Boxing 88 : Tyson - Dempsey

Indeed,

Tyson never proved that he had enough decency to allow concerned ringsiders to help him back into the ring after being knocked out of it by a man of tremendous skill like Luis Firpo. He was also a heartless sole, who never took petty by giving a sick, financially struggling man who was 3-3-1 in his last 7 bouts a title shot. He also would have done himself well to have a few non-title bouts against some guys who were comparable to that of the great Jim Darcy, as this would have clearly helped his public relations. Everett Martin would have done quite nicely. Frankly I'm not sure why he fought men like Spinks, Tucker, Williams, Biggs and Bruno, when there were better men like Cooney, Cobb, Crabtree, Zouski, and Duplooey. Finally, I think the reason Tyson lost his title was because the constant activity and pressures of fighting on a regular basis finally got to him. Had he taken a few years off, and sat on the title to rest and think things over, he well may have kept the belt, or better yet, why defend it at all?

 

Imagine the crying and whining Tyson would have done to the referee if an opponent had pushed him through the ring ropes. That scared little boy comes out. Cover your ears ringsiders, he's about to bite !

He probably would have been fighting to be left outside the ring, pulling that crying baby face of his. Meanwhile, Don King and Jose Sulaiman would be disqualifying the opponent for some reason or other.

Well, he gave plenty of bums bigger paydays than they would have got in title shots. Ever heard of Peter McNeeley ?

Dempsey's bout with Jim Darcy has escaped notice of almost everyone who ever wrote about him. Never knew about it before boxrec, it was an exhibition, a bit like Tyson's summer '87 exhibition with Tillis, which has gone unnoticed too. So much for PR.

Last time I checked Tyson defended his "titles" almost exclusively against black Americans. Oh, he did fight Frank Bruno, a black Brit.
But Dempsey fought TWO non-Americans, one from France, one from Argentina.

I have to give credit to Tyson for finally losing to a big docile IRISH OAF though. That's the height of race relations. If Tyson ever comes back I expect him to lose to a woman. That might win him some friends. Everyone gets a chance to beat up little Mikey !

Even going by the record books, Dempsey had more fights in a shorter career than Tyson had, and probably more that haven't been uncovered.

 

Hard to say. Bob Feller, the legendary fireballer and American war hero, was timed at 98.7 MPH using a photoelectric array (a very invasive method of timing a moving object using a series of connected cameras - more accurate than a radar gun in most instances, but impossible to do during an actual game since the camera array must be on the field) designed by the Army Ordinance Department in 1946.

Feller's career began in 1936, the year after Ruth retired, so they never faced each other. However, umpires and other players did, of course, span the careers of both. The general consensus was that Feller threw slightly harder than left-handed ace Lefty Grove, who himself was considered to throw slightly slower than legendary Hall of Famer Walter Johnson (who held the career strikeout record for almost 70 years before Nolan Ryan broke it).

In his book "The Physics of Baseball", Robert Adair points to a published 1914 record of Walter Johnson's best fastball being timed at 99.7 MPH using a ballistic pendulum, a method of timing that I consider slightly inferior to a radar gun. In a 1917 test while wearing street clothes and throwing off flat ground (rather than a pitching mound), Johnson was timed at 134 feet-per-second, or 91 MPH.

So I think it is fair to say that during his legendary career, The Babe faced his share of hard-throwers. However, I would also note that raw velocity alone is nowhere near as important as control and movement of the pitch. Consider that the greatest pitchers of the modern era - Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Greg Maddux, Bert Blyleven, etc., were *never* timed at 100MPH on a single pitch, despite the proliferation of radar guns.

 

Magoo,
I notice you've added a sentence about "Cooney, Zouski, Crabtree, Duplooy" in an edit of your post. Perhaps to offset your ridiculous assertion that Tyson gave title shots to a ethnically and racially diverse group of challengers ?

 

Oh, you removed your most ridiculous statement as well.

Better luck next time.

:good

 

Mr. Magoo, as much as I like your avatar, you sir are being ridiculus. Sonny's Jab has done an excellent rebuttal of this post, but there is one thing I'd like to add.

Dempsey did sign to fight Harry Wills in 1925 http://www.antekprizering.com/dempseywillstelegram.html

 

I posted this before I noticed that he had removed the ethnic comment so its not totally relevant anymore.

