Jack Dempsey vs Joe Louis

Well if no agenda let me say your rating of him is WAY off base. Cool now?

 

I never said you made 50 threads about Dempsey but you have unfairly criticised him in several ones, virtually every thread on Dempsey. I honestly dont have time to go back on every thread but your arguments are pretty one sided and unfair on Dempsey :good

 

That's fair enough.
Tyson wouldn't make my top 10, he never will.

 

I'm not talking a number, i am talking in every regard.

 

Every regard ?
I think Tyson was one of the great offensive fighting machines in history, a great puncher, a great finisher. Aggression, speed, power, skillfully applied fury - he's up there with almost anyone in those areas.

If that's an underrating, I'm up really against it here.

 

Claiming that he so called jumped out of the ring while the article stated he was calm is exxageration- great exxageration, mind you. You think Dempsey is some sort of a god who is supposed to take fights on no notice.

When i bring up that Dempsey did not fight the #1 contender for an incredible period of time, i'm a boxrec hunter..[/quote]
Who said that? Ofcourse not. But everybody knows that and it has been brought up several times. You are however extremely biased claiming that politics had no role in Wills not recieving his title shot, that it was entirely Dempseys fault. I have always said that it hurts a fighters legacy if they dont meet their too contender/contenders, however that does not mean they cant be rated.

And how heavy was Dempsey when he fought this average middleweight? He weighed 250 pounds, was at the peak of his powers, yeah? He had great management, great trainers and great facilities at this time yeah? He had a 100 or so fights up to this point, yeah?

And how many times was he down between 1918-27, a grand total of three times. So suggesting that Dempsey had a suspect chin just because of his fight with Sudenberg is frankly quiet silly, if it was really suspect someone should have knocked him down more then three times after he hit his prime.

Completely ignoring the circumstances that he fought under, his lack of experience, management and training, you started claiming that the Sudenberg kds are relevant.










If a fighter these days avoided the #1 contender for five or more years, he would be extremely criticised and the general forum would be filled with "Dempsey is a fraud"-threads.
Dito for taking a full three year break. Many people simply do not know this, see Dempsey destroying Willard, Carpentier and a few other lightheavyweights, say wow and rank him in their top3 .[/quote]Actually most of the people(probably) in the general forum know Wills never got a shot and that Dempsey had a three year layoff. Suggesting otherwise is silly.

You think you are the only one who has studied Dempseys records? I bet majority, if not most of the posters here have looked at his record as well as other articles and film.

One more sentence of pure nonsense.

I wil, repeat it here, NO OLD TIME HISTORIAN RATED WILLARD IN THE TOP 10, NOR HAVE I EVER SEEN AN ARTICLE CLAIMING WILLARD WAS AN ALL TIME GREAT. NO ONE ON THIS FORUM CLAIMS IT EITHER. I have said this before several times- Willard was described as a weak fighter by Nat Fleischer and others, and he was highly criticised both by the press and fans for his fight with Frank Moran.

People would never know about Willard? You think no one in the 50s or 60s knew who Willard was, or had read an old time article claming Willard was a average fighter?

You can be sure that most people had no idea about Wills? Have you got any clue as to what the demand for this fight was- alot of people wanted it and alot did not- there were countless articles about Wills in the newspapers which talked about him. About an year ago or so UPWITHEVIL, i think posted some of these articles.

Suggesting that most people had no clue as to who Wills was is laughable. They knew more then you or i do about Wills because they had actually seen him fight. So according to this, most people had no clue as to who Langford was until the 1960s yeah? :good

Levinsky, Carp and Gibbons were the only top light-heavies on his resume. Fulton, Brennan, Miske, Sharkey, Fripo, Morris, Smith etc were not light heavies. That means arguably 7 of his ten best wins were not against light heavies but against men his own size of bigger. That is 70 percent which is more then half.

Regardless Dempsey only weighed 190 lbs or so and so what if he fights someone 15 or so pounds lighter? Other heavies did not do the same thing?

 

Sonny you picked Witherspoon against him, tried to make Norton favourite and talked up Shavers chances BIGTIME. You also argued ages back that it was the best of Tyson that fought Douglas. You opinion of the guy is way off what would be called balanced and this is just the way it is. If you want to be in denial fine, whatever. You've often taken him down and 90% of your talk of him is negative. These are the facts. You can pile superlatives on him right now in an effort to show your great admiration but it's a bit too late for this little black duck sorry. Have at the guy and stop worrying about what we think.

 

Jack Sharkey...the only guy to fight both Louis and Dempsey...said that if you put both of them in a telephone booth and closed the door...Dempsey would be the one to walk out...

 

alot of old timers rated Louis ahead of Dempsey as well - difference is their rankings were based more on who they think would win head to head and todays fans tend to somewhat base it more on accomplishments. (where Louis is clearly greater)

Another thing is the quality if film on Dempsey is pretty poor, so some people think of him as so called crude. Louis has much more film and better quality so he is easier to judge.

Both were greats and two of my favorites. Louis ranks higher but head to head i say it could go either way. :good

 

I'm certainly not worrying what you think.
I'm telling it how it is.
I've never NOT thought of Tyson as described by those superlatives, but the true complete greatness that others ascribe to him requires more, IMO. All those things made him formidable, but they weren't sufficient to make him even close to INVINCIBLE. That's the essence of what I argue.

I'm certainly not partaking in an effort to "regain lost ground" as it were. I stand my most of what I've said.
I regularly mention Tyson's strengths in conversations all over the place. 90% of my talk on him is NOT negative.

You said my rating of him is WAY off base in every regard. But in some areas I rate him close to perfect, and always have done.


Picking Norton over him was inexcusable, and probably fuelled by reading the cliched remarks about Norton losing to every puncher.

Likewise, I like to champion Shavers' chances now and then against anyone.

The Tim Witherspoon of the Larry Holmes fight could beat Tyson, IMO. I thought Witherspoon was good, fearless, technically impressive.

But so what if you dont agree ? I dont expect people to agree with some of my picks.
I think Jimmy Ellis could beat Holyfield.

Obviously, some of the guys YOU would pick over Dempsey would make me think you underrate him, which is what the other discussions on this thread are all about. But I dont respond with :

I respect the fact that you have based your opinions on what YOU consider balanced and reasonable, and you've come up with a different opinion to mine.

It's just a difference of opinion.

I STILL think Tyson was very close to his best, more or less, he was the same, when he fought Douglas.
It's not like he was a 31 year old coming straight off a 3-year off !

 

Fighting anybody who steps into the ring with no notice doesn't make you "a god", it makes you an idiot. Dempsey was a rising contender with a major fight scheduled in just a couple of weeks, donating his time to spar with a former sparring partner. The idea that he should instead face any fighter who stepped into the ring without any forewarning is so ridiculously stupid as to be unworthy of further comment.

 

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