A contribution to the Dempsey Wills debate

for me, it says something about h2h skills. bradley ducking khan tells me he thinks khan would beat him and if I'm in a position where I have to split to evenly matched fighters, and one ducked the other that's the tie break, just as a fight between the two would be.

 

Then what do you make of Dempsey's people thinking Wills would beat him?

 

as I said, dempsey signing a contract and showing a will to fight him means I don't call it a duck. so it doesn't give him any negative points in a H2h sense, which means we can go to more traditional comparisons like common opponents and style (very difficult in the case of wills).

if say history had played out, but dempsey had made no effort to ever fight wills and had blatantly refused what the people wanted (as bowe did with lewis when he thrrew his belt in the trash) combined with a repeated calling out by wills, then I'd give Wills the edge. which could effect my overall rating because these two are pretty similar so a usurp by wills could be enough to swap place. Hard to give too much thought to a hypothetical scenario though.

 

...looks like they were looking for any excuse to get out of the fight, we will never know for sure. Wills, Langford, McVey, Jeanette, and others get plenty of respect on these forums though.

 

in a history littered with black marks, the respect given to these fighters is a shining light.

 

Allot of people feel this was a media stunt, I think Klompton for 1 said as much - but would appreciate his input

 

Not really though, Calzaghe nearly ducked Lacy but his father made him take the fight. Bradley also has had mangerial issues

 

but he didn't duck him and he did batter him.

bradley can talk all he wants, he turned khan down because he was afraid a loss would take him out of the sweepstakes.

a duck is almost as bad as a loss between two equally matched opponents imo.

 

yes the more input/research from them times the better to allow for a clearer picture.

that's one of the conflicts with my ranking of dempsey.

in 1950 he was viewed as the goat and I'm not entirely sure why, unless criteria is different now.

 

I think so too. The thought that Wills would turn down a serious offer to fight for the title seems very far fetched. They probably gave him an offer he couldn't accept just to make it look better.

 

What say you then about Robinson turning down a good offer (career best up to that point) to fight Burley?

 

yeah, robinson ducked burley.

however when ranking these two they aren't close to each other imo, Robinson has a superior resume and a superior skillset.

as I said, it's more of a tie break than a definitive ranking tool.

 

Fair enough.

 

:good