Dempsey vs Marciano

Please provide a primary source for this quote from Rickard because I think its bullsh*t.
In 1917 Langford was stopped in 7 rds by Fred Fulton, a year later Fulton was massacred by Dempsey in 23 seconds! in1918 Langford was beaten up by lhvy Jeff Clark being floored along the way,later that year he was again beaten by Fulton.
Dempsey did not win the title until July 1919 by then he would have destroyed Langford.
In 1920 Langford was losing to Bill Tate, Dempsey's sparring partner!

 

Marciano was floored by a 40 years old man , and one of 37.
And badly cut in several fights.

 

The Langford quote was verified and appeared in several contemporary papers.

 

Dempsey has faster hands,faster feet, much better move of head, better defence, faster starter,better combo puncher, he is bigger,hits as hard,he fought more agressive and hits faster inside.dempsey hurts rocky faster than vice versa

 

Renowned champion Jack Dempsey claimed that as a young boxer in 1916 he refused a fight with Langford. According to Dempsey: "I think Sam Langford was the greatest fighter we ever had."[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Langford

The funny thing about Langford is that he's half-blind, and he comes to Doc Kearns [manager of heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey] in the '20s -- and remember, Sam Langford has been fighting since the aughts -- and he wants to fight Dempsey. And Doc Kearns says, 'Sam, we were looking for somebody easier.'
"He was half-blind, he was a goddamned middleweight, and he was that good."

http://espn.go.com/espn/blackhistory2007/news/story?id=2755803

 

One thing that is true about heavyweight boxing, and if you think about it, sports in general, is that the great ones of the past era were usually bigger than their opponents.

**** Butkus is considered maybe the greatest LB ever...he was 6-3 245 lbs. in an era were linebackers were 210, and was BIGGER THAN THE LINEMAN BLOCKING HIM.

Jim Brown was 235 lbs.

Babe Ruth was 240 in an era where everyone else was a stick.

In Hvyt boxing, there are roughly three eras:

Era one; the 175 - 200 lb. Heavyweight era. from the beginning to about 1960. this ended with Sonny Liston. Now there were bigger guys back then who held the title, Sullivan, Willard, and Johnson. These guys were mainly successful because THEY WERE MUCH BIGGER THAN THE GUYS THE FACED. This does not really include Johnson, because he fought bigger guys, and his record stands for himself, but Sullivan and Willard had a massive size advantage. The true GREAT fighters of that era were Marciano and Louis who were dominant at THE SAME SIZE of the guys they were fighting.
This era ended when Liston KOed Patterson

Era two: the 205 - 215 lb. heavyweight.
Liston, Ali...All the way to Tyson and Holyfield. This era started to list when Foreman savaged Frazier and was questionable when Holyfield bounced 2,000,000 harmless punches off Rid**** Bowe's chin. It was over when crude guys like Peter and Rachman were able to beat the great James Toney.

Era three the 230 - 250 lb. heavyweight... Today.
the Klitschkos were dominant a. because they could fight, but b. because they had a great size advantage over their opponents. Think of 225 Bryant Jennings looking helpless against the Cuban guy, you get the point.

Now take Jennings, shrink him down 4 inches and 40 lbs., give him shorter arms and put him in there with Ortiz, and you have Marciano.

No, Jennings was not as good as Marciano, but Beattie Feathers was the best player in the NFL in the 30's and at 5'10 175 was a "big" RB. Can you see him running over Luke Kuechly today?

 

Nice post, Slender4

 

Those are not primary sourced quotes.
Langford was not blind/ half blind , had a squint, or anything else in1916, his eye troubles started as a direct result of his bout with Fred Fulton in1917. Jack Dempsey was still fighting under the name Kid Blackie in 1916, he was 21 years old he had never met Tex Rickard and was not managed by Jack Kearns at that time .
His first fight with Kearns was the Fireman Jim Flynn 1st fight.
The second link originates from Bert Sugar who talked more bull sh*t than Mendoza.
You given me nothing from Rickard ,whom you "quoted,"and no primary source for the other BS ,which by its timescale stands totally discredited.
I suggest you do some research.

 

My microfiche machine is in the shop.

 

Unfortunately McVey has Dempsey's entire life story memorized down to the size of his jock strap and what sauce he put on his burgers - and indeed, how many burgers he ate and what he rated each one. You're not going to win this one Slender4 :-(

 

I can wait but it won't make any difference the "quotes" are bullsh*t.
IN 1915 ,on the 23rd of November, Langford scaled 206lbs for a fight with Sam McVey .
Sugar is saying he was a middleweight in the 1920's!

Look up Langford's record ,how many times did he weigh 160lbs in the 1920's?

NEVER!

The origins of this fairy tale began when in 1916 , after being badly overmatched against John Lester Johnson ,by his then manager John "The Barber" Reisler.Dempsey ,[ knowing that at that time ,he was no match for him ,] refused to fight Langford. Rickard never said what you quoted, and Sugar was talking out of his silly hat.

 

I'd say, barring Tyson/Ali (and maybe even more so) this would be the greets HW match-up ever.

I'm going with Dempsey.

Rocky was a freak, an animal. But ole Jack was something special, something else.

 

OK, well I read a story 35 years ago when I was a teenager and bought boxing magazines and today, confused two people associated with Dempsey, Rickard and Kearns. Does it change anything with the general tome of the story?

Additionally, you now more about boxing than Burt Sugar.

We've learned two things today.

 

You read a story fine.That's what it was ,a story. What it does is establishes that it isn't true . Yes I think I know as much about boxing as Burt Sugar.
I did it for nearly 2 decades,I've followed the sport for over half a century.I have an extensive library on it,and began collecting boxing films in the 1960's.
This doesn't make me an expert ,on this forum alone there are far more knowledgeable posters than myself.
Sugar was a playful con man, a likeable self publicist whose stories often put himself in the centre of the action, action that on closer scrutiny , due to the timescale he could not have been present at. Sugar was born 10 years after Dempsey's last fight ,he saw no more of his bouts ,read no more of the contemporary accounts of them than are readily available to anyone sufficiently interested in searching for them.
In addition he was a lazy researcher ,content to repeat the fables that he had heard hanging around the bars and gyms passing himself off in his fedora as one of the guys in the know.
These fables oft repeated , surface from time to time, and you have just done your own part to perpetuate one of the myths.
Sugar is entertaining as a writer but any of his statements are best taken with a large box of sodium chloride.

Sugar is not remotely in the class of Leibling,Heinz,Smith,McIlvanney,Cannon and many ,many others too numerous to mention,read Sugar for entertainment,the others for informative education.imo.