Adam Pollack's Dempsey Book?

Absolutely. Hundreds.

 

Ofcourse he ducked him. Wills was number 1 contender, his multiple title eliminators against Fulton, Norfolk and Firpo were legal and Wills sued Dempsey twice. After 1 law suite where Wills tried to stop Dempsey's Firpo fight Dempsey vowed that he would never fight Wills. Dempsey even stopped boxing from 23-26 largely because of legal fallout of Wills mandatory status.

Also Dempsey-Wills was the publics choice:

The Evening Independent , Mar 13 1922.

"Harry Wills is the public's choice as the next opponent of champion Harry Wills. In a referendum of fight fans held by more than 500 client newspapers of the NEA Service. Harry Wills, the coloured fighter, emerged as a winner. The total vote for Wills was by 131,073. Gibbons trailed him by about 6,000."

 

Ive been writing a book about the Wills-Dempsey situation for several years now. When its released it will spell out everything.

 

Norfolk had lost 2 of his last 6 fights when he faced Wills,one to a lhy, the other to a middleweight.
Dempsey had already destroyed both Fulton and Firpo in a combined total of under four and a half minutes!

 

Is there any plans to make these books e-reader compatible?

Like say amazon kindle?

 

There was interest/demand for that fight all over the world. I just think the colour line was an excuse to hide behind.

Dempsey defended against four men who had already lost to Greb. If they were contenders, surely he was too.

 

I'm pretty sure Klompton will go into far more detail of why Dempsey vs Wills never happened than Pollack will. I have yet to see Klompton say one thing that is incorrect about Dempsey. Saying something factual does not make it negative. Its only negative in your point of view.

As champion its pretty clear Dempsey ducked Wills and Greb ( his two best contenders arguably ) and as champion he could have fought them in many cites. The lazy people use the Dempsey vs Will contract signature in New York State as an example of Dempsey's efforts. It was for show. The New York state commission voted it down 2-1, as expected.

Dempsey also had a chance to meet a past his prime Jeannette as a sub for an opponent and balked. I wonder if this will make either book.

 

One poster, who has never read a book of either Klompton's ,[one to date] or Pollack's is "pretty sure Klompton's will go into far more detail,",I guess he must be psychic?lol
NB Dempsey agreed to give an exhibition for charity, at the last minute his opponent was unavailable ,and Joe Jeannette challenged him.Dempsey, who was giving his services for free,recognizing the "ambush ",declined.
There are some absolute bell- ends about!

"Another slam more damning to Mr. Dempsey came from an 1918 incident in NY where Mr. Joe Jeannette was a surprise ring replacement on a war funds exhibition bout Mr. Dempsey was due to fight in.

There was much brouhaha by Doc Kearns over the replacement, at which time Mr. Dempsey was withdrawn ingloriously to a chorus of boos as Mr. Jeannette stalked the ring to great effect. Mr. Jeannette was on his last legs, but a solid fighter to the end, so whilst he couldn't accomplish much in the 4 round distance, he was an experienced spoiler with a puncher's chance at very least."

NB I can't vouch for the accuracy of the date.Dempsey did not become champion until 1919.

 

Well you're entitled to your opinions, but I disagree on both counts. Dempsey fought against black fighters all the time; had them in his camps. I've read in several books that Tex Rickard pledged never to match a black HW vs a White HW after witnessing racial riots all over the country ("but there are good people on both sides". Sure it may have been an excuse but I cannot and will not subscribe to the theory that Dempsey was somehow racially opposed to this bout or physically afraid to do so.

Regarding Greb,,,sure he was popular and people wanted to see him fight for the HW title; I get that. You mentioned He beat 4 guys that Dempsey eventually fought. He certainly beat up Tunney but in the last fight he admitted Tunney was too big for him....and Dempsey outweighed Tunney. Miske was given the fight for charity sake. Gibbons was a little bigger than Greb; that's a strange one for Dempsey but he had been a LHW champ so maybe that was the excuse. Of course Greb won the LHW title by defeating Tunney...weighing 162 pounds at the time. Brennan was a true HW at 197 pounds.

Bottom line is that as popular as Greb was, and as great a fighter as he was, he was a Middleweight. Dempsey's title opponents from Willard to Tunney were HW's...this is like Carlos Monzon challenging Joe (200pounds) Frazier in 1970. Might have been interesing...for a couple rounds.

I certainly wish Dempsey had fought both Wills and Greb....it would have boosted his legend and stopped conversations like this in their tracks.

 

Rickard wasn't the only promoter in boxing. Dempsey fought for others when it suited him. Dempsey ended up being banned from fighting in New York for not defending against Wills, so it's not as if no one else was pushing for it. If Dempsey and his people were confident he would KO Wills inside two rounds then I'm sure the fight would have been made in a heartbeat and everyone would have made a fortune.

Brennan fought Greb four times and lost all four fights, barely winning a round.

Gibbons fought an eliminator against Greb, lost by a wide margin, and the next year Dempsey fought Gibbons...

