Greb and the Heavyweights- Tommy Gibbons

Little different situation don't you think? Most Everyone including the ref did not hear the bell ending the first round.

Here THE REF himself, you know the official in charge of the rules, is telling everyone the THREE RIGHT UPPERCUTS THAT PRECEDED THE KO BLOW WERE NOT LOW. It's his call since he is the official in charge of the fight in the ring standing within a few feet of both participants. It's his call, he made the call and was adamant as to what he saw but the Dempsey haters 90 years later find a reason to not listen.

 

I'm just "testing" whether you gonna defend Dempsey on all cases or not. Besides, I don't recall that matter being discussed much if at all. As far as I know, the rules state that Dempsey had to be declared the loser on disqualification in that situation. Leaving the ring before the referee issued his decision.

 

What a sad state of affairs it is when a thread titled "Greb and the Heavyweights- Tommy Gibbons " evolves into one man Jack Dempsey...? In all the darn years I have been reading boxing history religiously and culling much information of the past, I have never encountered such visceral criticisms of any fighter in history as I have on ESB visa Jack Dempsey...NEVER. You would think that this man called Jack Dempsey who fought so long ago was a hybrid of
Jack the Ripper and Benedict Arnold with the true boxing ability of a Butterbean,
judging by reading the belching out from his uninformed and bias critics on
MAINLY ESB...It is now late in the game for me to cope with these true
revisionists who seem to "know" more about Jack Dempsey and his times almost a century ago, than multitudes and multitudes of boxers, writers, trainers and fight fans who saw him in the flesh at his best and raved about his ferocious toughness and ability, which made him simply the greatest ring attraction in boxing history....These true "haters" of Dempsey are looking at yesterday's morals with the "eyes" of TODAY. BAH. Dempsey will be remembered long after these fair" revisionists" have kicked the bucket...

 

Are you saying in 1919 before Dempsey was in any way a superstar he was getting special treatment? Huge stretch.

There was no major controversy whether Dempsey should have been disqualified. No one heard the bell and he left the ring believing the bout was over. He then returned to the ring and resumed his beating of Willard. Are you actually insinuating Dempsey should have been disqualified? Talk about turning history on its head. No one at the time wanted to disqualify Dempsey but 100 years later you do?

 

That's all I wanted to hear. No point to debate any further with you.

 

Perry, your baying at the moon if you think that you can reason with true haters of Jack Dempsey. Hopeless task...

 

It's just plain uneducted banter. Picking and chosing information to make a predetermined opinion seem true. What wrong with the truth?

This exact same methodology is used to show Ali ducked Foreman and Louis ducked black hwts. Neither was true.

Now Dempsey should have been disqualified vs Willard! How low will the uneducated go to make themselves appear important?

 

Hear bloody hear mate. Some of these guys just have their heads in their backsides here on this thread. I know there are some fanatical Greb lovers here and it's ok to hold him high but this does not make it ok to truly be hating on a great fighter like Dempsey and this does NOTHING FOR GREB, indeed I bet Harry would have told some of them off himself by now. I do not think this is the only reason some here hate on Dempsey though, hell for years I have struggled to understand why some here have disrespected Les Darcy but now I know why, these guys are agenda driven or simply do not know history well and they have totally distorted ideas about much of times long gone. To be a reasonable historian of boxing, and Perry already mentioned this but YOU DO HAVE TO HAVE A GRASP OF HISTORY, you know, real history... didn't Klompton write a book about Greb called the LIFE AND TIMES of Harry Greb ? yes I believe he did, in other words I presume he has a grasp of the history of his times not just boxing (as you all know I do not have much time for his arrogance and for what he's done but he does run rings around a few here who seem to me to know ****** ALL)

The posters Dempsey and Perry have basically owned some of these guys on this thread and have put up some great arguments and facts and they have used REASON and are trying to argue with those who will never change their minds on this. SO WHAT if he didn't fight Greb or Wills or MICKEY MOUSE, he did try hard to get the fight with Wills and Perry has stated exactly why not and I am with him 100 per cent on what he has said.... this was way beyond Dempsey, he was the star but the big men behind the scenes held ALL THE CARDS....

