How good was Dempsey's title reign?

OLD FOGEY stated he didn't see film of Dempsey that ran in decent speed until the 70's - that's half a century later. Rest assured that today's availability of information has a huge impact. Back in the 20's you couldn't just look up news paper articles. You couldn't just hop in your car and drive through a few states. There was no television. Were there public microfilm archives? Local newspapers, mouth-to-mouth information and books based on those two means, seem to have been the primary means of information spreading. Not at all reliable.

Even something trivial to us like fight records were a lot harder to come by back then. This is also why guys like Firpo and Carpentier were easier to hype: you couldn't go to Boxrec and see their spotty records.

Even the average boxing fan nowadays can see 8 or so Dempsey fights without much effort. And not just watch it once, but anywhere they want, at any time. Back then, you were lucky to have witnessed a Dempsey fight at all - travel was neither easy nor cheap, in hard times. None of those revered boxing historians have seen as many fights as we have and if they did, they saw it once in their life time, as opposed to us who can - and have to - rewatch them every year or so. The human memory is simply not reliable beyond more than a year, no matter how exciting the event. This has been proven in numerous studies. Just look at how the eye-witness accounts of the Dempsey-Flynn fight tell completely different stories.

Something that might also be underestimated is the value of this forums. It provides the opportunity to discuss boxing history every day. Do not underestimate the enormous amount people learn here. All of this was only possible for a select few boxing historians at meetings, before.


This all is backed up by the fact that many historians ranked Dempsey as being greater than Joe Louis after Louis retired. There is simply no excuse for that except for being misinformed or a serious case of generational bias.

 

You just proved my point Burt. You say in the 1940s a documentary came out in selective theatres. So a documentary showing snippets of action from selected bouts came out on a limited release. Exactly. Thats a pretty narrow window.

If you want to argue fight films with me we can argue them all day long. Because I guarantee I know a lot more about them than you do regardless of how old you are burt. Anyone who tries to say that those films were anywhere near as available to ANYONE as they are today has his stuck so far up his own ass its unreal. I can watch Dempsey knock Carpentier or Willard out 100 times a day if I want. Prior to the 1960s you were lucky if someone who owned that film screened it in your bar once every ten years. After the 1960s you could order a select few of those films on 8 or 16mm IF you had the gear to display them and you can ask anyone who collected such films, it was a hobby that was far far far more rare than it is today.


I'll say again, how many american sportswriters of 1921 saw more than four rounds of Carpentier before he fought Dempsey? How much of Carpentier did they see AFTER he fought Dempsey? You can go on and on but between the travel limitations, far flung fight venues, limitations on viewing fight films, lack of available first hand sources, relative inability to copy and dissiminate either film or radio, relative lack of access to first hand sources outside of your own town, etc etc. You cant tell me that historians today have anything other than a far greater advantage over their predecessors to formulate a clear, concise picture. Yes, a Hype Igoe was around at that time and carried his first hand knowledge with him through later times, BUT his view was narrowed because of the lack of scope that he could mine. In order to get the same kind of picture we can get today from the variety of sources we have a guy like Igoe would have had to have relied on essentially second hand knowledge which we know now was far more often than not faulty.

 

Most of the "experts" who originally stated that Jack Dempsey was one of the greatest fighters ever, didn't have to rely on film footage or newspaper accounts ... they were speaking as actual eyewitnesses and insider "experts", who followed him (and all the other great fighters), and followed boxing for decades on end.
At ringside, in gyms, in training camps, for years after years. Men like Ray Arcel, Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Lou Stillman, Hype Igoe, Sparrow McGann, Jack Cuddy, Mickey Walker ..... they knew the subject first hand, they didn't need to scurry around finding old films or check newspaper accounts - they were insiders.

 

Several times, I'm quite sure.
He rated both very highly, for what it's worth.

Yes.

By all means do.

 

Some of these claims are just utterly ridiculous.

It's almost as if you are saying watching old fight films and looking at boxrec is somehow superior to seeing all the great fighters of those eras come up and develop and ply their trade in the flesh, from ringside, at the fights, in the gyms.
Is that what you are saying ?

No, the old-time writers, managers, fighters, gym rats, and fans, used to watch boxing live every day - or every week at least - and talk about the fights, present and historic, all the time.
They used to hang out in the gyms, the boxing-oriented bars, the boxing clubs .... and you think the internet is better ?

I find these assumptions incredible.

 

A Louis Walker bout was discussed!

 

K, it is hard for me to type this because as you eloquently put it " my arse is so far stuck-up ,it is unreal", but luckily i found a good proctologist,and all is well now...
I just cited that film Kings Of The Ring,I saw in 1945, not because it showed boxers of the past not available today, but it was on a full size screen, that gave new dimensions to those oldtimers fights. Not postage sized fights on today's DVD's. We are veering away from the question on this thread,of Jack Dempsey's legacy. You simply contend that Dempsey was a "coward" who
avoided two of his best contenders Greb and Harry Wills. You also state NOW,that the Dempsey /Wills signing for promoter Floyd Fitzimmons was a "sham" designed to avert Dempsey's refusal to fight Wills, when for all these years, common knowledge was that Fitzimmons couldn't come up with the agreed money. So that every writer reciting this fight cancellation lo these many years, were either duped or in the pocket of insidious forces like Jack Kearns,and all the news media of that time.
I, on the other hand believe, that though Jack Dempsey,did not eventually
hook-up with Harry Wills, or for that matter my absolute idol Harry Greb, the
consensus of BOXING EXPERTS who saw all THREE of these fighters ,chose
Jack Dempsey as the best fighter upo to the 1960s. We are not talking P4P,
but just the fighter they thought could BEAT anyone, regardless of size...
I,place my faith in multitudes of writers,historians,fighters of those days, who knew about Dempsey's title reign [inactive,3 year layoff, Tunney],and still picked the Manassa Mauler,as the greatest !!! They saw him and his opponents, and unless they were part of your "conspiracy theories", these men,including Ray Arcel and Max Schmeling, were a helluva lot closer to
evaluating Jack Dempsey, than you are EIGHTY FIVE years after the fact.
PEACE!!!

