Dempsey--one man's opinion.

Dempsey never proved himself no1 of his era and in a way is a paper champion. Wills achieved more in terms of resume than Dempsey, Dempsey has the weakest resume out of any 20th century HW champ who ruled for over 2years. The fact some people have him in their top5 is 100% based on them being a fan of his brawling style, if such posters could justify Gatti being the greatest 140lber of all time they probably would

 

I would say that beating Willard was a fairly important formality for being #1 in that era.

He had won the title verry convincingly from a dominant champion, and neither Wills not Greb have a common history with him.

 

Yes, Tua lost to some prety good fighters.

 

So basically, he'd take out two HOFers in less time than it took him to get Oleg Maskaev...Makes sense.

 

Styles make fights, Dempsey's been taken out in a round by a journeyman

 

Moorer/Rahman/Maskeev/Ruiz probably beat most of the fighters Dempsey beat to, bar maybe Sharkey, maybe all of them. Even in legacy those 4 are up there with the best of Dempsey's comp

There shouldn't be anything controversal in saying Tua's resume is better than Dempsey's, it is, even if exclude the losses

 

Greb a harder fight than Wills? Is this based on your detailed film analysis? Or the fact the 1 common opponent in Norfolk was handled very easily by Wills where as Greb went life and death with him? Or the fact that Wills is tall so therefore must be unathletic/slow/unskilled like the other tall men Dempsey faced?

I always laugh and shake my hand when I hear Dempsey apologists saying 'I don't think Wills would be a hard fight for Dempsey because he's tall and Dempsey would KO like he did to the inferior Willard/Firpo', the cretins don't realise the tall men were 3 levels below Wills in ability, or perhaps do know this and choose to ignore it anyway

 

I think you mixed that one up.

 

When they fought Miske was not the 'broken man' that many people like to make out

 

Thats a good point, Greb seemed to outperform Dempsey against Tunney, Miske, Brennan, Meehan. Gibbons they probably performed about aswell against.

Wills also performed better against Meehan, he didn't stop Firpo as quick but didn't get floored and didn't stop Fulton as quick but don't think its necessarily a worse performance either

The question is though how would the 167lb man take the punches of a man 20lbs heavier who was considered a puncher?

 

He'd only won 3 out of his last 8, his condition was deteriating and had something like 33/1 odds against. Greb and Norfolk had both completely dominated Miske in his prior fights

Some Dempsey apologists even try to argue this version of Miske and Brennan are as good as Tunney atsch