If this goes on much longer I call on the mods to close this thread as we are going around in circles.

 

They've done no such thing. You say Dempsey tried to get a fight with Wills. I say he tried a helluva lot harder to avoid it. As for all the big men behind the scenes who held all the cards, well, when Jack wasn't happy with Kearns he fired him and when he thought he could get a better deal with a promoter other than Rickard, he fought for them. And he still didn't fight Wills.

On Greb, there's been no satisfactory answer on why Greb wasn't deserving when four of Dempsey's challengers LOST to Greb, usually not long before they got a shot at Dempsey.

 

I believe straight Marquis of Queensberry rules were chosen to govern the Dempsey-Willard bout.

Queensberry rules have only several paragraphs, and state that "the contest in all other respects to be governed by revised London Prize Ring Rules".

London Prize Ring Rules say "that any pugilist voluntarily quitting the ring previous to the deliberate judgment of the referee being obtained, shall be deemed to have lost the fight".

The new, modified rule, where a fighter is allowed to leave the ring between the rounds, and if he doesn't return at the start of the next round he is counted out, I believe, was introduced only in the 1920s, ie after this bout. If I'm wrong, I apologize.

Thus it didn't matter whether Dempsey heard the bell or not, or whether he believed the bout was over. The referee had not declared his decision by the time Dempsey stepped between the ropes and started walking to his dressing room. According to MoQ rules that means automatic loss of the bout. That was pointed out by some writers at the time, but it was too late to change anything.

 

Well Paul we differ on this obviously, I think Perry has stated the facts why the bout was never gonna happen and why the fight was cancelled.... behind the scenes pressure and the spectre of Jack Johnson still loomed large, of course Harry Wills had a different nature and was no braggart like Jack but he was black so that automatically put him behind any white guy who was near.

None of this however excuses some of the vilification of Dempsey that has gone on here. I didn't name anyone and I was not thinking of you when I did that last post but you have to admit some have gone a bit too far. Dempsey I tell you now had zero fear of Wills or Greb, it wasn't in the man's nature... Why no Greb fight ?.... there are many reasons I posted earlier as did Perry and the poster Dempsey as to why it never happened... Greb's size is the main reason, Dempsey was on a lose lose situation... I also have no doubt that he wipes Greb out early and this would have just made him look like a bully and a thug but you don't see it that way... that's fine but there is no need to hate or vilify the man is there ?

If you think Greb can beat him... that's your opinion, it's ok to fly in the face of general opinion sometimes... I know I like to often too but there are boundaries as to what is acceptable.

 

Well you can state the rules my Russian friend but stop and think how that huge crowd reacts if they give the fight to Willard for that reason, just stop and calculate the damage to the sport ??? apart from the riot I mean..... here we have a round where no one in their right mind thought Willard was going to fight the next round.... and for another thing how can Dempsey have known... how could he have heard the bell or anyone in the enormous noise from the crowd.... You are expecting way too much from this unprecedented occasion.

 

He's done no such thing let alone proven any such thing. To even insinuate Dempsey tried as hard to make the fight as avoid it, is well, being blatantly disingenuous

 

It's not hate to have an opinion about a fighter's career. I don't think you hate Greb for saying he would lose to Dempsey. It's a legitimate opinion. There was some opposition to Dempsey-Wills, a lot of it from parties who disliked boxing full stop. There was also plenty of interest in staging it. There were promoters all over America (and indeed all over the world) willing to stage it. Dempsey ended up being banned from fighting in New York over his refusal to face Wills (which is why Dempsey-Tunney was staged in Philadelphia).

It's not about who would win. There's only way to prove who wins a fight. It's about Dempsey not facing a legitimate challenger. I hear that Greb was "too small" for Dempsey. Yet he wasn't too small to beat Miske, Brennan, Gibbons and Tunney, who were deemed legit challengers for Dempsey. Greb was hardly smaller than Carpentier who rarely weighed more than 170lb (and Greb's pedigree was infinitely better than Carp's) and Dempsey fought him too. Dempsey was happy enough to talk up a potential fight with Kid Lewis (a welterweight!) without fearing being called a bully.