1950 Joe Louis vs Dempsey's big men

According to one of the sources you've provided, Louis KOd Elmer Ray twice in exhibitions.

 

Cross trainer--without reprinting your post about these four men:

I think it is dubious to assume any fighter is "better than his record". That is sort of like saying a golfer shot 10 over par but he was actually better than that. This really makes no sense. He shot 10 over par. That is what he shot and that measures how good he was for that round of golf.

 

But there's no equivalent to a golf score in boxing.

We could say simply :
Jess Willard was the reigning CHAMPION OF THE WORLD . No ifs or buts, he was champion of the world.
That's what he was and that measures how good he was at the time.

 

No one doubts that. He was champion of the world, as were Primo Carnera and Jimmy Braddock and Leon Spinks at one time. That does not exactly put them on the same plane as Muhammad Ali or Joe Louis when they were the champions of the world.

What is your point? That the champion of the world is automatically a greater victory than someone who is not champion of the world?, so Dempsey's victory over Willard is automatically more impressive than his victory over Jack Sharkey, or Louis' victory over Braddock is automatically more impressive than his victories over Baer or Walcott, or Johnson's win over Burns is automatically more impressive than his victory over Jeffries? Would it have been more impressive to defeat Leon Spinks in 1978 than it would have been to defeat Larry Holmes?

That said, beating the reigning champion of the world is always an important achievement.

 

My point is simply that in the absence of any sort of equivalent to a golf score (your example) in boxing what are we left with ?

I think we are left with our own subjective judgments on how good these fighters are.

You obviously dont agree with the idea that a win over "the champion of the world is automatically a greater victory than someone who is not champion of the world" and I'm certainly not saying I agree with that notion either.
But, by the same token, we can say a victory over a ranked fighter is not automatically a greater victory than a win over an unranked fighter ...... or that a fighter with ten wins over ranked fighters is not automatically a better fighter than a one who has only three wins over ranked fighters .... or that a win over a fighter with a 82-10 record is not automatically better than a win over a fighter with a 45-13 record.
Yet I see you use some of these FACTUAL type of notions when you are arguing your case (esp. in regards to rankings etc.).

What really matters is actually a lot more subjective though, as you seem to realize by my example of "He's WORLD CHAMPION".

 

On the golf thing--I'll try to explain because it is an important point to me. In any area of life, you are what you accomplish, and the bottom line in boxing is going to be your record. It sort of like saying a painter is better than his paintings would lead you to believe, or a novelist is better than his novels would lead you to believe. But his paintings define the painter, and his novels define the novelist. They can't be better than what they produced. And neither can a boxer.

You might argue that a boxer could be potentially have been better than he was if bad luck, such as injuries, hadn't prevented it, but promise isn't accomplishment.

 

Your metaphor of a painting is perfect. Let me explain in those terms:

We judge a painter by the quality of his paintings. We can look at them and see how good a painter he was.

A boxer's fights are his paintings. Not the records of his fights, but the fights themselves. Watching Dempsey destroy Willard tells me a lot more about his quality than simply reading "Dempsey KO 4" on boxrec, or looking at the Ring rankings of the two fighters. Sure, I'd get the general gist of his abilities by reading the fight summary, but I'd miss the details that mark Dempsey as one of the most ferocious puncher-swarmers in history.

Judging a fighter's ability based solely on his numeric accomplishments is a pretty good measurement, but it isn't perfect. It's like evaluating a painter based on what the contemporary art critics said without ever seeing his work.

 

Usually as a result of his jab.

 

I agree almost completely with you I think. If this is your point about the golf comparision, it is well taken. Being 10 over par is an absolute measurement. The measurements in boxing are mostly subjective, not absolute. Still, as confusing and convoluted and involved as records are, they are necessary to judge how good a fighter was at any given time or over the course of his career.

In my opinion, it is this very subjective and imprecise nature of boxing which makes it more interesting to discuss than a sport like golf.

 

On the golf example:

Yes, it works for golf. The problem is that there's no objective measurement of a boxer's quality.

Take running, for example. I can conclusively prove that the guy who holds the record today was better than the previous record-holder because I have his times written down. I don't need to see him run; the results are there. The measurement is done against two tangible obstacles: the distance and the time.

In boxing, you're only as good as your opponent allows you to be. You can only be measured in a very imperfect testing lab. Your only measuring stick is another unpredictable human being.

Since that's the case, I'd prefer to have as much information as possible when assessing a fighter's ability.

 

Blast! You beat me to my own reply.

 

I agree with you also, at least to a very large extent. Dempsey legitimately gains a great deal of stature because of the WAY he destroyed Willard.

But this fight does not erase the first Tunney fight, nor the Gibbons fight, nor the Brennan fight, nor those fights which only exist in newspaper reports or lines in the record books, such as the ko defeat by Flynn or the nine knockdowns to the middleweight Sudenberg.

But the despised record book does tell us valuable facts anyway. As you point out, the Willard fight comes across as a dessicated ko 4. Still, if it came across as a dry ko'd by 4, Dempsey would certainly deserve and get a different historical evaluation even if no film would exist of that fight.

As for the despised ratings, I am certain they can be misused, but they are the best measurement of how contemporaries judged a fighter, along with the betting odds, and are certainly a valuable tool in any era and especially in eras in which few contenders were filmed. Quotes from the press or experts of one sort or another are often inaccurate and also often cherry-picked to fit a bias.

 

One caveat, though, on, for example, the running example---this is true if all things are equal. But the shoes might have improved, the tracks may be better, and so the traction is better. What we know is that the modern guy ran faster by the clock. Better? That might be debatable to some extent.

 

Agreed. :good
On all points.