Jack Dempsey vs Muhammad Ali

what kind of nightmare can a man have about jack dempsey

 

If he couldn't dominate a 37 year old Floyd Patterson, then he is not going to do it to a prime Dempsey.

 

Well, I think Dempsey would come forward fast on his feet and apply pressure, bobbing and weaving and throwing left hooks to the body, that would be his game - because that's how he fought, usually.
I don't think he'd modify much from that at all - because it's about the best thing he can try against Ali.

The amount of success he'd have with it, who knows.
Ali might find him far easier than Frazier ..... or Dempsey might have even more success than Joe.

Well, I'm sure we'll be hearing all about how Dempsey ducked Harry Wills, Harry Greb and Harry Mills sometime soon on this forum.

 

Ali only stopped Bonavena because that was scheduled for the championship distance. Maybe Ellis would have turned the trick first, but Ellis-Bonavena was scheduled for 12 rounds. (It does need to be acknowledged in all fairness that Jimmy was more tired than Ringo at the end, but a tenth round knockdown by Ellis might not have been expected either.)

Of course you know that Miske was only stopped by Jack, and that Dempsey was the first to stop Battling Levinski and Bill Brennan, plus the only man to knock out KO Bill twice. It's been argued that Carpentier-Levinski was a dive. If so, Dempsey KO 3 a peak 27 year old reigning LWH Champion Levinski in November 1918 is a very noteworthy achievement. An awful lot of excellent opponents failed to take him out.

Let's assume for the moment that Fireman-Dempsey I was actually on the level. Should it count against him anymore than Abe Simon counts against Jersey Joe?

Personally, I only go by the Willard footage when considering this.

Bat Levinski was also a competent HOF stylist, as was Tommy Gibbons, and Jack beat then easily in 1918 and 1923 respectively. Had Dempsey remained active in the two years since Brennan II, he would have knocked Tommy out before Tunney did.

Standing 6'1" with a 77 inch reach, Jack had sufficient height and reach to get to Ali with the speed he had. Again, Ali tended to give away body shots. Dempsey would certainly take advantage. This is the Mauler we're talking about. Clinches might not be the safe haven for Ali that they were when he took on Frazier and Foreman.

And Howard Davis, Jr. literally demonstrated what Ali would have looked like as a lightweight. But Toledo Jack was no slouch in that department either.

Now, an aside to newer and younger posters reading this thread. When McGrain rhetorically asks "Which otherwise unstopped fighters did Dempsey stop?" he knows full well the answer to this. He's a great historian, and is as fully informed about Dempsey as anybody here. Not a Dempsey fan for reasons well articulated elsewhere, but he has a better knowledge of the man than he sometimes lets on here. (I suspect he might also indulge in some "Devil's Advocate" instigation like I sometimes proffer.)

 

Mc,e spar again !A few points.
1-Who did Dempsey Ko,that was never kod before ? Battling Levinsky who in about TWO HUNDRED fights was never stopped before,Dempsey kod him in 1918.
2-You bring up the Fireman Jim Flynn ko od Dempsey in 1rd in 1917. By
observers of that time it was a questionably ko, or dive,as the estranged wife of Dempsey testified in court. At any rate ,ONE year later ,with Jack Kearns as his manager Dempsey easily flattened Flynn in one round.
3-Mc, you cleverly bring up the Jack Dempsey of the Gene Tunney fights in 1926-7, when you know that this Jack Dempsey was over the hill at this point. It bears repeating that Jack Dempsey at about 32 years old, away from the ring for THREE years, losing his great mentor Jack Kearns, grieving for his close brother Bernie who just committed suicide, WITHOUT a tune-up fight,
foolishly tackled a prime razor-sharp Gene Tunney. THIS VERSION is not the Jack Dempsey of this Dempsey/ Ali matchup, any more than the Ali of the Spinks, Holmes, Berbick bouts,were of the prime Ali of our thread.
When I watch the second Tunney/Dempsey bout in 1927, i CATCH a GLIMPSE of the young tigerish Dempsey when in the seventh round, the slow
32 year old Dempsey nailed Tunney with a five punch combination,that as a
boxing commentator wrote, "the punches look fast even in slow motion ".
This sequence to me, describes what the young vicious Jack Dempsey,must have looked in his prime,and made him a feared legend. Not the old,shot version of the Tunney fights, at the END of his career.
I have always felt that this is the Jack Dempsey, who was the EARLIER and bigger version of the LIGHTWEIGHT Roberto DURAN. Two panthers,seperated by fifty or so years...Cheers...

 

Surely you are not going to argue that Dempsey was anything other than a shaddow for the Tunney fights?

 

He wasn't coming off a particularly good performance though, was he ? It might be his "best win" on paper but not in actuality.
Dempsey gritted out the Sharkey win, and was fortunate that Sharkey lost the plot and unsuccessfully tried to claim a win on foul. Less charitably, we could even say Dempsey needed fouls to win the fight.

Then again, he was sharper in the Tunney rematch, and a flash of his old brilliance put Tunney on the deck (no mean feat), so I guess the activity might have brought a little bit of polish back to his rusty shell. :good

 

Oops.

 

If you mean the Sharkey win, yeah, it wasn't the most convincing of victories by any means. It was controversial, and Dempsey took a bit of a licking for much of the fight.
(I don't think Sharkey was robbed, but it wasn't 100% clean was it.)

On the other hand, Dempsey deserves props for taking on the number 1 contender and gritting out the win and earning another shot at Tunney.

 

So this was another McGrain who opens the fifth paragraph from the last in this great article with the comment that, "I am not a Jack Dempsey fan."? (I'll allow that three years is enough time to change certain opinions.):

http://www.boxingnews24.com/2008/7/...hree-most-destructive-minutes-in-ring-history