Is Jack Dempsey the most overrated fighter of all time

Jack Dempsey was a great fighter, the Mike Tyson of his times, a ring warrior who looked for the quick knockout and turned boxing from a constipated science into a frenzied assault. He was a romantic figure, exciting and had a magnificent physique.

On the other hand Gene Tunney was technically the best boxer of his generation and outboxed Dempsey twice.

 

Name another player with a .342 lifetime average, 714 career home runs, and who led the league in earned run average as a pitcher and twice won more than 20 games.

The list is made up of one man.

Clearly Ruth was a very outstanding baseball player and the argument used here about black players isn't convincing to me.

Ted Williams has been mentioned. Williams played the early of his career in a segregated era. The latter part as an aging player in an integrated era. He was the best statistical hitter over his whole career and great players like Mays and Mantle could not match his batting averages and slugging percentages and on-base percentages even though they were in their primes and Williams pushing forty.

Why it would be so much different for Ruth eludes me.

 

"Babe Ruth TODAY is still considered by baseball historians as one of if not the best player of all time."

Because his record backs it up--.342 average, 714 home runs, .690 slugging percentage, etc., plus being a top pitcher when young. Unless one uses a sliding scale to dismiss his accomplishments on some basis, he was obviously a player who dwarfed his competition.

Dempsey is another case. Did he hold the title longer than anyone else? Did he defend more often? Did he beat better opposition? Does he have the best winning percentage? The best knockout percentage?

Unlike Ruth's, Dempsey's record simply fails to impress when put under close scrutiny.

I wouldn't lump these two together except as celebrities.

 

Dempsey was the greatest gloved HEAVYWEIGHT to live up until Joe Louis and IMO only Johnson would give him trouble prior to that but I still see Dempsey beating Johnson and Jeffries but not easy fights

 

Demspey is underrated in my opinion.

 

The idea has been floated that it was the era that made Ruth and Dempsey the superstars they were not necessarily their ability. My comments concerning Ruth is to show this thought to be untrue. To say in any way Dempsey was not an all time great is complete revisionism. It's not backed up by the experts who saw him fight. Dempsey signed to fight Wills twice and perhaps three times. It's the powers that be who stopped that bout from occurring not Dempsey. To use this as a reason why Dempsey is not an ATG is again pure revisionism. The whole scenario regarding Wills was settled many decades ago.

 

I sometimes suspect high rankings of Dempsey on "great fighters" lists are partly based on his "pound for pound" "giant slaying" reputation, rather than strictly of being a heavyweight champion for 7 years.

Trouble is, even "heavyweight" lists can be based on a pound-for-pound relativism yet the people who publish their lists often aren't clear about the criteria.

I'm not sure Dempsey gets that much overdue praise nowadays though, but perhaps I believe he's due some praise.

Jack Johnson is a puzzle to me. Sometimes I think he's as good as that.

 

Dempsey and Ruth were the two biggest superstars of the 1920's. Dempsey though was more popular than even Ruth. On a side note Ty Cobb was the best ever baseball player with the highest batting average of .367 and 4000 hits. The .367 will never be beaten.

 

What about Rogers Hornsby who in a FIVE year period averaged
OVER .400 for the 5 years. The greatest right handed batter of alltime...

 

Williams played much of his career in a segregated era. It wasn't his choice,

and it wasn't the choice of players like Ruth and Gehrig.

It is certainly possible a great black player might have emerged who did better than Ruth w/o segregation, although certainly not a given,

but I can't see dismissing such a spectacular record out of hand like you do. The fall of segregation didn't seem to negatively impact the performances of Williams and Musial.

I don't see any reason to think it would have impacted the performance of Ruth (or Gehrig or DiMaggio)

 

I remember showing my brother a clip of Dempsey all he said was "If he was
around today he would kill them" Not "well he didn't do this or that" He only stated the obvious its there on film He didn't need to research nothing just watch him in action .his greatness is obvious like Ali's greatness is when you watch the Terrell fight.. Just like Joe Louis you see the greatness that made them champion of the world...

 

A prime Tunney out boxed a rusty Dempsey twice.I think that is a bit more accurate.

 

If it wasn't for Dempsey we might not have this forum he made boxing
into the mega money sport it became If Dempsey never was around Boxing as we know it would have turned out differently It might not have gained the universal acceptance it did..All of us should be grateful for Dempsey making our beloved sport of boxing big time in a way unheard of,and unimagined before he was champ...He's the one that gave boxing
its universal acceptance turned it into a big money sport...A drawing card unlike any before ..which unfortunately once it became big money that brought in
unsavory elements like mafia and diluted the talent as people who had no business even thinking about being involved in the sport.. Became managers promoters and trainers not through their love of boxing but love of money

 

Billy Smith : Welcome to ESB, but a WARNNG :
Be prepared to face SOME Dempsey haters who know no bounds in their revulsion to the late and GREAT Jack Dempsey...One in particular who DISREGARDS completely what the great assortment of boxers, trainers, boxing writers who SAW the prime Jack Dempsey ringside devastate his opponents from 1918 to 1923 , and also saw the heavyweights after Dempsey fight and in a boxing poll of veteran boxing writers overwhelmingly named Dempsey as the best heavyweight they had seen til then.
And DURING the reign of Rocky Marciano in 1954 or so in answer to this question " who would have won in a fight between Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano, both in their primes", ?..By an almost unanimous vote the veteran boxing writers chose Jack Dempsey over Marciano because of his much, much faster
punching and accuracy....But these Dempsey revisionists choose to ignore the tremendous amount of boxing writers who saw Dempsey in his heyday, who saw also Rocky Marciano in his prime , but think that THEY in their infinite wisdom, MUST KNOW more about Dempsey, NINETY years later than the multitudes of
boxing people who saw the Manassa Mauler at his ringside BEST..
So Billy Smith , prepare for some AGITA, and some Prozac..:good:good