Is it weird that I don't see anything special in Jack Dempsey?

He may have thought Dempsey the best, but his analysis of Wills, same as Dawson's (never thought much of him as a boxing expert, he sounded more like a punch-by-punch writer, than an analyst) is terrible.

 

Kahn's book was a Dempsey lovefest and not a critical bio .. Wills, who was flattening Sam Langford and Kid Norfolk while Dempsey fought handpicked opponents was a journeyman .. please be serious ..

 

Miske fought for a further 3 years after Dempsey stopped him, and lost only 1 of 23 fights, and not stiffs among those he beat were ;
Gibbons
Brennan
Renault
Weinert
Roper
Fulton




He sure took his own sweet time dying.

 

You read the old newspaper reports S,after the Wills v Firpo fight, the papers said Dempsey would ko Wills if they fought.

 

Which newspaper beside NY Times should I look up for next-day report of Wills-Firpo? Bill Rafter, sporting editor of Brooklyn Standard Union since 1900, thought Wills was a perfectly suitable opponent for Dempsey.

 

So you probably know more about Jack Dempsey than Max Schmeling did?
How can I then debate with such a knowing expert? Max Schmeling in his
autobiography written in German and translated to English describes how as a young boxer he sparred with the still champion Dempsey in Berlin, and
picks the greatest fighters he had seen in his lifetime, then say's Jack Dempsey was in a class by himself. His words, not mine...Right or wrong those were his opinion and respectfully B, I take his lifetime experience over yours...I do not place Dempsey over Joe Louis based on their records, but H2H, style for style I believe Dempsey should be a 6/5 favorite over
the less mobile Joe Louis who happens to be my favorite heavyweight ever...Of all the fighters mentioned on only ESB, Dempsey is more
vilified than anyone else. Put this prime Dempsey in thee ring with anyone in history and I believe fervently no one "outfights" him. A rough , tough SOB...

 

Here is a link with observation and analysis on Harry Wills. It also contains the same quote verbatim that many of you on here are using from the Jack Dempsey biography.

http://fightfilmcollector.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-trouble-with-harry-harry-wills-vs.html?m=1

I happen to agree with the article's opinion on Wills. It's just my take and one I can see doesn't agree with some posters. It's all debatable but I am not impressed with Wills in the Firpo match at all! I don't care that Dempsey got caught coming in seconds into his fight with Firpo that made the fight a see saw affair for a round, once settled in Dempsey took Firpo apart to the tune of 9 knockdowns in two rounds when all is said and done. I understand Wills was older and slowing down but what I see is a slow ponderous man that is strong and let's the action come to him where he uses his superior strength to hold and hit. Against Dempsey this is fatal as the article says. Uzcudun and Sharkey abused Wills I would think Dempsey would turn the trick as well. Even if they had fought anytime from 22 on.

 

I respect too much a guy like Schmeling to act like I know more than him about Dempsey.. but yeah I wondered what he knew about prime Dempsey, if he watched Dempsey.
He sparred with Dempsey a little when he was a young fighter that was starting his career while Dempsey was a legend. Did he see Dempsey vs Willard, Firpo? I saw, you saw. There was no tv in those days like that, how he watched it ?
That's why I said I wondered how much he saw of the Dempsey we are talking about.

 

I mean, I just read a newspaper the other day where Gene Tunney said that Bill Brennan would beat Joe Louis. I mean, hey Tunney was a fighter I'm not, but I can say that I think he is way wrong and from what I see, Louis is at least thrice the fighter Bill Brennan ever was. That's all.
I respect ? Yeah, sure. But I think sometimes the opinions of people with great knowledge of the game are unexplainable. Hell yeah.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AAAAIBAJ&pg=3181,2790358&dq=harry+wills&hl=en

 

Ahhh but the devil is in the details isnt. Lets not just throw out glossy names and pretend it means something:

Gibbons was dominating that fight when he was DQd in what was a very controversial stoppage. Most thought it was ludicrous that he lost that fight.

Brennan showed up fat and grossly out of shape for his fight with Miske. His last fight was 8 months earlier in which he was brutally KOd and suffered a brain injury that left people calling for his retirement. It was feared he wouldnt even recover. Even so his performance against Miske was so poor it was felt the fight was fixed. His purse was withheld and he was banned from boxing in that state again.

His fight with Jack Renault was considered a boring and tame fight. Renault was coming off a loss to Greb in which he was dropped and suffered a bad beating. His best win when he fought Miske was his decision over Ted Jamieson who had lost six of his last seven fights, four by stoppage.

Weinert was coming off a brutal one sided loss to Greb two months earlier in which he had been dropped and had his face cut to shreds. Weinert won just two of his next six fights getting stopped twice.

Yes, Miske beat the legendary Bob Roper. His two wins over Roper after he lost to Dempsey were two of the 20+ fights Roper failed to win between Sept 1920 and Miske's death and over 50+ that he failed to at every stage of his career.

Miske joined the other 8 fighters who were able to knock Fulton out in under 6 rounds...


Anyone who doubts Miske was dying when he fought Dempsey just needs to read the coverage of their bout that wasnt trying to ballyhoo the promotion. They describe Miske as being pale and grey skinned, mention him having to take time off from training because he was ill, and some even called for the fight to be cancelled because it wasnt exactly a secret that Miske's year off of fighting was due to a serious ailment. But believe what you want. Thats what gets me about Dempsey fans, they are willing to believe anything as long as their guy is the benefit of those misguided beliefs.

 

More people than not by far thought Wills was THE opponent for Dempsey. Anything less than accepting that is denial.

 

I also think Dempsey would have defeated Wills but its not written in stone and this is a match that should have happened. Sometimes styles are all it is about, from films of Wills he looks slow and strait up but he did have a reach and experience.

It was a different era with less history than we have possession of now so less examples of mistakes. Dempsey like his predecessors did not take full advantage of his prime days in the ring. A Dempsey-Wills match would have cemented one of there greatness possibly.....my guess is a Dempsey KO but never know

 

Joe Vila (sporting writer for NY Herald and NY Sun/Evening Sun since 1893, and sporting editor of the Sun since 1914) thought Wills-Dempsey bout would have been a "highly interesting" bout. NY Evening Journal writer insisted that regardless of how Wills looked, the bout was advertised as elimination for the championship bout with Dempsey. So did Wilbur Wood of NY Sun, who thought the NYSAC should have forced Rickard to match Dempsey with the winner of that bout.

 

I agree with this, and the fact that dempsey didn't face Wills in particular knocks him down several pegs on the ATG list. Harry Greb to a lesser extent also hampers Dempsey's legacy. I factor those non fights in accordingly when judging Dempsey's career.
It doesn't change my opinion though that if Wills and Dempsey had fought that from what I know, and have seen I would make Dempsey a formidable favorite. Dempsey had the better chin, the bigger punch, was faster and had a track record of creaming big heavies of the day. Wills may have been the best of them but he still falls under that umbrella. An older Langford was able to KO Wills 2x and we know what Sharkey and Uzcudon accplished on an Old Wills. A large chunk of Wills' ledger is a round robin of feasting on the badly faded Black Dynamite era. I don't want to sound to harsh on Wills, he deserved the match, I just like Dempsey stylistically big in this match. I also realize that while the negative reflection falls on Dempsey for the fight not coming together, there were many people behind the scenes who did not want the fight to happen. None of those I believe to be Dempsey himself. It was a diffrent time and many people were still scarred from Johnson's reign and wanted no part of the bout. Wills got screwed by circumstance of history. It's a shame.