Jack Dempsey belongs in the top 5 h2h at HW

Yeah, I'd say so.

 

That's a good start but my list wouldn't stop until it reached the likes of Tua...

 

Certain fighters have had certain performances where I can't really envisage anyone really surviving them - maybe not getting as splattered as the actual victim - but still not surviving - of these Dempsey's massacre of Willard is TOPS. Putting 'TOPS' in capitals was not a typo either - for me there isn't another performance by anyone that comes close in terms of thinking nobody survives that.

So yeah that peak Dempsey is top 5 for me but throw in things like the the Fulton destruction and that probably bolsters things even more for me and things like the Blitzing of guys like Bat Levinsky who'd not been KO'd in like his previous 200-odd fights etc and even the near knockout of a prime Gene Tunney who never came close other than at the hands of a seriously rusty Dempsey - this guy was clearly something very different

 

I wouldn't give that loaf of bread that waltzed into the ring against Dempsey in Toledo half a chance against Tony Tubbs. I don't castigate Dempsey for doing his job but that innactive, overconfident Willard is no litmus test for greatness.

And by chance, what would Louis' or Marciano's or Ali's records look like if their opponents could stand over them once they were down?

 

based on jack wiping the floor with the skilled giant hw champion of the world. utterly totally destroying him.

u must be on topsy turvy planet K.

 

On Topsy Turvy Planet K, it is a widely know fact that Willard was 37 years of age and had fought all but once in four years.

 

The criticism about Willard is too retrospective. The facts were he was the heavyweight champion, never before floored and the favourite despite the fact Dempsey had been mincing contenders. The manner in which some write about him paints him as this helpless farmer. Believe me, if he were he would have been gone with the first gut check. What he stood up to was unreal. All the rhetoric of what Foreman/Tyson would have done if there was no neutral corner rule does not wash. Dempsey had to be clever and work to bring the fight to its bloody conclusion. Evander Holyfield for instance would have been with the helpless farmer for much longer.

Criticism regarding Dempsey stems from frustration, that he sat on his crown, that he didn't fight Wills, but if we may briefly forget the legend and visualise those early destructions we would unanimously applaud a one-of-a-kind heavyweight. Dempsey had that nice combination of range and versatility, to hound the likes of Ali and threaten the likes of Foreman.

 

Holmes and Ali lost to the stinks brothers.
Qawi put Holyfield in the hospital.
Lewis kid by Rahman.
Rocky would get hit.

 

You didn't read very carefully, did you ?

I said

 

This issue is not so much that Dempsey was one of the five best heavyweights of all time, as that he was one of the three best heavyweight finishers of all time.

If he was overrated, then he was overrated for some tangible reasons!

 

I read quite well!

 

He was an incredible finisher. But mostly againSt questionable foes. I really wonder how he does against larger, modern boxer types.

But finish he could. No doubt.

 

Well, if that's the case, then maybe you're a little slow in the comprehension department.