How good was Dempsey's title reign?

Well, we've also had people trying to argue Dempsey beat Tunney in the rematch. :scaredas:

 

U, you nailed it !
When just a few months ago, photos of the Dempsey /Wills signing was shown on youtube,with the promoter floyd Fitzpatrick , it was not CONTESTED that they actually did SIGN. Today it was "just a ploy on Dempsey's part !!! As if all these years newspaperman who were at the signing,along with the officials were duped. Another conspiracy theory concocted by people, that amazingly just came to light eighty five years later.
For lo these many years I have read of that signing, along with thousands of others, and it was "just a piece of paper Dempsey and Wills signed. What next ? The U.S. moon landing was just a hoax ? Cheers U :hi:

 

Did those six links and your own link show Greb to be a murderous puncher who posed a huge threat to Dempsey?.. they showed that some promoters was looking to stage an 8 or 10rd no-decision fight between Greb & Dempsey.. yet why should Dempsey & Kearns give Greb & his promoters a huge payday.. klompton claimed it was a bigger payday for Dempsey than what he got for fighting Carpentier which sinply is not true.. That link i posted told how Greb was a very weak puncher so what would Dempsey have to fear from him?.. fight fans want to see Heavyweights and in particular the Heavyweight Champion fight the best and as i pointed out Greb was not a Heavyweight.

 

We have access to mass media, film, and eyewitness accounts that the vast majority of so called experts of the time didn't. Are you aware that that vast majority of boxing experts had never seen georges carpentier prior to sham his bout with levinsky? You realize that even the average boxing historian today has seen more of carpentier than his contemporaries in the usa? Are you aware that very few so called experts had little if any access to first hand accounts outside of their own town or city? Or that even well into the 1970s microfilm wasn't widely available meaning that eyewitness accounts were in large part lost for decades after being printed unless you actually took the time to travel to that city and thumb through thousands of pages of newspaper morgues (and that's even if you were given access). The idea that so called experts of the 1950s etc were infallible is a joke if you actually follow up on their stories. Even nat fleischer can be caught regularly lying about fights he was supposedly at etc which don't jive with the timeline of his life. Why is their opinion of any greater value than anyone else? Because they are old? Big deal. They also more often than not have rose colored glasses in regards to dempsey like bury trying to say no one was tougher when the guy is ducking his two best challengers for years. Yeah. Real tough guy.

 

Gillette fights, Pabst blue Ribbon fights to name a couple along with Madison Square Garden fight films... your talking rubbish as tho everyone lived in some kind of cocoon.. guys like Ray Arcel seen Greb & Dempsey on a regular basis from ringside as did the vast majority of historians who took part in those polls..fights was recorded on reels which is what we are watching today. they was not hidden away and unearthed when DVDs arrived in the early 2000s i collected fights in the 1960s from guys who advertised on the back page of boxing magazines, we then moved on to VHS tapes... Newspapers was more accesible back in the 30s-70s than they are today and they was free to access unlike today.

 

So demosey and greb and wills fought on the gillete friday night fights and pabst blue ribbon? Really? That's news to me. Furthermore, are seriously going to argue that in the 1950s film of these fights was as readily available or easy to study as it is today? That's horse**** and if you collected back then you would know it. The biggest complaint of old timer collectors is that the proliferation of films on vhs, dvd, and digital formats has made the copy and spread of such films far easier and less expensive. If you wanted to trade films even into the 1970ss how did you make a copy? Exactly. It wasn't easy and not everybody could or would do it. Finally, your ascertion that newspapers were easier to acquire back then than they are now is ludicrous. You can order microfilm now or even look up articles online. Back then microfilm was not nearly as widespread and newspaper morgues were far less willing to allow access to their paper copies. You obviously don't know what you are talking about. Your comment on film can be rebutted by jim jacobs himself. He often said that he found it amusing to show these so called experts film of their favorite fighter and watch as he couldn't even tell you who it was. These guys were no different than burt who has an idealized view in his head that doesn't exactly fit with the facts.

 

no Greb & Dempsey or Wills was not shown on Gillette or Pabst Blue Ribbon but film was recorded of their fights which is what we watch today.. that film was not available to the masses but it was still available in MSG archives as was boxing magazines like the police journal, ring magazine etc.. what you are trying to say is that those Historians who took part in the Ring Magazine poll in 62 and the A P poll in 1950 had nothing to go on when making their choice which is ludicrous...are you saying that Ray Arcel is wrong and you who have done research is correct?

