Fred Fulton claimed Dempsey told him their fight was an exhibition

haha. Reminds me of one of my 2nd amateur fight, it was my opponents debut and his coach told my coach to please work with him. I also met Michael Spinks when we first arrived at the venue when everything was getting setup. My opponent was a tall and rangy southpaw, awkward to fight for sure but I won.

i'm getting sidetracked, does this seem Dempsey's character for him to do?

 

Seems easy to check. Just look at the pre-fight reports.

 

That probably ranks among the dumbest excuses in history.

The contract would have made it clear whether the event was a fight or an exhibition, as would the pre fight publicity.

 

It seems it was called an exhibition for legal reasons, but there was no expectation of them going soft, and plenty of expectation of there being a KO, and it was also seen that the fight was for a shot at the title.


Though it's still not as dumb as "my entrance outfit was too heavy"

 

Yeah you covered yourself in glory there insulting a geriatric and all round good guy in Burt.

 

In what ways exactly?

 

bobbing and weaving, combination punching with serious speed.

The footage on Johnson, Jefferies etc is limited but I don't think they threw combinations like Dempsey.

Dempsey's bob and weave style was later emulated by Tyson. Tyson was a big Dempsey fan. However, Tyson was more refined with his up covering his face as opposed to Dempsey who carried his lands lower.

 

Because you compare Dempsey to two inside maulers who didn't rely on the same aspect of the sport. Although Jeffires seemed to use double hooks consistently in Ruhlin fight.

Dempsey is not more advanced combination puncher than Sam Langford.

Smaller gloves made high guard less effective. Do you really think that someone as good as Dempsey wouldn't be able to keep hands up for his advantage?

 

If it is an exhibition "for legal reasons", then nobody would be in any doubt that they were going to see a fight!

 

I think that you would need more footage, from more earlier heavyweights, in order to reach that conclusion.

A lot of people compared Dempsey's style to Terry McGovern or Jack Dillon, so it was not necessarily anything new.

 

Dempsey wasn't exactly known for taking it easy on opponents once he had climbed into the ring.

 

I think you will find they compared Dillon to Dempsey!

 

Possibly that too later.