Did janitor.....

Sorry Burt, but I get a bit agitated when you keep comparing Jack Dempsey to Joe Louis. I personally feel Joe Louis was the clear better, more proven fighter. I personally do not see the comparison. One was a great long reigning heavyweight champ who fought virtually everybody, the other a lazy playboy party animal who sat on his throne and avoided the best out there. Just food for thought.

 

Well said SQ. Louis was entirely another class of fighter.

 

Not sure we learn any thing more with the Fulton fight if the film made it today.

I mean it didnt even make it to the min mark lol. Sure it would be impressive, but it would be viewing Tyson Spinks or something in that regard.

I think we caught the perfect glimpse of a prime Dempsey with Jess Willard to Carpentier imo.

From 1919-1921 Dempsey was active, in shape and pre dated that long lay off of 2, and than 3 years after Gibbions and Firpo.

 

Which fights of Fultons can i watch to draw this conclusion?

 

Sorry you are agitaded...But so am I agitated...To say that Jack Dempsey's title reign was not as impressive as Joe Louis's is probably correct...I loved Joe Louis as he was my idol growing up...A great fighter and America loved him...But let me explain my agitation to you pronto...When comparing the two great heavyweights, my criteria is what did most of the writers who saw the TWO fighters at their best think of a clash between the two...After all they saw them fight..You and I did not...The majority in 1950 picked Dempsey over Louis were they to have met...And so do I because of styles, I think that Dempsey's bob and weave and tremendous fast start would be first to strike and hurt Louis.
leading to an eventual kayo...In my minds eye I see a faster and much more devastating Arturo Godoy getting low under Louis's jab,and blasting away inside where Dempsey was supreme...If I am wrong in my assumption, than I am in the majority who saw them both...
My father and his contemporary's,and a majority of seasoned boxing experts were somehow less knowledgeble than you, ninety years later, doesn't smack of common sense...The Dempsey at his Willard and before was a great fighter, who YOU and I never saw on film...But I take the words of eyewitnesses of that time...To say Louis would have licked Dempsey is fine , but to say the Manassa Mauler was not in the same class is to revise history and the past, and I don't want any part of that...Keep punching though....

 

Janitor is sorry that he started that thread.

His dirt on Dempsey was not that good.

 

"Won't dish the dirt ,with the rest of the boys, that's why Janitor is a tramp".
If you want any dirt, ask Russell . He da man.:good

 

To say Dempsey was not in the same class as Louis is wrong Louis is the superior fighter in most people's opinions but Dempsey is a great also and up until the time of Louis was considered by most as the greatest Heavyweight to have lived, time and video have not been kind to Dempsey's rating, my father who was about ten years younger than Dempsey and who boxed as an amateur always revered Dempsey and Johnston but said Louis was the greatest this is the opinion of some one who lived in this era.

 

Just because they saw 2 fighters lived does not mean they would know who would win in this clash of punchers, I think the one that gets in a good punch or hurts the other first can finish the fight. With punchers like these 2, almost any thing goes in chooseing the winner.

They have as much of a guess as a Louis Dempsey fight as you or I in picking a winner.

 

The point I was making is that Dempsey was certainly in the same class of great heavyweights as Louis...What is unreasonable for me to agree with the majority who SAW them both twenty years apart and claimed Dempsey would of probably beaten Louis at their best ?I have never seen old Albert Einstein, but I take the experts of his time, that he was agreat scientist...Ido not say i am sure Dempsey would have licked the great Louis, but I will not abide by the statement that Dempsey is not in the same class as Louis...That arbitrary statement defies the majority of
great boxing writers and people such as Ray arcel, Lou Stillman,Damon Runyon, Jack Sharkey, Gene Tunney etc. Boxing figures who SAW them both...Who am I or todays naysayers to know more than they...Dempsey
was not perfect but he was lauded as a great fighter while he fought ,
and I'll go along with that opinion NOW !!

 

Well, the consensus today is Louis and Ali are the clear top 2 heavyweights of all time. Dempsey is not up there with them.

 

Ali is not in this debate...We are talking about Louis and Dempsey...I believe that the opinions of the people who SAW THEM in their primes
have TWICE the validity of todays fickle fans, who have NEVER seen the Jack Dempsey of his prime.Except for the Willard fight we now see with the hand cranked camera of 1919,you and THEY have never seen what
the Dempsey who flattened large men as Carl Morris Gunboat Smith, Arthur Pelkey, Bill Brennan etc in one rd or more...Do you think that allthese men suffered a heart attack in the ring ?Why not give Jack Dempsey credit that everyone who saw him demolish these large and tough men did ? Say what you want about Jess Willard..But he was never dropped in his life and old Jack Dempsey dropped him seven times in the first round...Today it would be a first round knockout...
Do you think that it would take Jack Dempsey thirteen rounds to kayo.
the large clumsy Abe Simon, or six rounds to ko a Primo Carnera ? NO
WAY... But it took Joe Louis that many rounds for him to stop these
slow behomeths..Dempsey would have flattened these guys in short order
I say...I will say once more, I place much more faith in the opinions of
great boxing experts who SAW Dempsey and Louis multiple times, than
todays fans...Just as I who have seen Ray Robinson in his great prime
four times, can evaluate his abilities better than todays youngsters
sixty five years later...So with Dempsey, would he have beaten Joe Louis
in their primes ?Toss up maybe. but he was CERTAINLY in Louis's class!!
Contrary to todays revisionists....

 

My opinion is humble, and i agreement, yet it spawns no disrespect whatsoever to the subject.

 

Here's some footage of Prime Dempsey we 'fickle fans' have seen, including the Brennan fight. Perhaps you haven't, as you were under the misapprehension there was no Prime Dempsey footage, enjoy:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFxcNfXMA60[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6npcgZUQW4k[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vow5XgK5T2A[/ame]

Either way we know these men weren't the best contenders of his era and had been beaten by Greb and Tunney

 

Thanks for these clips..I have of course seen them many times.
The prime Dempsey i refer to was the Dempsey of 1918 -1919 up to the Willard slaughter in 1919...Aside from the Willard fight, there is no available film of Dempsey at his best Koing in 1918
Flynn 1rd
Brennan 6 rd
Pelkey 1 rd
Fulton 1 rd
Levinsky 3 rd
Morris 1 rd
1919 Willard 7 knockdowns 1st rd
None of those films exist to show what the prime active Mauler was like
in his heyday...The film of the Brennan fight was taken in 1920,their 2nd fight...I try to compare fighters at their absolute primes...
Sidenote-Example, the young tigerish Louis who destroyed Max Baer in 1935, would have caught Billy Conn early and flattened Conn in a few rounds...His reflexis was at his best then, unlike the slower Louis of 1941.