If Greb was able to beat these guys convincingly, and these guys were considered worthy challengers for Dempsey, then how the heck can't Greb be considered a legit HW challenger?

But Monzon didn't beat Ellis, Quarry, Bonavena and Foster before Frazier gave them a title shot.

But he didn't fight either of them, hence why conversations like this have been happening for decades and will probably continue for decades to come.

 

When Tommy Gibbons fought Jack Dempsey, he had knocked out 27 out of his last 31 opponents. Many of these were top quality fighters and some were top 10 contenders. Of the other 4 fights that went the distance, two of those were against Billy Miske. One was a dominant performance against Miske where he did stop Miske, but was disqualified for what was ultimately called a low blow. He followed this up with a unanimous decision against Miske, which was the other fight he was taken the distance. This leaves the last two fights which were against Greb and which were split 1-1. All in all, he was 2-2 against Greb. Edit: Just realised that Bartley Madden and not Greb was the other guy who took gibbons the distance during that period

Modern theory is that Greb was a lot better than Gibbons. I cant see it. Obviously there is not much in it, but interestingly, at this stage Greb had also had a massive 2 year period. According to my rough count, had also had won at least 28 of his last 30 fights (by boxrec). Although it must be said that unlike Gibbons, only 4 or 5 were by knockout. In fact technically many of these fights were actually no decision fights. The two fights he drew were with Jeff Smith and Chuck Wiggins. Neither were bad fighters, although probably not as good as the fighters who created blemishes on Gibbons record.

In all honesty, i can see why Gibbons was preferred to Greb. Not much in it, of course, but Greb must have made for a much better choice for a heavyweight title fight. It is interesting that neight fighter would lose again, until they fought Gene Tunney, who beat them one after the other! What a period for Tunney that was. it is a shame that these guys didnt fight a fifth and deciding fight. I think Gibbons would have started as the betting favourite. I would be interested though in what some of the experts on here think about who would have started favourite. If memory serves, boxrec used to list one of Grebs wins as having turned when the ring was hit by a thunderstorm and gibbons who was winning struggled to keep his footing. Is there any truth to this?

 

Terrific post!

 

Gibbons KO record is incredibly deceptive and it’s disingenuous to claim most of those victims in the lead up to Dempsey were top quality fighters. In fact most were well worn or ham and eggers, even Mike Gibbons criticized Tommy for this, saying he fought a bunch of setups, bowled them over, started believing the press about his power and forgot how to box. Consider that prior to this KO run of Gibbons which got him so much press he scored only three knockouts from 1914 to 1921. That KO run was by design. They were following the same blueprint Dempsey used to get a title shot and it worked for them but go look at those fighters and where they were at when Gibbons was knocking them out then compare that to the quality of fighter and where they were in their career when his knockout ratio was almost non existent. Youll see a significant decrease in the quality of fighter he was facing and they wont be anywhere near as fresh. Like I said, that was by design. Gibbons was a very good fighter (not great in my opinion, just shy of that) but very very good, but that knockout run he went on is deceptive.

As for Greb and Gibbons needing a fifth, deciding fight, I dont agree. Gibbons had always wanted to fight Greb in a longer bout than 10 rounds, theorizing he would stop Greb. He went into the Greb fight with the wind at his back, the press and public behind him, Rickard already planning a Dempsey showdown and he didnt have to try to make weight (in his second and third fights with Greb he was contracted to make weight but pulled a Mayweather and refused at the last minute). Gibbons basically got everything he wanted for their fourth fight and he lost by a significant margin.

 

Whichever way you look at it, 27 out of 31 is a damn good KO record, no matter how poor the quality of opponent.

I accept your point that they were not the highest quality. At a glance though, i would have thought Wiggins Miske and Turner were top 10 or thereabouts material. And after that, Foley looked to be on a decent run until gibbons stopped him. Jamieson, Norfolk and Burke also stand out as decent opponents. I am pretty sure that if a contender put together a similar run of opponents today, he would be considered the second coming of Joe Louis, or at the very least, the no 1 contender.

Regarding your point about no need for a fifth fight, i still dont understand your line of thinking. Greb lost to Gibbons just 2 months before their last fight. Why was he able to reverse this fight? Maybe everything was in Gibbons favour and he was overconfident and underestimated Greb? I accept you probably think Greb wins any fifth fight. I am not so sure. But more importantly, the question i wonder is, if Gibbons - Greb V actually takes place. for Arguments sake, if Greb takes Dempsey's place as Gibbons opponent, who starts the betting favourite with the bookies? Does Greb's last win over Gibbons make the diffence, or would the bookies be likely to favour the big hitting of Gibbons. I tend to think that Gibbons would have started favourite. Do you think otherwise?

I am actually very surprised you dont rate Gibbons quite a bit higher. He is literally 2-2 with arguably the greatest Middle/Light heavy of all time. Do you rate Mike Gibbons higher than his brother?