What do you expect him to do ? It's a boxing ring. He's Jack ****ing Dempsey. Anyone who wants to spar Jack Dempsey may as well get knocked out, that's something to tell your grandchildren.
Larry Gains ,who was Dempsey' sparring partner for a while,said the relief on the faces of the partners he did not use that day "was something to see".
It hold LESS value because Godfrey wasn't as great as Marciano. And he wasn't as great as Dempsey either.
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Can you explain at all? I scanned over his book the once but couldn't make heads of tales out of what he was trying to say.
The contemporary accounts that I have read say that Dempsey was able to handle both Godfrey and Big Bill Tate in sparring. But of course there's no guarantee of anything in a real fight as both Dempsey and his partners were trying to get Jack ready for a real fight, as opposed to really trying to defeat the other man in the ring. (Actually Tate was probably often getting ready for one of his own fights as well.) From the pictures of Tate with Dempsey getting ready for Willard, you can imagine Willard must have appeared as slow as a tree sloth to Dempsey after chasing the very fit looking Bill Tate around the ring.
I've seen other small men sparring against a Jack Dempsey who went relatively hard and they showed honest skill even if they were physically outmatched. This fellow showed nothing, comparable to the wrestler Cowboy Luttrell yet only half as tough. I wouldn't be surprised if he had been pulled out from the crowd as a form of entertainment.