Jack Dempsey vs Muhammad Ali

Mc of course I speak of Dempsey out of the ring until the first Tunney Fight.
1926-7. One year and one week to be precise before their second bout in Sept,1927... Let us be fair. Dempsey dropped Tunney in the seventh round with a vicious 5 punch combo.Tunney was dropped for the first and only time in his career,obviously hurt. The Referee waves Dempsey to a neutral corner, before starting his count, allowing Tunney about an extra 5-7, precious seconds for Tunney to clear his head. Even if Tunney had the 10 seconds to arise, rather than the 5 -7 extra seconds ,would he have been able to get up and backpedal from the rushing Dempsey without that extra time.? Debatable
I believe. one othger strange event of that controversial match. In the last round, tunney dropped Dempsey with a short right hand on the temple. dempsey fell,to the canvass, and Barry the referee immediately, started to count whilst Tunney HOVERED over Dempsey, UNLIKE waiting for Tunney to go to a neutral corner, before counting over Dempsey. Hanky-Panky in favor
of Tunney, it has been said.. But all things considered the old-man [Dempsey], came awfully close to koing the great Gene Tunney...

 

Following on from a lot of what has been said - here's some peice's of film of the prime Dempsey that we need to be considering...NOT the Dempsey of Tunney 1 & 2, not the Dempsey of Bill Brennan, not the Dempsey of Sharkey, not even the Dempsey of Gibbons - check the speed of this guy - he was WAY faster than Frazier for sure - and IMO quite a bit faster than Tyson too - this is a lithe 180ish Dempsey - no one has combined that blend of speed/power/ruthlessness/ferocity/toughness/ability to box going forward/elusiveness/speed of foot/speed of hands/great lateral movements for an aggressive all out attacking type of fighter - this guy had everything necerssary to give Ali absolute hell - and Ali never fought ANYONE with everything Dempsey had - he may have fought people who were great punchers - nut none of them had the speed of either hand or foot that Dempsey had - he may have faced people who were elusive to some degree but at the same time none of them had the ability to fight and punch with the ferocity of Dempsey - he may have fought certain fighters with incredibly tough chins - but never one who was as difficult to find and pin down - most of the people he got who had great chins walked into and ate bad beatings - this Dempsey was difficult to predict and could come from a crouch or could move laterally could could change direction on a sixpence was always on the toes - and he wasn't a short armed fighter either who might be at a distinct disadvantage at range

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wxHY3p9DiQ[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eha9nEcrMqQ[/ame]

in this one at about 1:02

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdE2esUQzd4&feature=related[/ame]

in this one from about 2:07-2:41

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4iBHrHTf-k&feature=related[/ame]

at the 3:40ish mark in this one Pachecho reiterates that no other fighters have caused the amount of damage that Dempsey caused vs Willard

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONFKgforsX0&feature=channel_video_title[/ame]