 

I remember something similar done around the same time in The Ring; Tyson against the greats: With everyone at their best, and weighing 215lbs.

Pretty sure Demsey beat Tyson off the floor in four.

Tyson went something like 7-5 over the 12 greats named.

Louis, Ali, Holmes and Johnson also went over him I believe.

 

:good

Naaa. He'd be more likely to knock out the people helping him back in rather than being concerned about dealing with the incredible force that Firpo would have proven to be.

 

He refuted absolutely nothing that I said. One of his so called rebuddles was to compare Dempsey's title defense against Billy Miske to Tyson's tuneup fight with McNeeley. If he can't tell the difference between a world title fight and a comeback bout, then I seriously have to question his ability to rebuddle any argument as it may pertain to boxing.

[/quote]

I was already well aware of this, and believe me, it was a media stunt. Wills was never going to get a shot at Dempsey and thats all there is to it.

 

Had he fought these men, and neglected to face men like Spinks, then his reign would have been no different than Dempsey's.

 

Actually, magoo, your response to my original post (on the topic of this thread) was no sort of rebuttal either.
All of it was totally irrelevant to the subject of Dempsey-Tyson match-up, and much of it was just plain wrong.

You want to deflect the subject away from the facts that point towards Dempsey being a better fighter than Tyson.
Dempsey was an all-time great FIGHTER, he never punked out, never cried and whined to the referee, he took it as well as he dished it out.
He was tougher than Tyson. Put two explosive fighters together, and I'd pick the guy with toughness and heart.
Everyone should see that makes sense, but people here seem to fool themselves into thinking the SIZE OF TYSON'S NECK or some other crap would be the deciding factor.

You criticized Dempsey for being "charitable" giving Miske a payday.
Tyson gave a bum like McNeeley a payday, and you excuse it as a "non-title tune-up". But that excuse can only carry so far.

Firstly, Miske was NOT a bum on McNeeley's level. Nor is he comparable to a pure clubfighter like Bobby Crabtree. You'll probably disagree, and insist that Miske was one of the worst fighters ever. Sure, he was a very bad choice for a title fight at that time, I dont excuse that, but he had SOME "pedigree".

Secondly, Dempsey and Ali came off similar layoffs to Tyson and didn't fight bums like McNeeley ! Dempsey lost to Tunney, Ali beat Quarry. But there's absolutely no good excuse for Tyson fighting McNeeley. Then again, he gets credit from some for winning back a "title" against a mediocrity like Bruce Seldon, who went down without being hit.

But these are all peripheral issues.

By all means, CARRY ON with your criticisms of Dempsey. Criticise him for fighting exhibitions, criticize his inactivity, criticize his ducking, or criticize him losing to (the great) Gene Tunney, a "lightheavyweight", and criticize him retiring at 32. It's all laughable stuff, when you're putting Mike Tyson forward as a superior - or possibly even "greater"(!) - fighter.

 

Some points have to be made.

Dempsey was better technicaly than Tyson as an ofensive fighter all round. He was litteraly the Tyson upgrade.

One historian said that Dempsey was everything Tyson wanted to be but couldnt. That is so true psychologicaly.

Only a fool makes a confident pick in a bout between two fighters like Dempsey and Tyson. The train wreck nature of the fight makes the result more dependent on chance than most stylistic matchups.

This will be brutal ugly and short. If I simply have to put money down it is going on Dempsey. Most details of this match work subtley his way.

 

Lets look at the facts here

A. Dempsey advertised for a promotor to arrange a fight between him and Wills. The headline the next day was

"Dempsey disolves the colour bar"

B. Dempsey signed to fight Wills.

C. The New York State athletic comision banned the fight for fear that it would cause race riots.

D. Dempsey again sought a promotor to arrange a match with Wills and found one.

E. The offer was not on the level and Dempseys cheque bounced.

Now by all means criticise Dempseys record on the grounds that he didnt fight Wills but dont acuse him of ducking him.

If anything Dempsey should be praised for trying to do what Jeffries and indeed Johnson would not do at any price. Wills himself always respected that Dempsey had tried to make the fight.

 

I'm not so sure Tyson was stronger than Dempsey. He was often times bullied in the clinches and didnt do much there.