Dempey had some truly bad performances

Made a believer of you huh?

 

Sullivan had done it so many times that there's almost no reason to doubt he would do just that with Meehan.

 

a four round fight is not proof of anything.

Have Meehan and Dempsey go 12 or even ten and you have a completely different story.

Also, most of the Meehan fights happened before Dempsey met up with Kearns. You can not over estimate good management and financial backing when fighters have neither.


"Go with outh food for a couple of days and you will understand"
Jack Dempsey.

 

One thing that Meehan knew was how to survive for four rounds.

Jack Dempsey, Sam Langford, Jack Dillon. He beat them all.

Some guys who did have Meehans number were Fred Fulton and Harry Wills. Reach seems to be the key.

 

exactly.


There are fighters who can do very well for the first four rounds and then are compeletly spent. A fighter who is adept at surviving those rounds have a much higher edge. It's the reason why championship bouts are always longer.
The difference is you are not going to see a modern heavyweight take on someone like that, and I doubt very strongly that such a role these days exists.

 

I think Dempsey is getting unfairly criticized I was one of the people to say he doesn't deserve to be ranked so highly (many have him top 5 heavy and ESPN had him in the top ten p4p). But make no mistake he is an all time great and he looks amazing during his prime. Also I feel there are very few at the same weight would beat him. So he lost to a journeyman when he was young so did Henry Armstrong doesn't stop him from being an all time great and unstoppable in his prime the same can be said about Barbados Joe Walcott. Back in the day fighters had to fight often and many times through injury it’s how good they performed in the big fights and during their prime which we should judge them on.

 

Sullivan was a true master of knocking opponents out early. It doesn't matter what Meehan could or couldn't do.

It took almost an hour's long persuasion to get Meehan into the ring with Fulton the 3rd and last time, he wanted to run out on an excuse that he didn't want the promoter to lose money on him.
It was only Fulton's slowness which allowed Meehan to last until 5th round. In the 1st round Meehan was leading with his left, then going into a clinch to prevent Fulton using his reach. But from 2nd round on Fulton was constantly getting lefts and rights through Meehan's guard (only aiming at the head, not throwing anything to the body). In the 5th Meehan was knocked down, but got up, still dazed, Fulton continued hitting him at will and the referee stopped it.

 

I knew someone would say this. atsch

 

show me a list of quality fighters that Buttebean has beat or even faced, and I will change my mind!

different climate, different set of rules. It was about getting paid on a day to day basis, you didn't have HBO contracts and PPV contracts waiting for you.

If there was a fighter who was apt at fighting four rounders, I would expect your Lennox Lewis/Riddick Bowe type fighters to run like hell.

Completely maximum risk, minimum reward. Because of that, there is no such fighter these days.

 

No he would have died.

Meehan was practicaly an all time great over four rounds.

 

now, now!

 

The first two times Fulton and Meehan met, Meehan had no defense whatsoever against Fulton's left, the only way he knew how to block it was with his own face. But Fulton rarely used his right hand there, preffering to just jab Meehan at will.