I often read on this forum how posters rate Harry Grebb, Sam Langford and other fighters from a 100yrs ago as ATGs. How those fighters like Grebb and Langford would have little trouble taking care of today's fighters, like Froch, Ward, Kovalev or Hopkins. Sam Langford claimed, "Jack Dempsey to be the greatest fighter he ever seen". Dempsey was rated by boxing experts and historians. As the greatest fighter of all times, He was rated the greatest right up to the 1960s when those experts and historians passed away. If Grebb & Langford could slaughter the likes of Froch, Kovalev etc. Then why cant Dempsey slaughter the likes of Klitschko, Lewis, Tyson etc ?... Gene Tunney sat ringside for Larry Holmes vs Ken Norton World Title fight in Las Vegas 1978. One of the best Heavyweight Title fights of all times. Tunney, when interviewed at ringside claimed, "Jack Dempsey would have knocked out both those guys in the first round".. Legendary Hall of Fame Trainer Ray Arcel, claimed "Dempsey to be the greatest fighter who ever lived" right up to the time of his death in 1994... Why is Jack Dempsey not rated so high or great today, but Grebb & Langford are?
But Dempsey's resume is excellent. At one time during his career he went 32-0 (32 KOs) 28 in the first round. it is claimed more than half of Dempsey's career fights are not recorded on his resume. 144-4 with nearly 80 first round KOs. which is amazing!
Greb and Langford seem to be above and beyond any criticism. How can you go on records on paper when guys like Tommy Burns and Jess Willard were hall of famers and guys like Jim Jeffries were ATGs
I was referring to the first part of your post when you said the saying around here is that Greb and Langford would trample anything modern.
A PBS documentary said of Dempsey:"His style consisted of bobbing and weaving constantly...his two fisted attacks were furious and sustained...behind it all was rage!"...
He must have been one hell of a fighter Rocky.. We watch the old flicker films of Dempsey, where one camera was used at the back of the arena, which had one pixel. Today we use over 50 camera's around ringside and thousands of pixels. Imagine watching Jack Dempsey vs Louis Angel Firpo in full HD
Because of their records. And Langford and Greb are two different cases (for me at least). It's a cross examination of opponents records (and their opponents) and their success against them, footage of some of said opponents, their style and physical advantages (size difference, age difference, even just overall physical condition - something that needs consideration when talking about fighters hitting the 200 fights mark and that at some point of their career had to fight with actual physical disabilities - something common to both Greb and Langford). It's not just names in the HOF. You're cheapening the discussion dino. Again. I appreciate critical sense more than anything else, but the only reason Greb - and I can only make a case for Greb, I admit my limitations regarding Langford because of the gaps - has raised his reputation exponentially in classic is because his record is really difficult to beat.
Who were the 32-0? Who were these 144-4? Quantity means absolutely nothing if the quality is ****. For instance those unrecorded "career" fights were by Dempsey's own admission unorganized bar room fights against local drunk miners or farmers who he challenged. If Mike Tyson walked into a bar and started knocking out drunks we'd laugh at any claim he made about his greatness but some want to act like Dempsey doing the same is a badge of honor. And frankly if you look at his verified record I cant find a single run of 32-0 with 28 KOs. So right there the two stats you have thrown out are at best unverifiable hearsay and at worst totally made up. Thats not what you base a fighters greatness on. Then you have the fact that as champion the guy blatantly avoided his two top contenders for the entire duration of his tenure. Thats why Dempsey isnt rated up there with guys like Langford, Greb, Robinson, Armstrong, etc.
I have it in full HD and Dempsey still gets knocked down several times and has to resort to blatant fouls in order to get the win over a totally unskilled caveman that Tex Rickard brought to the US and expressly built up to get slaughtered by Jack.
I have an issue with this. I'm not completely dismissing that possibility but I find difficult to believe one of the most popular fighters in the history of boxing, who's been subject to tons of documentaries and books and was a celebrity pretty much to the day he died, still has an incomplete record near 90 years since he retired.