Like Jeffries, people who were alive during Dempsey's time seem to hold him in higher regard than later generations. I saw a program once where the group of people assembled included Don Dunphy and Archie Moore and two other boxing experts who's names escape me. The host asked everyone in one word to say who they felt was greater/better, Dempsy or Tunney. All four said Dempsey without hesitation. Eh?
Dempsey, like many historic fighters is a shadowy figure on the TV screen and when you start to look into him in detail he suddenly leaps out of the screen at you. Ray Arcel saw most of the top fighters from the 20s to the 80s and trained his fair share of them. He said that the three best heavyweights he ever saw were Dempsey, Louis and Ali and that he couldnt pick between them. He picked Dempsey head to head over Louis, Foreman and Tyson if they went after him. When he compared Durans defence to Dempseys it was a compliment to Duran not the other way round.
