How much credit should Dempsey get for his controversial victory over Jack Sharkey?

Protect yourself at all times. In the end, that's the number one rule of the sport.

And for as much as I love Duran, you can't tell me what he did to Buchanan isn't 10 times as flagrant as whatever Jack may have done.

 

I think it hurts Duran a bit more because Duran was in a position to give a rematch. (Even if the fight had ended without controversy, Buchanan did well enough to warrant a rematch.)

Dempsey was beat by Tunney two months after the Sharkey fight and a Sharkey rematch after that made no sense for either of them.

I believe both of Dempsey's 1927 fights have been blown up into "controversy" events, as part of the Dempsey myth-making.

The KO of Sharkey was legit, and Tunney's "9 count" was legit. In the grand scheme of things boxing, fairly routine incidents.
People make a big controversy out of them because they've made Dempsey this larger-than-life figure. As soon as he lost the title to Tunney in 1926, the myth went into overdrive.

 

There is a lot of truth in this.

I also think that the scars of the color line still run deep today.

Evidence of this, is that the classic fighters that prompt the most acrimonious debate today, are those that were associated with it on one way or another, Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, Marciano.

 

Oh yeah, on this site you need a Ph.D and a professorship in Race Studies and Twentieth Century Social History to even begin to comment on a fighter pre-1940s ... that goes without saying.

 

Marciano is not included in color line debates. He is included in debates over quality of opposition.

 

I agree with this. The KO was more about what Sharkey did wrong than what Dempsey did right.

What was the guy's name that Floyd KO'd under similar circumstances? Those KO blows would have been very nice if landed on someone actually protecting himself, but it's a whole another kettle of fish when the opponent isn't protecting himself at all.

 

Look at how the hook was thrown. That is what is quite amazing. Generating a devastating punch in a very short compact distance.

 

How is Marciano associated with the color line? He was an EOE to the very end.

 

I see ****ogy with the Foreman-Moorer KO. Don't stand still in front of the old guy who still has power left... and not a lot else.

 

Anyway you slice it's two completely different things to a throw a nice punch on someone who doesn't even look in you direction and on someone who defends and counters.

That's why no one (hopefully) would be stupid enough to call PBF a one-punch KO guy just because he did it to an opponent that was looking to shake hands, not fight. That KO won't really factor in most people's overall estimation, I'd say (definitely not in mine). Why should this be different?

 

Dempseys power is not in question. Those that saw them all in action rate Louis and Marcianos power up there with Dempsey. Sharkey who fought them both implied strongly that of the two Dempsey hit harder than Louis punch for punch. No one challenges Louis ability to generate power. Even mentioning Dempsey and PBF in the same breath as Dempsey tells me something not very positive concerning your depth of knowledge concerning these fighters. Dempsey was an all time puncher. As per Sharkey. "If Dempsey hits you in the shoulder he breaks your shoulder. If he hits you in the body it feels like his fist came out your back. If he hits you in the hip he des locates your hip. ". That's directly from the only an to have fought both Louis and Dempsey. It means plenty.

 

I think both sides are correct,

Dempsey clearly still had big league power, as the subsequent Tunney fight would also prove,

and some of the luster comes off this knockout because Sharkey completely lost his head and didn't defend himself.

That can't fairly be blamed on Dempsey fouling, though.

 

Because he was the only dominant white heavyweight champion, who did not draw the color line.

Whether we like it or not, some of the controversy surrounding him hinges on that.

 

Only one guy was looking at the other with no low blow mixed in there. The other, the guy wasn't even looking at him when the punch is thrown. As stated.. all adjectives about a punch are null and void if the guy isn't looking. Even more so, when the punch is following up a low blow