, but he probably wasn't near as great as he had been for 3 or 4 years before that.

 

I think its quite likely Wills was slipping coming into 1922, he was still the best contender for several years but it seems his performances weren't quite what they were and he was old with allot of miles on the clock. Ideally this fight should have been in 1920 to give us the best of both men but Wills is still the best contender until Sharkey/Tunney took over

 

Guys Wills was seven years older than Dempsey. Sharkey beat a 37 yeat old Wills ... When Dempsey was 37 he was getting slapped around by King Fish Levinsky ... Going by the Sharkey fight is a joke if you are trying to gage the talent of Wills

 

I,concur...37 years old is not an age to evaluate Harry Will's prime...

 

People really underrate Wills 2 round knockout win over Norfolk in 1922. Kid Norfolk was a great fighter, whom beat both Harry Greb and Billy Miske. Dempsey seemed to want no part of Norfolk. He was a serious contender at both light-H and Heavyweight. Wills destroyed him.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...=6271,351621&dq=kid+norfolk+harry+wills&hl=en

 

And Tommy Gibbons destroyed Kid Norfolk in 1924 also...

 

Norfolk was nearly blind by 1924.

 

People who think Dempsey was infallible have an interesting take on history:

In 1920 Norfolk was the sparring partner for Bill Brennan as Bill trained for Dempsey. Norfolk reportedly handled Brennan easily in sparring. After the Brennan fight Dempsey was told to steer clear of Norfolk because if he nearly lost to Brennan that wouldnt bode well for his chances with the Keed.

In 1921 Norfolk tried to join Dempsey's training camp for Carpentier and Dempsey wouldnt even spar with him (He also refused to spar with Greb).

In 1922 Norfolk and Wills were matched for a title eliminator to Dempsey. They were the top black challengers. Wills absolutely destroyed Norfolk. At the same time Greb and Gibbons were matched as the top white challengers for Dempsey. Gibbons was dominated.

For nearly a year and half Dempsey refused to fight Wills, and Greb elected instead to go idle.

In 1923 Dempsey didnt defend against Wills, and he didnt defend against Greb. He defended against a guy who lost a title eliminator: Gibbons. ("you two guys fight it out to prove whose best and I'll face the loser..." ????)

In 1924 Gibbons knocks out Norfolk and somehow thats supposed to trump or equal what Wills did in an actual title eliminator more than 2 years previous???

That argument might hold some water if Gibbons had, say, knocked out Wills. But even then it doesnt change the fact that from 1919 to 1924 when, in this alternate universe Wills is KOd by Gibbons, Dempsey had ducked his number one contender.

There is simply no way around the fact that for 7 years, his entire reign, Dempsey ducked and dodged his top contender. Thats just a fact. All of the excuses that have been bandied about are just those. The guy didnt fight him. Period. For a good 3 or 4 years he also avoided Greb who was hot on his heals. Thats a fact as well. Its also a fact that during his reigned he defended against: A man he knew was dying and no longer a challenge. A man he had already defeated by KO and who had been defeated 4 times by Greb over the previous year and half. An overprotected hype job LHW who was so mismatched that the promoters wouldnt even let press in to see his sparring because they didnt want to hurt the gate. A guy who had lost his shot at the title in an elimination bout and had done little or nothing to distinguish himself since that loss. A crude, wild swinging slugger who was literally imported from Argentina by Rickard for the express purpose of having Dempsey slaughter an "exotic" acquiring his shot only by defeating a slew of retreads. Tunney was definately class and in hindsight a threat but keep in mind even he was selected over Wills because a smaller, seemingly timid, light punching fancy dan. In short, he was the safer bet. So intent on facing Tunney over Wills were Dempsey, and Rickard that they opted to take a ban in New York State and went on the road to Philadelphia to stage the fight instead.

 

Klompton,

When did Norfolk's eye sight really start to deteriorate? I have read one historians claim he was well past his prime when gibbons fought him.