Jack Dempsey vs 1996 Evander Holyfield

Yes a last minute replacement after one challenger got sentenced to prison and another was injured in training. I can think of worse backups than A 25 year old 214 lbs stack of muscle with fast hands and left Ray Mercer’s face looking like a basketball.

 

Tell me who was more accustomed to slugging wars with big punchers ? Who beat the better men?

 

Who could punch, & who could not?

 

Excuses abound. Cooper was trash.

 

I’d like to ask the great Fireman Flynn about that

 

I would ask a certain light heavyweight who took the mauler the distance twice

 

Despite considerable grounds to do so, I make no offer of an excuse. Unlike you, trying to talk up crack addict Bert Cooper.

We have all see the fight. It’s embarrassing. Not only was Holyfield knocked briefly senseless, but he proved to have no punch, landing clean & hard over & over on one of that generation’s most prodigious quitters, struggling life & death to score a stoppage.

 

Dempsey would KO God if he landed as hard, clean & often as Holyfield did on career quitter Cooper, yet he could barely force a stoppage.

Best of luck to him trading with Dempsey. He will be picking his teeth up off the canvas.

 

I’ll take the guy who traded with Tyson, Bowe, Foreman, Moorer, Rahman, cooper and Mercer and ended up going 7-3 against them while dishing out plenty of hurt over the guy that needed help getting back into a ring

 

Holy had to grab the ropes after a rough exchange, quickly recovered and then kicked the dude’s ass. Dempsey got KTFO by Flynn. Is this the best you can do ?

 

You can have him.

 

Holyfield didn’t always let a Light-Heavy take him the distance, but when he did…..he lost the HW championship of the world. Again.

 

Another classic hypothetical matchup that I'd pay top dollar for a ringside seat! This would be a war!! I think prime Dempsey's more powerful than prime Holyfield and he would eventually wear Evander down and put him away with a late stoppage. TKO in 11-12 rounds.

 

Said LHW was able to knock out Brennan when he was literally dying.

 

The thing is with Holyfield failing to land hard shots in bunches is because he would punch with his arms during combinations - I think he got carried away into old habits because he was capable of throwing hard punches IMO but so should every fighter.
Bert Cooper went where the money was and had unfortunate habits but he was a well schooled fighter and when he was on he was on, Dempsey would beat Holyfield IMO he was extremely skilled/powerful much less primitive then people will spout about here (IMO) and Holyfield was… extremely open lol. I always felt Holyfield would lose to quite a few smaller HW’s…. He was smarter then most big guys but he’d be a lot less clever then say Tunney, Charles, Sharkey (good night) Moore… Toney from the 190lbs days would rake him…