Hey just for the hell of it, let's start another Dempsey thread.

In my opinion, we simply haven't beaten the **** out of this topic enough. In fact, I think all threads pertaining to any fighter in any other era or weight class should be banned here until we can sort this whole thing out with Dempsey's competition, inactivity, and legacy controversy.

A lot of people rate Dempsey as one of their top ten all time great heavyweights. Some have him in their top five. What we have to consider is that fighters are typically rated on legacies and their presumed abilities in head to head matchups. I for one don't use the latter of those two given that it is inconclusive, and most suseptible to an individual's personal bias. I can argue with someone until I'm blue in the face about weather Muhammad Ali would beat Dempsey or not, but if the otherside does not want to give in, then they have the luxery of doing so, because its something we can't prove.

Legacy on the otherhand, is a bit more solid and tangible. We can look at many things when judging a fighter's legacy such as:

1. Number of titles

2. Number of title defenses.

3. Records in terms of wins vs losses, draws, no contests, etc.

4. Personal records, like KO ratio, age when title was obtained, etc.

5. Quality of opponents.

The last of these ( number 5 ), is usually the most controversial here. I could argue that George Foreman was a better win for Muhammad Ali than Jess Willard was for Dempsey but certain individuals who's names I won't mention will rant on that Willard was better, and probably for the sole purpose of not backing down in an argument.

That said, I would rate Dempsey lower than a lot of all time greats. He did not have as many defenses as a lot of good fighters. He was inactive for most of his reign. He neglected to give the best fighters title shots. In only 6 title defenses, he gave opportunites to fighters who were clearly not deserving such as Miske and Darcy. Can you imagine what people would say today if Wlad Klitschko refused to give a title shot to a fighter because he was black, and then turned around and fought a man with 33 losses? He would not only lose his title, but possibly be exiled from the sport, ane lose any hope of ever being rated as a great fighter.

 

And once that title was taken, he never regained it, of course nether did a lot of fighters, but let's move on.

Most of those guys still had more defenses than Dempsey as well as a better list of opponents, and none of them sat on the title for three years while a number one challenger was meandering about

Probably is a word that means virtually nothing to me. Without solid evidence of how many fights he actually had and their true outcomes, then we'll just have to stick with what the record says. I believe we've been through this before.

A good feat yes, but it certainly doesn't top Mike Tyson's early KO of another all time great champion, or Liston's ko's of Patterson, or Louis's KO of Schmeling, even though Dempsey's work was a bit quicker.

No they weren't. For a good part of his reign, Harry Wills was viewed by many as the best challenger around. I know you know this to be true, but for whatever reason, it seems to need repeatance over and over again.

 

According to who's standards? Funny how Ali, Lewis, Tyson, and Holyfield were all multiple time title claimants, and are commonly ranked by some as being higher than Dempsey, but hey why should that get in the way of a good retort?

How? Tyson had 9. Jeffries had 7. Johnson had 8. Lewis had 12 between his two defenses. Holyfield had a combined 7.

Dempsey had 6, and don't think that you're going to surprise me with your usual comments about defenses of alpha fragments being useless. To say that Tyson' defenses prir to beating Spinks don't count, is no rebuddle.

Yeah he might have fought Wills and lost honorably as a champion. As it stands, he has a very tainted legacy due to this ridiculous abscence.

There is also no claim to who he fought, how good they were or if he even won for that matter.

Records are not all I look at and I'm not misled.

How about a single uppercut?

I wasn't looking at the time but the quality of the win and comin rather early.