 

This forum is a hotbed of the new revisionism regarding Dempsey.
In the wider world and across the width and breath of time and places where great fighters have been discussed, Dempsey has always been regarded as one of the greatest fighters ever.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But when they have done an awful lot of historical research and seem only to select or note the facts that suit their revisionist/iconoclastic agenda, I can't fail to notice that.

Yes, I agree.
And it's okay saying "they overrated him a lot" but with Dempsey that seems to be being stretched way beyond breaking point, IMO.

I understand that. I'm a big fan of the Greeks myself. :good
But the points being made are often historical facts that need to be seen in a historical context, not isolated from the bigger picture in an effort to come to a pre-supposed conclusion.

For example, if offers and arrangements and intentions of a Dempsey-Greb fight fell through or were ignored because of some failure on the part of Dempsey and Kearns, the conclusion of drawn that it's a straight-up "duck".
But when the historical context shows that offers and arrangements and intentions of Dempsey v Joe Beckett (for example)also never materialised into an actual fight, on more than one occasion, and such information is ommitted in the discussion, while everyone's whooping and hollering that they've seen someone PROVE something definite and "destroyed everyone in debate" .... I'm a little less impressed.
I have my doubts, and see the use of selective facts and sophist arguments for what they are.
That's all.

It's not "name calling".
We are just internet geeks.
There are revisionists in this debate.
And "self-appointed Uber-historians" (or whatever I said) .... "sanctimonius twaddle" ... "naive" is no worse than what's being said about people who consider Dempsey a great fighter all the time.
"Fanboy", "deluded", "apologist", "brainwashed" etc. ......

And, besides, they were the only words I could find at the time to describe the phenomenon I've witnessed here.

 

Who wrote all those first hand accounts ?
Where were all those eyewitnesses to fights in the 1920s - 1950s ?
They were still alive.

These are the very people who shaped the rating of Dempsey as such a great fighter.

To correct you on one of your examples, the average boxing historian today hasn't seen anything of Carpentier, whereas some of the writers who followed him even if just in one or two fights had a better insight. The modern historian only seen old grainy black and white film. They haven't sat ringside witnessing the real Georges Carpentier.
There's a world of difference.

 

In the Lounge right now there's a thread about the EPL managers' team of the last decade. Shearer got in on the expense of Henry. That's ludicrous to anyone with even a passing interest in the league, but, hey, they are professionals that of course have much more knowledge and have seen many more games than I have. Still, they're clearly wrong. Should I pretend like this isn't so since they're professional trainers and I'm not?

 

To those who decry some "oldtimers" [including yours truly].having no access to oldtime
fighters seen on film,compared to today's dvd's, I say WRONG!! In the middle 1940s a film documentary called "Kings Of The Ring " came out in selective theatres. I saw that great full scale film with my dad at a theatre in Kip's Bay, NY..It was fantastic showing rare and wonderful bouts from the turn of the century, in FULL SCALE. Not on small dvd's but in full-scale. It ran about 90 minutes ,and I recall the audience applauding at the end. There were no commercials and i believe the narrator was Nat Fleischer. Seeing these great fighters of the past in full-screen size,sans commercials, was a treat for us, and I never forgot that film.
On a full screen you see things that you miss on the postage size dvd's of today...
If that old documentary, still exist's I know not, but it has forever given me an appreciation of the old-time gladiators sen so VIVIDLY on that film,circa,1945 abouts...

 

Once again you are pretending to know about something that you obviously dont. Otherwise you would be aware that the Madison Square Garden film archive, purchased by Cayton/Jacobs in the 1970s did not have a single Dempsey film in it. Not one. But lets back up and pretend they did. Do you suppose that you could just walk up to the executive offices of MSG and they would get some page to retrieve a film of Dempsey and find a screening room for you, and then screen the film? Please! Thats the height of ignorance. Go ask Don King if he can get someone to screen one of his fights for you and see how far you get. Yes, my ascertion is that a lot of the supposed experts you refer to were largely ignorant of their subject and that their work was based in large part on a web knowledge culled from other, secondary sources. That is why so many of the absolute bull**** stories of the 1940s 50s 60s and 70s are being burst in the last several years. the problem is that people like yourself, and burt enjoy the rich texture of those stories rather than the historical facts and cant seem to let them go. You would defend them even in light of the truth. Thats fine, you can hang on to those myths, just dont be surprised when someone points out the inaccuracy of such stories.