In post #58, I mentioned that a retiring Don Quinn and sliding Willi Besmanoff were the best career long heavyweights Bob ever knocked out. Willi weighed 194 when he won over ten rounds against the 214 pound Bob Baker (the heaviest opponent of his career). Baker was the highlight of his career, which promptly careened into a contention ruining skid. Besmanoff wasn't strictly a career long HW, having competed at 175 early on. Both Quinn and Besmanoff were shorter than Jack, and weighed about the same during what might have been their peaks as Dempsey weighed at Toledo. Have those picking Bob to defeat Jack viewed the entirety of his losses to Frazier and Ali from beginning to end? Bob says, "Ali couldn't bust a grape!" Really? What does that say about Bob's chin and punch resistance? In his bout immediately preceding Ali, he knocked out Chris Finnegan in 14 rounds for Ring's 1972 FOTY. Not long before that, he dominated Ray Anderson over the championship distance. Immediately following Ali, he closed out his reign at 175 with three more consecutive successful defenses over the championship distance. Were all seven of Ali's knockdowns of Bob strictly the result of accumulative fatigue, including the four knockdowns in round five? (Incidentally, in the last 26 fights and ten years of Muhammad's career, the only three opponents to get counted out were Coopman, Foreman and Bob Foster. Coopman and Foreman really were due to fatigue or accumulation. A single long right finished Bob though.) Frazier needed a single hook to deck Bob at the outset of round two, then just one more to keep him down for considerably longer than the referee's full count. Do those picking Bob over Jack truly believe string bean foot-in-the-bucket Bob would have the evasion and punch resistance necessary to survive for any length of time, to say nothing of having the power required to dent a legitimate heavyweight chin where Willard, Brennan, Morris and Tommy Gibbons couldn't? (Watch an aging post Dempsey Tommy blast out Bloomfield and Norfolk again, then watch those same punches do nothing to Dempsey for 15 rounds. And yes, I do believe Tommy would have knocked out Bob Foster at 175. He was that great.)
In Flynn-Dempsey there is only the testimony of Dempsey's estranged wife (who wasn't around at the time) to back up a fix. Testimony which have been contradicted by Dempsey. There is also newspaper reports which says Dempsey was out cold and that he was very disorientated when he finally came around (started slugging his cornermen). Personally, I don't think the film of Willard-Johnson says more than that Willard did connect and that Johnson did have his arm raised over his eyes. Inconclusive to me.
Bokaj, you and PowerPuncher implied that Dempsey might have an issue with a top shelf LHW closer to his own weight, but the fact is that both Battling Levinsky and Georges Carpentier were reigning ATG HOF LHW Champions at their peaks when Jack put them down and out for the count in three and four rounds respectively. As for the question of how Dempsey would have dealt with a top shelf jab, Bat Levinski certainly had one. We simply haven't seen their match on film. It is a fact that Jack was the first man to knock him out. Levinsky lifted the crown at 175 by dominating Jack "The Giant Killer" Dillon. When Tunney was in the AEF, and learned that Dempsey beat Willard, he was informed that the Mauler was a heavyweight Dillon. Considering all the matches Bat had with the Hoosier Bearcat, it's hard to imagine how he could have possibly been better prepared for dealing with the Mauler. Levinsky was experienced with big heavyweights like Carl Morris and had also taken on the likes of Greb, Fireman Flynn, Brennan, Miske, Tommy Gibbons (a failed challenger of Levinsky's), Gunboat, McGoorty, Weinert, Tunney, Renault, McTigue, Stribling, and a host of others. Now, Battling Levinski was 27 years old when Dempsey floored him for the count with a right to the jaw late in round three, after first decking him with a second round hook to the body. That was in November 1918. Carpentier dethroned Levinski two years later, knocking him out in four during October 1920. Nobody else stopped Levinski until he was 38, and even then, he wasn't counted out. Only Dempsey and Carp ever put him down to stay, and they did it when Levinski was either peak or at least still prime, in his late 20s. What Dempsey and Carpentier achieved in beating him the way they did is a criminally overlooked accomplishment, thanks to lack of film. Dempsey's post prime showings are the ones he seems most judged on, due to the assumption this must be how he always looked. That rational doesn't wash. Look at Foreman in the Olympics, then against Peralta, then in winning the title, losing it, Lyle, the Frazier rematch, Young, and during his second career. Competitive appearances can alter drastically, even from fight to fight. Along with Willard and Brennan I, Battling Levinski may be Dempsey's finest performance of any duration, but like Brennan I, we just don't have it on film. (Actually, is Carpentier-Levinski on film? I don't recall ever seeing it, but I'd expect that it ought to have been a significant enough event to have movie cameras present.)
D, I agree with you about Dempsey, who from the waist up was a 200 pounder wrecking havoc on the light heavyweight Bob Foster.Way too strong and powerful a puncher was Jack Dempsey..Today's naysayers totally deny the opinions of the great boxing minds who saw Dempsey in his prime...They, somehow 90 years later, somehow Know better than the experts who saw the Manassa Mauler. D, it seems that you, as I have, seen film of Tommy Gibbons, past his peak, flattening Jack Bloomfield in spectacular fashion. After watching that obscure film a few months ago ,I can appreciate how great a fighter Tommy Gibbons was, and now marvel that a one-eyed middleweight Harry Greb, licked Gibbons a couple of times !b.b.
See, this is what a hypothetical person vs person thread should be. I'll think about how it would posibly go and get back to you although I'm initially thinking Dempsey catches Foster cold and wins in a 1st round ambush.
i havent visited the classic forum much for over a year now, but it seems like it has turned into a joke again. Foster over Dempsey? Get outta here, Dempsey would flatten him within two rounds, most likely within one round. The flynn fight doesnt mean anything here, we are talking about a peak 1919 dempsey here. Foster would not trouble Dempsey in anyway
I've come to automatically ignore all references to the Fireman Flynn fix, particularly as the second fight demonstrated the true separation between them. Nobody discusses Ali-Liston II with any seriousness as an authentic display of Muhammad's superiority over Sonny, just a suspicious and controversial outcome. Even if accepted as a legitimate result, it's still an easily dismissed anomaly, like Hurricane Carter-Griffith. Dempsey-Fireman Flynn I is no different.
I just stated that Dempsey didn't put any of them down in the time Foster is supposed to have been blown out according to most here. And he didn't.
Levinsky and Carpentier weren't as susceptible to punchers as Bob was though, at least at the HW level. Levinski was never knocked in like 300 fights until he ran into Jack.
I have not read any of the other posts, but Foster simply never beat even a moderate heavyweight in his career. I don't see him having much of a chance against Dempsey. It would probably go like the Frazier fight.
