Harold Johnson vs Jack Dempsey

Not to mention Brennan came into the ring fat as a pig, had been put into a coma and nearly died from his previous fight, and many still thought the fight was a fix. If I were a fan of the Miske myth I wouldnt be bleating too loud about his "win" over Brennan, somebody just might start looking at it closely and realize it wasnt much to go bragging about. But boy does it sound good neatly packaged in with "The Last Christmas."

 

Can't believe people are making excuses and trying to justify the Miske win. Miske had Bright's disease when he fought Dempsey, he was a dying man!

He should not receive much if any credit for this win

 

Every noted trainer writer and historian from that time and for decades after rated Dempsey very highly if not the very best. Sam Langford stated Dempsey was the greatest hwt he ever saw. Tunney stated Dempsey was "the perfect blend of puncher and boxer". No hwt champion in boxing history gets this type praise unless he is very very special.

 

Again, you have to take into account an opponent when judging a performance. Dempsey damn well better have looked great against an aged, inactive, fatass Willard who was never that good even on his best day, a dying Miske, a Brennan he had already beaten by KO, an overhyped LHW who had been beaten by the best fighters he faced, another LHW who got his shot by LOSING his elimination, and an overhyped neandertal who couldnt box his way out of a paperbag. Is it any wonder when we see him up against the best fighter he ever faced that he looked mediocre at best and gave a wide berth to his top two contenders?? Its the same reason so many deluded fanboys think Roy Jones looks like superman. Undermatch a guy and he is going to look better than he is.

 

When the experts of your time and decades after say you're one of if not the greatest hwt ever to live.....you are one of the greatest hwts ever to live. No man is in position 90 years later to change that history.

 

Yeah and given that film was a limited commodity due to the interstate ban, radio was in its infancy, there was no tv, and Dempsey spent most of his time out west and had only a handful of fights where most of those experts were its not entirely impossible that Ive seen more of the man than they have. Sorry, but those experts arent infallible and not all of them thought he was great. Plenty of them considered him overrated, protected, overhyped, and beatable. But if you are only looking for "expert opinions" that support your argument you arent going to know that. Its funny, one of those experts who spoke so highly of Dempsey years later, Nat Fleischer, wrote that Harry Wills would knock both Dempsey and Gibbons out in a single night. Then he started a magazine and realized Dempsey sold copy and suddenly changed his story, particularly after Dempsey began sharing an office with him... Plenty of experts today think Floyd Mayweather is an unbeatable massively great fighter, likewise Roy Jones, I would answer that plenty of "experts" love hyperbole and love to latch onto a hero because they know they can sell magazines, newspapers, or whatever and they can ride that guys coat tails. It doesnt make it so. If you measure Dempsey's performances against who he was fighting and more importantly who he was avoiding the man is underwhelming. He had to come from behind to beat a C level Brennan, he looked boring as **** against Gibbons, he was life and death with Firpo, and he got his ass handed to him by Tunney. Is it any wonder that three best, most dominant performances we have of him are against the three guys who had least chance of beating him: A fat, 37 year old, over three years inactive, poorly trained, mediocre lummox, a dying man, and a weak, overrated hype machine outweighed by twenty pounds.

 

I agree with that

What do you make of the Fred Fulton victory?

Why was Fulton rated number 1 over wills in 1918?

 

Very untrue. Dempseys bouts were attended by everyone in the sporting community. You watch Dempsey on grainy silient movie footage. They saw him live and in person. Huge huge difference. No hwt champion gets this level of praise if he is not very very great. No one doubts Sam Langfords greatness as a fighter. He stated Jack Dempsey is the greatest hwt I have ever seen. This statement alone crushes any argument but we have dozens more just as praise worthy. You are in no position, no man is in any position, 90 years after the fact to discredit experts far greater than you will ever be. They were there and you were not.

 

Perry, you tell them naysayers ! All the boxing fraternity of Dempsey's time who were witness to his fights in his prime and raved about him are somehow less qualified to judge his greatness in the ring than some posters [mainly on ESB], who almost a century later judge him to be a step up from Butterbean
[if that]...What arrogance I say...I never saw joe Gans fight, nor
Sam Langford, nor Bob Fitzsimmons [other than grainy film clips], but I take the word of the vast majority of contemporary boxers, trainers and boxing writers who saw them fight and called them alltime greats without dispute from today's Dempsey detractors...But somehow Jack Dempsey's reputation get's the
"shaft" from these so called experts...Give me the eyewitnesses
of Dempsey's prime who saw him ringside over his hateful critiucs, anytime and any place...:good:good

 

This says it all really. Langford fought Wills many times and is arguably the greatest pfp fighter ever to live.....

