Corrie Sanders vs. Jack Dempsey's top opponents 1917-1927

Not very well.

He was not a guy who could string two world class performances together over a career, never mind back to back!

 

Undefeated is my first thought. Tunney was fast and a bit elusive but an old, worn out Dempsey caught him. Sanders who was quick with his combos and athletic with his feet and fought tall and long would probably blow him out, totally outsize and out athlete him.

Willard more fits the mold of a guy who could beat him, durable and able to withstand early punishment. But I'm shading to Sanders in this one.

So, I will say undefeated.

 

Sanders was way too fast and powerful. i also say undefeated.

 

Tunney, Miske, Sharkey, Willard, and Firpo beat Saunders.

 

Johnny du Plooy would beat Firpo. Of that I have no doubt.

 

Agreed. And I'll as that while Jess Willard posed some issues, we have to Remember that Jack fought a 37 year old Jess who was retired for three years. I don't see sanders having any problem with that list

 

Saunders maybe. Not Sanders

 

I think Sanders would have a good chance at going undefeated through them.

The two that stand out to me would be Tunney and Willard. Tunney had the skills but he would be giving up 30lb to Sanders. Sanders has never struggled with small guys, on the contrary, he has mown through them with his speed and punching power.

If you look at his fights against guys like De Leon and Czyz, it's clear that the combination of speed, size and accuracy that Sanders brings is too much for a significantly smaller guy to handle. I'd be pretty confident - all though not completely - that Sanders could get the win vs Tunney.

Willard has the size but not the skills. He's always looked ponderous to me, and keeping his hands down against Sanders as I've seen him do before on film would be inviting to get annihilated. Unless Sanders is totally off his game (and it pains me to admit it but I've seen him put in a couple of stinkers before) he will destroy Jess.

 

It's a strange one this.

Stylistically a counter punching southpaw with very fast combinations is a tough match for anyone.

However we have two possibilities with Sanders, either he wasn't as good as some rate him today if he didn't always prepare the best for the fight she actually had in real life.

If you take the last ten years of his career to compare like for like, he was knocked out 3 times.

There's also the fact that if we were to match Dempsey himself here most would pick him to better his own record despite how nonsensical that would be.

For me, Sanders wasn't consistent enough to face the best in the world without picking up a loss first.

Not sure who would do jg, but I've no doubt he takes defeats here, especially if he has to go through 4 round fights.

I'd be amazed if Flynn beat him, but then again I'm still amazed he beat Dempsey.

Meehan beating him twice over 4 rounds isn't too hard to imagine.

Tunney beating him in the last two fights of his career also isn't hard to imagine.

Sanders beating Fulton, Willard and Firpo in a row is harder to imagine.

He probably does about as well as Jack did record wise. Doesn't lose to Flynn, but loses to Firpo instead.

 

The words Sanders and undefeated do not belong in the same sentence.

He is an example of a fighter with one good win.

 

To reckon him going undefeated would mean there's no one on the level of Nate Tubbs to defeat him.

 

1) Dempsey retired at 32
2) Sanders retired at 42

That's not exactly a fair comparison to make. He lost (and won his HW title) at an age when Dempsey was pottering around in the garden planting marigolds. Sanders at that age was already a much less impressive boxer than he'd been in his prime.

3) Sanders' last loss by KO was when he was 42 and incredibly out of shape.
4) His other 2 KO losses were to Vitali Klitschko (245lb) and Rahman (245lb) both of whom were far, far bigger punchers than anybody on the list we are comparing to.

Sanders blew hot and cold, yes. If we discount his last loss (which was a payday so that he could pay the bills, nothing more) it's apparent that only the really big guys with a punch managed to KO him. The sort of fighters we are looking at on Dempsey's record are not that. With the exception of Willard, who was skills-deficient.

And yet Sanders is typically derided around here AS a so-called "4 round fighter".

The only fighter that I think might give Sanders a few problems is Tunney. The rest I'm sure that he'd flatten pretty handily. Firpo is exactly the sort of face first brawler that Sanders liked to use his counter left on.

 

1) I know
2) I know
3) I know
4) how do you know either hit harder than Firpo, Willard and Fulton?

Sanders was very nearly a never was. It is only the latter success of Wlad that has led to him gaining such appreciation. People who are recent fans of the sport look at Wlad's record and saw he got bombed out in 2 rounds so have decided that the man in question was a wasted talent.

To me it's more like a lower level Buster Douglas. Didn't beat the best man in the world but he did destroy a high ranked contender.

A good achievement, yes, but I struggle to see him surviving the full decade in question without defeat.

 

There's no real way to definitively 'prove' that Vits and Rahman hit harder than the three that you mentioned, beyond pointing out that the two modern fighters are noted as punchers and considerably outweigh the older guys.

I feel Sanders was a wasted talent because I followed his entire career, since he was a fellow countryman. Call me biased, but in his heyday he really was a good boxer, and although you won't believe me, he had a full gas tank and flashy footwork to boot.

His one weakness was his aversion to training, and his inactivity. In his younger days his great athleticism compensated for this but as he grew older his lax habits caught up with him. The Rahman fight he barely trained for, and the Vitali fight I was aghast to see that he'd actually put on weight instead of training his ass off for the "big" Klitschko.

But I think that if he had a full schedule so that he didn't get rusty - and this schedule certainly counts as full - he'd be even better. So in a way Dempsey's schedule actually works to his advantage.

Nice debate.