Dempsey Vs Ali

burt isnt alone on thinlking dempsey in this one. i agree with him for the reasons given. dempsey was quite agile on his feet as well as being a tremendous hitter with a bob and weave style all designed to give the great ali fits in a close bout.

 

One at a time JC. Why bring up the 32 year old rusty Jack Dempsey who had not fought in 3 years as an example ? How do you know that the Prime fast Jack Dempsey of 1918-23 would not have caught up and overwhelmed
Gene Tunney ? After all Dempsey was very very fast in his prime with tremendous hitting powers...So why inject the old rusty Dempsey in the equation ? After all this old rusty shell of himself after a 3 year layoff dropped Tunney with as fast and powerful 7 punch barrage in the 7th round
that Tunney with the aid of a 14-17 second "long count " barely survived
and if not for a referee Barry, who made Dempsey go to a neutral corner, opposite the glazed eyed Tunney BEFORE, Barry started the ONE count. But in the 9th round Tunney dropped Dempsey with a right hand on the temple
dropping Dempsey, and whilst Tunney was hovering over Dempsey the referee Barry started his one count, without first masking Tunney walk to a neutral corner...Dempsey should have won back his title, I and others agree...Both in their primes from all I have gleaned about those times
Dempsey would have been a big favorite over Tunney...As for trouble with movers as Tommy Gibbons was, Dempsey beat one of the greatest defensive heavyweights that ever lived by a large margin in 15 rounds under a broiling sun, and Gibbons who fought 105 bouts without ever being stopped always claimed that the next day his body ached terribly..
Now to say Willie Meehan was also a "mover" tells me you haven't done your homework. Fat Willie Meehan was a roly poly rubber man who got inside of his opponents, grabbed, pulled and clutched for FOUR rounds
and was the opposite of a mover...A prime Dempsey would have pulverized
willie Meehan in a regular 10-15 round fight...Please study your boxing history about Dempsey and his times...He was a great tough animal to be in a RING with when he was at his best in spite of his detractors on
primarily ESB...

 

Burt, Jimmy De Forest, who trained Dempsey said Jack was clueless when it came to cutting off a ring. IF you watch the Tunney and Sharkey fights, even the Gibbons, he chased them around the ring ... how in the world was he going to catch Ali ? I have little doubt Dempsey had the hand speed, power with his own pretty long reach 77.5 and chin to give Ali a world of trouble if he could get to him but it's a huge if ...

 

he, let's be real . On one hand you say that old wrong bromide that the old imposter that was the 32 year old Dempsey had trouble with a Tunney, a Sharkey cutting off the ring...You repeat this falsehood again, KNOWING that WE ARE TALKING ABOUT DEMPSEY pre 1923 against Clay/ Ali. Ok he, than let us inject the past peak Ali of Leon Spinks, Holmes, Berbick, in the picture then against the old Dempsey. WHAT THEN ? What is good for the goose is good for the gander, to coin a phrase....Are you then suggesting that the Clay/Ali who got tagged by Doug Jones, by 'Enry Cooper, by Ken Norton [dozens of times] etc, that a young speedy tiger that was prime Dempsey who flattened 51 guys couldn't do AS WELL ? Poppy****, I say...
Young Dempsey must have had speed and ability to get close enough to ko 51 foes, or was it a heart attack that hit his victims...To repeat one last time, Clay/Ali while bouncing around the ring almost all the time was seldom throwing punches, and in a young Dempsey his flickering jabs would seldom reach Dempsey's bobbing and crouching 1918-1923 style.
And Dempsey never cut, and Dempsey , agile in his prime as a MW would certainly at some point would close the gap as a much, much slower Henry Cooper did, and you can take that to the bank. What made Dempsey in his prime a "killer" was his inordinate speed and animal like swiftness for a man who hit so deadly...ciao...

 

Sorry Burt, but in using the Clay / Ali of Jones & Cooper you are guilty of the exact same tactics for which you chastised HeGrant.
That version of Ali still had a few years to reach his peak.

For the record i think Dempsey would present a stiffer challange to Prime Ali than Joe Louis would, purely by his style, although i would bet heavily on Muhammad in both matchups.