Sam Langford, when asked how Harry Wills (whom he fought 18 times in his career) would do against Jack Dempsey, said in the June 5, 1922, Atlanta Constitution "Well if he ever fights Dempsey my money will be on the present champion. Dempsey is the greatest fighter I have ever seen. He hits twice as hard as Jim Jeffries and is as fast in the ring as James J. Corbett."

Now add to this the thoughts of Arcel, Stillman, Bimstein, Tunney, Fleischer....all of whom saw Dempsey live from ringside both in actual bouts and in training and in the case of Tunney also spent 20 rounds fighting him in the ring. These were experts, all time experts, and their expert opinion was that Dempsey was a very very great fighter. Do you have the boxing knowledge of any of these men? Did you watch Dempsey live and in person? No you are 90 years late and quite logically cannot undo 90 plus years of boxing history.

 

Do you agree that Miske and Gibbons, were both better than Brennan.

That is ultimately what we are trying to get at.

 

In my opinion yes. But then you look at the big picture and realize Miske and Gibbons did not deserve title shots

Miske had Bright's disease and was dying

Gibbons LOST a title eliminator to Greb, losing 9 out of 10 rounds in the process

 

There is a difference between not being the best available challenger, and not deserving a title shot.

The problem is not that Dempsey fought these guys, its that he didn't fight Greb.

 

I dont agree that either put up a better effort against Dempsey than Brennan, thats all that matters. "Better" is a subjective term. Better how? They could be better in every other fight they had but we are talking about the versions that fought Dempsey. On that night Brennan showed up to win and fought every one of the 12 rounds he was in. Miske turned in a total non performance and was blown out easily. Gibbons stopped trying to win after about the fifth or sixth round (he even admitted as much). Regardless, my point is and was that Brennan, Miske, and Gibbons were not great challengers and certainly had not done anything to garner a title shot. Gibbons fought an eliminator and lost it. Lost it. Yet he was given a title shot, and he was the best out of the three. Thats pretty sad. Thats why I say he wasnt a dominant champ. He was hyped and protected and even then he showed cracks in his supposed armor against the setups he was fighting.

As for Perry: Get ****ing real. "Everyone attended Dempsey's bouts." Bull****. It was the 1920s simply travelling to his venues was difficult enough then factor in the limitations of the media. Even if you believe that everyone showed up to watch Dempsey fight (and thats simply not true because you track those things by following the columnists movements in their own columns) the fights that they were most likely to appear at were fights like Carpentier. Ever see how big those arenas were? No jumbotron to watch the action on? Instead you are watching 2 fleas on a postage stamp. I think I'll take my grainy film over that any day. Besides, do you want to argue that the film added fat, inactivity, uncoordination, and age to Willard? Do you want to argue that the film led us to believe Miske was dying and that the fight wasnt really a sham? Do you want to argue that Brennan really wasnt at worst even up with Dempsey when they fought and had hurt him twice? Do you want to argue that the film made Dempsey look mediocre against Gibbons? Do you want to argue that the film was responsible for Carpentier's ****ty record at the world class level and took away 20 pounds from him and that it really didnt show Dempsey getting hurt by him? Do you want to argue that the film lied and Dempsey really wasnt dropped three times by the **** poor Firpo? Do you want argue that the film made Dempsey look worse than he was and that he really didnt lose 19 of 20 rounds Tunney getting battered in the process? Whatever. Film doesnt lie, fanboys who have emotional attachments do, writers trying to sell do as well. You wanna hang your argument on the word of Sam Langford?? How often did Langford see Dempsey nevermind that he was blind by the time Dempsey won the title, LOL. These guys werent above bias themselves. As far as these old time experts are concerned I'll fall back on the old story Jimmy Jacobs used to tell about when he would show films of these "experts" favorite fighters to them after decades of not having seen them. They would always say "who is this bum? he cant fight a lick" then Jacobs would laugh and say: "Thats Johnny Kilbane" or "thats Joe Gans" or "Thats Jack Dempsey." Those guys had built up this idea of how good those guys were and didnt even know what they were looking at when confronted with it. And for every so called expert you can find like Sam Langford or Ray Arcel (who changed his opinion like the wind blows) I can find another from that time who thought Dempsey was overrated.

 

Gibbons won six straight bouts leading up to his bout with Dempsey beating Miske by decision in the process. Miske leading up to his loss to Gibbons had beaten a who's who of contenders .....Weinert, Roper, Burke, Meehan, Fulton, and Gibbons himself.