Jack Dempsey would be turning in his grave right now! Jack Dempsey was a dominant champion, who missed a couple of key contenders. David Haye was a belt holder, who missed practically every contender! At least be fair here!
if he fought through dempseys resume he'd come out with about the same results imo. he surely beats everyone dempsey succesfully defended against. (not such a quick ending v firpo tho)
I would say it is highly unlikely. Haye might be able to punch as hard as Dempsey, but he is not a complete fighter. He has a very serious weakness in his poor endurance. If you match him against Dempseys opponents, he will look spectacular against some, mediocre against others, and eventually somebody would take him into deep water and drown him.
i agree with that, i should have written ends with a similar record, they wouldn't have the same results as haye has am experience and wouldn't lose to meehan twice, but may, as you say, have been beaten by a couple guys dempsey beat. dempsey was great, don't think i'm denying it, but he was no complete fighter either, hence his(non tunney) losses. miske, brennan, carpentier, gibbons, firpo were dempseys succesfull defences, i honestly can't see haye losing to any of the versions dempsey fought. I am a fan of boxing and history, so obviously boxing history is a passion, and i don't want to get on the bad side of knowledgeable guys like yourself that i have, and will continue to, learn from, we may disagree entirely on this topic, but it's nothing. I just think fighting someone over 175lbs(usually over 200 given 24hr weigh ins) in the modern era would count as a hw fight when anyone over 175 was a hw, and that haye is not close to the only sportsman to give a stupid excuse for a poor performance(against a fighter entirely different to dempsey so irrelevant here anyway).
In terms of how highly we weigh wins at cruiserweight, when comparing records across era's, it is a hard one. I think it is reasonable to assume that Mormeck would have been a contender in a 175 lb heavyweight division, but would Maccarinelli or Fragomeni? Did some of the best potential cruiserweights simply circumvent the division? The broader heavyweight divisions of the past, had a tendency to stratify unofficially. If there were two smaller heavyweights who were credible contenders, they often fought each other to circumvent the big guys. This in turn meant that the bigger guys often had to fight each other.
not likely and maybe, but mac was more of a domestic ££ fight, and haye did his job there. i'm not sure, not many guys went from 175 straight to hw, but quite possibly some caereer hw's could have made weight if they really wanted. those answers support your side of the discussion more than mine tbh, at the end of the day i think haye is a live 'dog rather than a no hoper - see ability to capitalise on op's weakness from last page.
This is plainly false. For example, after beating Willard, Dempsey fought only one opponent over 200 lbs in 8 fights. The claim is made all the more ridiculous by the fact that modern cruiserweights regularly put on 10-20 lbs after the weigh-in.