 

jesus you are a ****ing **** poster

 

BC, YOU have a point in saying that Clay of the Cooper, Doug Jones fights
was still not in his prime, BUT I cite this because so many posters than
say that the slower, more powerful Ali was PAST his prime...Ala Frazier fights. They say that the Clay of the Cooper era was BETTER and more agile then the later era when Ali had to develop the rope a dope style cause he could no longer scoot across the ring as before, and he never hit that hard to hold men off him.... So I cited the Clay of the Cooper era
in my post...BC, you can have it one way or another, the swifter Clay or the
stronger more mature Ali...Either way I still fervently believe that either
version of Clay/ Ali could be caught and hurt by the vicious panther like
Jack Dempsey of his 1918-1923 prime. And I am in good company because
Ali's main asset his jab, would be largely nullified by Dempsey's bobbing and weaving LOW CROUCH, plus Dempsey NEVER CUT due to his soaking his kisser with brine all his career...Style, style, style ,will carry the day.
But good post BC.:hi:

 

This is a bold statement considering Dempsey never saw a jab that long and quick. Not to mention the laser rightcross that is surely to follow. I believe Dempsey was a great fighter but there was/is nobody like Muhammad Ali in the heavyweight division.

Im still waiting for one of these modern heavyweights to evolve past Ali. The height coupled with the speed and coordination of a Welterweight.

All the Steroids and Weightlifting wont do it.

 

Ali easily wins. It would be a mismatch. People overrating Dempsey won't change what is shown in recordings of his fights.

 

My statement may be BOLD to you who worships at the shrine of Ali ...
Ali was not GOD. He was almost kod by Henry Cooper, won a disputed decision over Doug Jones, most likely lost al his bouts with Ken Norton,
Jimmy Young gave him hell and in the FOTC which I saw in 1951 was dropped and whipped by a primarily one punch left-hooking Joe Frazier..
So why in tarnation couldn't the prime Jack Dempsey do as WELL or better
than these guys...Remember ETM, it is the opinion of experts as Jack Sharkey, Max Schmeling, Ray Arcel, Mickey walker and others, that Dempsey would have beaten Ali, and apologies to ESB posters, I concur
with their opinions over the ESB posts...One other thing, if Ali was so great a pure boxer, why was he through after about 55 bouts, while a true great
PURE boxer like Willie Pep had about 230 fights and survived all these wars
? Because Ali's skill was inflated by his histrionics...Of course he was a great heavyweight, but as much for his glitz as for his skills...cheers...

 

I dont worship Ali. Just realistic about what he brought to the table in his PRIME.

You keep citing Dempsey being past it and rusty against Tunney but at the same time you use the Jimmy Young fight? As an example that Ali was reachable. The Jones and Cooper fights were a pretty young and inexperianced version of Clay/Ali as well.

Nothing though in Ali`s prime though `64-`67. Even the second version of Ali `71-`75 he was able to take the best of Joe Frazier and George Foreman not mention the second tier that may have been superior to Dempsey`s competition.


When did Dempsey show the ability to negate an elite jab even in the same zip code as Ali`s?

 

Unmerciful beating.

As we know Dempsey had issues with movers and jabbers, but not just of the quality of Tunney or Gibbons (and if you are going to call Dempsey ancient at 32, you must admit that Willard at 37 was glacial in age). He had problems with a plodding B-rater like Brennan... a guy Greb beat about 100 times. People who think he is going bore in on Ali like he did to old ass Willard are just drinking the Dempsey Kool Aid.

And Dempsey's footwork was erratic at best, quick and lithe in one moment, crossed up and off balance the next. Ali would circle and counter, starting with the jab, mixing in rights after a couple rounds. Dempsey would get tenderized and disheartened by the 3rd or 4th. And let's be real, Ali hit plenty hard, a big guy who laid down Liston with one punch, KO'd Foreman, turned Frazier's face to ground beef... By the early mid-rounds, Ali is trapping Dempsey on the ropes with lightning combo's: jabs, hooks and rights. A sympathetic referee stops it in the 6th.

 

Ali would humiliate him and jab him to death. Ali by late stoppage.