How would the Great Jack Dempsey fair against todays larger Heavyweights

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JD was a hell of a fighter for his size and era. I know you're not too fond of LL, do you really think Dempsey would have a good chance vs LL, or the K bros? C'mon.

 

Because Willard was 37 year old farmerboy without any boxing skill whatsoever (watch the film), who was 15 pounds overweight, hadn't fought in three years, and when he beat Johnson, that was purely because Johnson himself was old, fat, unfocused and ran out gas in the 26th, while Willard was still dominated in most of the rounds before.

The Klitschko's can actually box.

 

Yeah, and what kind of bigger men?

Willard whom i just described in the above post.

Firpo, whose skill is even more laughably absent.

Watch Firpo here, he has as much skill as someone stepping in the ring for the first time, or someone on the trailer park series:

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Firpo was big and strong, and that's about it. And he knocked Dempsey down twice, once outside of the ring but was illegally helped back in by thirds.


And then there was Fulton, who was knocked out about once every year. If there was an ESB back in the 20's, you'd make countless threads on how comparing Fulton's chin to glass would be an insult to glass.



If you want to look at a QUALITY big man, look no further than Harry Wills. But of course, Dempsey ducked him for a disgraceful, record holding time of 7 years when he was the undisputed #1 contender. Imagine Mike Tyson NOT getting a title shot from '86 to '93, because that's what happened. Dempsey didn't want part of any black man, by the way, since a black 170lbs journeyman by the name of John Lester Johnson broke his ribs and went even with him for the entire 10 rounds of the fight.

 

Dempsey normally did better against bigger men then guys his own size I think he would very well in today's heavyweight division.

 

so what's better knocking a guy down seven times in the first round or knocking him out with a single punch. if wlad landed a single right hand a là brock then willard wouldn't have gotten up for sure. dempsey had good power for his era but not as much to prevent his opponent getting up over and over again.

 

I agree with your comments about Tyson vs Vlad... Tyson was an incredible young man who avoided many taller mens punches thruough his 'bob and weave' stlye.. He was amazing. Once inside, he destroyed all bigger men.... until life itself got the better of him. Dempsey was less superior up close, sometimes very messy, although effective once the shot landed.
Its hard to compare Willard with Wlad, although, we can only speculate. Perhaps dempsey would have fared well enough to avoid the telling blows????

 

if you gave Dempsey modern training and nutrition techniques he would probably weigh 215-220 or so and he would be very competitive.

 

Never thought I would agree with you but I do here

 

Because Dempsey was flat footed compared to Tyson, beat up little men like Carpentier or wooden, lumbering statues like Willard and had a losing record against journeymen like Meehan.
He was also starched in one round by Jim Flynn (don't want to hear the fix thing, if it was fixed why stay down for 20 seconds?).

An ATG? Of course. But look at his record and how many absolute no hopers he beat up and his KO ratio looks a little less impressive. In todays era he would be lambasted for his padded record, fighting guys on their debuts or with horrible losing records when he was in his prime.

He was eating shots from little Carpentier and outboxed by Tunney for long spells.

A guy of Wlads size with his jab and power would have a great chance of KOing Dempsey. That said Dempsey could certainly smash Wlad out cold inside a round or two himself, but Vitali.....

I think Vitali beats him. Hits hard enough to stop him, throws enough and has a granite chin. He is not an ATG but in a H2H hypothetical, I take Vitali.

It is just a totally different era, when I watched the Carpentier fight I could not believe my eyes, the guy was smaller than Calzaghe. It looked like Dempsey was fighting a middleweight and not a built middleweight like Hopkins either.

 

Maybe you should watch his fights with your eyes open it might make a difference.:yep

 

I think Willard was a bit better than you described "no boxing skill whatsoever".

I hear a lot about the big guys of Dempsey's day were slow, and clumsy, and rarely if ever demonstrated refined technique, which may all be true. But I dont see much difference with big guys in the modern era, generally. The big guys generally look clumsy, slow and lacking the type of skill the smaller men display.

These two men, for example :

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The black guy hardly slipped a punch all night, and they weren't exactly hard to see coming. Footwork they were tripping over their own feet, let alone each other's. The white guy had a horrible stance, hands in no position whatsoever to guard with, and a generally floppy and uncoordinated movement about him. And so much holding and pushing, resembled a "toughest bouncer" contest for the most part. Yeah, I saw them double-up on jabs a few times, but that's hardly enough to put Willard et al. to shame. Big guys tends to suck (from an aesthetic standpoint) in EVERY ERA.

 

Answer:

None.