Dempsey doesn't belong in HW top 5's. Perhaps not HW top 10's.

That is a stereotype because he is black!

But Tyson does indeed get a top 12 place in part because he has helped carry the corpse that is now boxing for the last 15 years or so. After seemingly being the future of the sport in his brilliant 86-88 period.

 

Tunney admitted that he ducked Gibbons for a long time and only fought him afterwards

 

Can we have some examples of this?

 

Sure, I consider the loss. It's just that I consider it next to irrelevant. It's a bi-product of lack of perspective among modern fans looking at an old-time fighter's record that leads people to think something like a disputed four-round decision loss to Willie Meehan in the middle of a year in which the man fought over 20 times and faced several (probably, if there were ratings) top 10 opponents is a substantial damper on his greatness as a fighter.

Partially because Willard was not a great fighter and not at his best, but also because Dempsey was an incredibly good fighter, which is a credit to him. I don't consider this fight a monumental boost to Dempsey's legacy, but it is definitely a shot in the arm in my opinion.

Now, again, I don't dispute that there were better challengers out there, but I maintain that Miske was clearly still a world-class fighter, regardless of his illness, and therefore the fight is not worthless, as you had suggested it was.

Given that only Greb and Tunney ever even beat Gibbons aside from Dempsey (Miske had a DQ over him, but never "beat" him, strictly speaking), and by account, they didn't dominate him the way Dempsey did (Greb lost to Gibbons in some of their fights and Tunney is described as having had a pretty stiff battle and even looking hurt in the eighth round), I think this is a pretty extraordinary result.

 

Dempsey made some mistakes in that fight, could be contributed to him eating a monster punch at the very start and never fully recovering, but I don't think that's enough to warrant calling him a stupid fighter. After the first round when he got his **** together better he made quick work of Firpo at the start of the second.

 

Was specifically referring to the black fighters as a group - the 'black dynamites' vs. the best white fighters of the day - there was not such a big gap in talent.

There is far too much finger pointing going on, for example:

Dempsey defeated Gibbons in an uneventful fight and not many care for it, but had he not fought him, anti-maulers would have ran up to the scratch and swore by his record. That could have easily happened had Richard smelt a fish with the money situation.

Further, when Dempsey was given the chance to fight Langford he was being managed by the selfish, John 'the barber' Reisler. He was low on fuel and any sort of training, nursing some cracked ribs to boot. His position just did not favour it, so he smartly declined and got rid of John.

3 years down the line and Dempsey creams an aging Langford, would anyone be happy? Nope. Instead he blasted out the man who put an end to Langford's stay with the big boys in 20 seconds.

There are so many angles that you can spin here that it just becomes unfair.

Wills should have been given a shot, yes, but Dempsey did not directly 'duck' him. He may of had the power to make the fight happen but he had been given his shot through Kearns and left all his faith in Richards promoting abilities, social connections and political vibes.

Kearns set up the opponents, split the purses, Richard set the stage, the theme and Dempsey nodded his head - an over simplification, but that was the basics of their triangle business relationship.

Dempsey was the TNT, not the detonating device. He left his judgement to his partners and was taken by the hand on how to act, dress and be perceived.

It detracts from his legacy, yes, but at least say it like it was. Dempsey was a money machine that needed to be protected and 'preserved' by Richard for the biggest gates possible and his best victories easily slot him into the top 10 heavyweights in history.

 

As has been said: whether it was Rickard, Kearns or Dempsey himself who was responsible for Dempsey not fighting Wills, Greb and others is interesting in itself, but it has no bearing for legacy. What does have bearing is that he didn't take on the most dangerous opposition of his era, for whatever reason, and therefore isn't tested enough to make it into my top 10.

 

Tunney did fight Gibbons two years after Dempsey did, but I don't see how you can make a case he didn't dominate Gibbons in a way Dempsey did not. I have never seen the whole fight on film, but what is available shows Tunney dominating him rather easily. By some accounts he won 10 of the first 11 rounds, and then knocked Gibbons down before knocking him out in the 12th. Dempsey won fairly easily, but Tunney was more impressive.

On Gibbons, he was a great middleweight and lightheavyweight, but other than Miske, who would you say is the top heavyweight he defeated?

 

I pretty much agree with this. Dempsey was a true great. I think that some of the arguments against him have gone too far. He was a truly great fighter who was a force of nature in his time.

It's always hard to compare fighters from different eras as the criteria changes... Who knows in 20 years time pundits from the Ukraine may be arguing that 1970s HWs never had to fight guys from the Eastern Bloc.

 

While I am still not convinced that Dempsey should be rated over champions like Louis, Holmes or Marciano, you do make some valid points here. A champion can only be rated and judged by what he accomplished in his own time, and not by the standards of past or future periods.

Do I think he should have fought men like Wills, Godfrey, Langford, etc. Yes, absolutely. But, the circumstances of the period were too complicated and too difficult to claim that these fighters were "ducked" in the purist sense of the term. Unfortunately, African American fighters were not promoted justly 100 years ago, and furthermore, Dempsey had little or no direct influence on having the final say in who he fought. In fact, few fighters do even today.

I think Jack Dempsey needs to receive a fair amount of credit for what he actually DID accomplish, rather than slapped on the hand for certain things that were beyond his control. I will say however, that to this day, I'm not exactly sure why he sat on the title for 3 years without sporting a single defense. For this, he should be held accountable, and yes I think it hurts his standing. Although Larry Holmes spent 1983 fighting men like Witherspoon, Frazier, Rodriguez, and Frank, while worthy challengers like Page and Thomas were meandering about, he at least fought 4 times that year, and some of those guys were moderately respectable. Even if Dempsey had continued to face caucasion challengers with ordinary credentials, it would have been infinately better than fighting nobody..