Well if you count it as a Dempsey win then yeah. But I'm pretty certain the count isn't 10 seconds, just the time it takes the ref to get to 10 seconds.
Prime Joe Louis would have the best shot. Vander could be hot and cold, and yes, he was juiced. Given a level playing field I give Joe a good chance due to his consistency at the top levels. I also give Sam Langford a good chance against a cruiser Vander, tho that would be a total firefight. The juicing dynamic is really a changer on many of these but I am force to take the version we actually saw in these fights, enhanced or not.
This post illustrates your bias against an earlier era of Heavyweights. The fact is that all of these fighters (prime) would smash '96 Holyfield to pieces: Max Baer Joe Louis Max Schmeling Jack Dempsey.... Just to name 4. Others would have a good chance
I'm genuinely curious, you don't think that sometimes a better evaluation is done using hindsight and context? Is it your position that the best eval of a fighter is in the moment?
I agree with BPV. You need both. The contemporary opinion rings truer to me than the revisionist opinion. I like Walcott. Great story and a guy with unique skills no matter how consistently effective they were. His persistence is a life lesson to us all. But he wasn't top tier when we are discussing champs. He tends to bask in the glow of those whose company he shared.
Really? I've seen you argue the exact opposite view point more than the one you're subscribing to here. Countless times I've seen you disagree with the writers who were covering Corbett, Dempsey, Marciano, Baer etc etc. When contemporary writers lived through a career of a fighter and gave their opinion of them.... you've strongly disagreed with is, and used later context to more accurately judge their career and accomplishments. I've seen that far more than the inverse. Yet here, they are weighed the same? I believe hindsight is always a little better for giving an overall opinion of a fighter. It gives you the opportunity to see how their career plays out and the careers of the people they fought. Living in the moment certainly isn't more informative, nor a better way to evaluate a fighters career as a whole.
Ends up resembling Holyfield vs Seamus McDonaugh. Skill levels apart, and different eras for a reason
the great max baer on dempsey, " the day Jack fought Willard id have been lucky to last a round with him, and its not because i like him. Its because he could hit harder and move and think faster than i can. " 1935
There are a few factors at play here: When a guy in 1922 says that Dempsey is the greatest heavyweight ever, I'm fine with that. But realize that we are only talking 30+ years of MDQ boxing being the norm, and of those 30 years, yes, perhaps Dempsey was the best. I would actually agree with that assessment. However, that judgement does not translate to Dempsey being the best 100 years later. When that statement was made, the speaker had no knowledge of Louis, Liston, Ali, etc... all the way to Wlad. So, we take that statement in its context. When a guy pontificates in 1975 that Dempsey was the greatest who ever entered the ring, and that he should know because he saw Dempsey 60 years before, we can ascribe a healthy bit of skepticism because of the "rose tinted lens of youth syndrome". For instance, I will always rate Tyson a bit higher than I probably should because I was young when he was young and he captured the imagination, much like a Dempsey did. That type of impression tends to last and cloud later judgement. When a scribe comments in 1926 that Dempsey, who has a ring history dating back 13 or so years, isn't as quick to an opening, and they have witnessed both ends of the continuum, then I am apt to believe them, also. They have contained context with out the effects of nostalgia or dulled memory or any overreach of scope. So, when writers state around 1950, give or take a couple years, that Walcott is a good and skilled journeyman who got a title through perseverance, and this is based on knowledge of Walcott over those years, I tend to give these statements some credence. So, there you go.