 

I'm saying that having full-time access to fight films, instant access to near-complete records as well as a variety of reports on fights, their opponents, and their opponents' opponents is far superior to being lucky to once in your lifetime see Dempsey knock out a can, or if you're even more lucky, a Firpo, and then pretending to remember it exactly and being able to objectively compare it years, decades and even centuries later.

I also hung out around my local boxing gym a lot and saw all their fights, spoke with their opponents, people from other local (<100km) gyms and their trainers. And often times I'm amazed when I later find out their records and see them paint a completely different (and more objective) picture.

And then, there's also the rest of the world that you're missing out on.

 

Please explain to me how an objective boxing historian can rate Dempsey's inactive, shitty title reign with his historic record of ducking the top contenders, in any way put him higher than Joe Louis? And don't get me started about what he did pre-title, it's far from enough to compensate.

 

6 out of 7 years? How in the world do you come up with that conclusion? My maths could be bad, but he had the Tunney years off and defended once or twice a year in the other years. How do you possibly come up with 6 years of not fighting out of 7?

I am not doubting that Wills was a credible fighter and even the best contender. You seem to be saying that he was this uncrowned world champion who should have been named as such because Dempsey was ducking everybody and not fighting decent fighters. Others on here (not necessarilly me, because i am undecided) are saying that Dempsey was picking great fighters to defend against. It is obvious that Wills was fighting more regularly than Dempsey. Challengers always do (or at least they used to always fight more regularly). What i did was basically pick the best fighters that Wills fought, in the same years that Dempsey fought. This showed us what Wills Reign might have looked like if he was the champion. To me it showed that despite being more active, Wills did not beat better fighters (at this time) than Dempsey did. So, if he hadnt of beaten Dempsey, and didnt beat better fighters than Dempsey did, what gives you an inkling that he might actually beat Dempsey.

Regarding the 3 years of non fighting, it is interesting to note, that During this time, Wills was actually the highest paid fighter in the world and his level of activity dropped accordingly. And in fact, he openly ducked Tunney. I am not so sure that he would have turned out to having a better reign than Dempsey. Given Dempseys total inactivity, I am not so sure whether this period should be served as more of a retirement than sitting on the title. If this were the Case, i think there is a case for Wills to have been recognised as a defacto champion. Still, it wouldnt have really mattered too much would it. He would have went on to lose to Sharkey, and ultimately the title would be returned to Dempsey who would lose to Tunney.

Why not? Are you saying that Wills, who was in no condition to beat Sharkey should have been matched with Dempsey and lead to the slaughter? It would have been similar to Lennox Lewis finally being matched with Mike Tyson, it would have proved absolutely nothing. Wills was too old and inactive by this time.

Well there is an article i posted a few weeks ago, i think it was written at the time, by Dempsey who had a big spiel about the Tate fights and how Wills was not even the champion of his own colour, because Tate took the title off him with the DQ loss and then won the ND rematch. Yes, I realise that you showed that Wills was put straight back in the picture by defeating Norfolk, but what does this do to Tate. Would he not still be considered a better prospect than the fighter he defeated and knocked down just a couple of months earlier? especially since both went on to beat Langford on points.

He only fought challengers in 4 of those years. And according to you it was 1.

Why did Wills duck Greb? And who were the number 1 (tecnically 2) contenders that Wills actually fought? Or did he shamelessly duck fighters also in the hope that he would some day be lucky enough to get picked for a shot at dempsey.

 

First off: I've heard both walker and arcel claim several fighters as being the greatest they ever saw. I've also seen a lot more experts claim greb as the greatest ever rather than dempsey. Finally these guys still got a narrow view of the man. were they all there every second of his career. before he was protected or when he was padding his record by fighting sparring partners posing as opponents? Were they not susceptible to the same hype that skewed the perception of dempsey as a fearless man killer? that was largely fead by his promoters and careful matchmaking. Would their feelings have changed had he not ducked his toughest challenges and lost or looked bad? Its Kind of hard, imo, to have such a solid opinion of a guy who never proved himself against his top competitors.

 

Many of the men whose opinions are being almost completely dismissed saw Dempsey far more extensively than that, and saw many of the other greats too, as well as thousands of non-great fighters. I'm talking about managers and trainers and gym owners, and people who made their lives in the boxing game.

Well, that's probably slightly different from hanging out at Stillman's, Gleason's and The Garden and the top NY boxing clubs and fight cards, and almost all the championship training camps, for decades on end during boxing's golden age.
You can make pretty good comparisons between the great fighters when you've seen dozens of them up close, as well as thousands of not-so-great ones.

It's a damn sight better insight than peering over microfilm collections and using boxrec as your primary opinion forming material regarding these fighters.
In my humble opinion.