Harry Greb Confident He Can Beat Dempsey

I am sure if the question came up to Fleischer and Arcel, two Dempsey contemporaries, that Dempsey was afraid to fight and or ducked either Greb or Wills they would have a very long laugh.

 

Low purses? He was offered the same amount he got to face Miske the same year by the same promoter. He was offered the same amount he got to face Brennan the same year and after. He was offered a guarantee of $100,000 plus 50% of the gate in 1922. If the gate did only half a million, a conservative estimate, Dempsey would have made $350,000, basically $100,000 more than he was paid for Gibbons the year after and $50,000 more than he was paid for Carpentier the year before.

See where I am going with this? A more deserving challenger would have netted Dempsey as much or more money than he made to face the less deserving opponents he chose to fight. Dempsey chose those fights instead. Not because he made more money. Not because the promoters were better. Not because those fighters deserved it more. It was because the risk was much lower, the reward was still high, and by fighting setups he could keep the gravy train rolling to the next movie deal and the next mismatch, and the next exhibition tour.

 

Actually Fleischer said more than once that Dempsey ducked Wills and in his column back in the 1920s he stated specifically that if Dempsey never ended up facing Wills it would be because he was afraid of him.

 

This post perfectly encapsulates your entire view. Klompton2 posted 60+ articles describing the timeline of events and laying out real offers opinions on this match. You didn't read them. You had already formed your opinion not through dedicated research but through "common sense logic," despite the fact that your logic keeps circling back around to the same failed arguments.

Let me help you. You say that Rickard was all about making money. Instead of looking at the obvious reason why he wouldn't stage a Greb-Carpentier fight in 1920 you want to imagine that it was because Greb wasn't a draw or couldn't earn. The problem with this is that Rickard was a smarter man than you and had his eye on the big picture. His agenda was always to stage Dempsey-Carpentier. That wasn't a secret and that isn't even in dispute. The Carpentier-Levinsky bout was a means to an end.

The problem was that after Carpentier came to the United States in mid 1920 for an exhibition tour to build interest in such bout most people who saw it got the impression that he was too small and frail to compete with Dempsey. Rickard needed to legitimize Carpentier as a challenger in the eyes of the people. In order to do this he promoted Carpentier to the light heavyweight championship with Levinsky. Levinsky had been beaten by Harry Greb in every single one of their numerous fights. He was slowing down, often out of shape, and the path of least resistance. If you want to build Carpentier into an attraction in the United States for a mega showdown with Dempsey you don't get him beat in his first fight here by matching him with Greb. In fact Rickard was so worried about something like that happening that he contracted Carpentier not to fight anyone between Levinsky and Dempsey lest he lose and kill the promotion. Simple as that.

The same argument applies to Dempsey. If you are Rickard and you are hoping to promote Dempsey in future bouts to keep that heavyweight championship money boat afloat do you match him with stiffs that he can look great and exciting against or do you match him with a guy who could beat him or at the very least make him look? You steer clear of option B and option B was Greb. He was simply too much risk. So in summation they ducked him.

You keep wanting to lecture people about the business of boxing, and promotion, and so on but its clear from your post above you really have no idea how promoters operate. Certainly not the ones who run their promotions like a business.

 

SIGH !!!!! :roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll:

 

I just explained to you why the fight wasn't made by Rickard. He was trying to protect the goose that laid the golden egg. Im sorry if you don't like the answer.

What continues to escape you or rather what you keep ignoring is that Dempsey was offered as much or more to face Greb than to face any other fighter prior to 1923 Firpo, three years of his seven year reign.

Of course they were earning big money without Greb and Wills. That's what happens when you spend 15 months inactive after winning the title, then two years inactive after Carpentier, then three years inactive after Firpo. You build demand and suckers will pay to see the heavyweight championship put on display against any Tom, ****, or Harry. Just because it might have been smart business doesn't make it any less excusable or change the fact that the elephant in the room as to why Wills and Greb weren't ever on Dempsey's agenda was because they also happened to be the most capable challengers and the biggest threats. They could have drawn every bit as well as anyone else Dempsey fought, the only difference is they could have beaten him also.

 

The problem is we aren't talking about "usually," two of those offers in 1922 were for $100,000 AND a percentage. One was for 35% the other was for 50%. Either way its still a fortune and much more than Dempsey would have made doing what he actually did: NOTHING. So if they really believed Greb was a soft touch they would have taken the money which was more than 2 lifetimes worth of pay and knocked him out. It doesn't take Albert Einstein to figure out that doing nothing is a lot easier than fighting a guy who had defeated more contenders than anyone on your little list. Losing to that guy means you cant keep fighting stiffs for hundreds of thousands of dollars whenever the mood strikes you. I wont even get into the Harry Wills thing because every offer Dempsey got for that fight was more than he ever made. But boy howdy did Dempsey come up with a million different stories and a million different excuses, often contradicting each other, for why he couldn't fight Wills. He wasn't sceeered, it was just b'ness.

 

You're right they didn't need Greb. Just like they didn't need Wills. Why fight men who will probably make you look bad and might actually beat you when you can make big money against easier opponents? The bottom line is Dempsey could have earned a fortune for both fights. He chose not to take them, which is strange since so many on here seem to think he would have beaten both men easily. When has a fighter ever turned down an easy payday? It was his choice. Thing is, the best champions fight their best challengers. Dempsey didn't do that and that's why there'll always be an asterisk against his title reign.

 

It's fine for Dempsey to face people Greb has beaten, but it's not fine for Dempsey to face Greb himself.

Total bs.

 

Where is this asterisk you speak of? It's not on his official record. It's not in the Hall of Fame were his plaque is hung.

Dempsey retired almost 90 YEARS AGO. If there isn't an asterisk on his record by now, i doubt there's ever going to be one.

Jack Dempsey didn't fight Harry Greb. Just like Lennox Lewis didn't fight Chris Byrd or John Ruiz. Just like Larry Holmes didn't fight Greg Page or Pinklon Thomas. Just like Sugar Ray Leonard didn't fight Aaron Pryor or Donald Curry. Just like Floyd Mayweather didn't fight Margarito or Paul Williams.

They've all got their "Harry Greb's" they didn't fight. They all have some challenger out there who probably would've lost but "deserved a shot" more than someone else at a particular moment.

No long-reigning champ fought all undefeated challengers. Nearly all their challengers lost to someone who felt he deserved a shot more than those who got title shots.

None of those champs have "asterisks" next to their reigns, either.

Dempsey's reign was historic regardless of who he didn't fight.