We know he boxed, we know he gave grappling advice to the army and we know he did pro wrestling. What else do we know for sure? What do we know about his judo and wrestling? Was Jack Dempsey probably the perfect boxer to make the transition? especially in early MMA rather than him versus GSP for example - though he'd light that chin up
From what I can find he had a legit back belt from the guy who was Americas top expert (maybe only real expert) at the time. But he didn't start training judo till later in career. So a dempsey who knew judo would also be a dempsey a bit out of his prime. As far as wrestling he did catch as catch can, so "real pro wrestling with submissions. Used as part of his training. He even took a few months and did nothing but the wrestling, getting ready for a talked about (but never signed) real shoot match with Ed Strangler Lewis. While he was good at grappling, and I'm sure got better with the serious training, he finally decided aganinst the match. It was to be pure grappling, no punches, and I suppose Dempsey decided he would likely lose. I guess one could fault him for that, but hey it wasn't signed, and not like Ed was gonna return the favor and box him. Another thing that should be mentioned is many of Dempseys early unoffical matches were hardly boxing, more like tarveren brawls for money. So he fought in more settings then actual boxing. There is his military combat book, but he also wrote a book called championship fighting, which laid out his philisphy (Bruce Lee basically lifted large parts of his book from Jacks). Dempsey felt you should approach boxing more like a street fight, get the knockout fast to minimize the chance of getting hurt yourself. To that end he employed a aggressive style which was also light on his feet. A style which would be much better suited to mma then say James Toney stationary flat footed roll the shoulders wait and eventually counter with minimal (realitively speaking) style. Simply put Dempsey was a ****ing beast.
Oh and the wrestling he did all through his youth and while boxing. When I am on my computer (I'm on my phone now)I will post links quotes and pictures.
Please post any sources you have. I'd really like to verify this. world class boxer black belt judo trained in submission wrestling One of the most formidable combatants I can think of pre modern mma! His wrestling background might be why he was never scared to physically take the fight to big guys. Coupled with his power, he never felt bossed around.
his early career he came up in camps with larger grown men who he would fight. probably had to do more than just punch to win those.
Bob Fitzsimmons would be a better choice IMO. Trained a lot of Greco Roman, his leaning back style would appear to leave him primed to defend takedowns better than the free-swinging Manassa Mauler. Okay, if Dempsey was a judo player at his best, with his power, he'd be an awesome MMA prospect. But for me, it's Fitz, from what I've read of his cross training methods, his ability to time massive bombs with small gloves and massive upper body strength who would appear to be the best of the old timers most suited to make the transition.
does leaning back really help you to defend take downs? not so sure about that one. but yeah truth is most boxers before james j braddock wrestled to some extent, many a good deal. it was to some extent a left over of training for London prize rules, were you coud in fact throw guys and do a good bit of grappling. By the time Louis came around the consenses, for right or wrong, seemed to have become that for pure boxing training wrestling took up too much time energy and risked too much injury for not enough return.
here is something about a challenge issued by ed lewis to dempsey. of course at that point in time pro wrestling was more often fake thn real (although real shoots took place) and i just find it odd that dempsey would ever even consider somethin for only 5,000 dollars (i am sure it would have been more with a gate of course) It is interesting beyond that however how the match is called a "mixed match" and how Kearns says that dempsey did alot of wrestling for his training with Carpentier. If you watch that figtht you can see how much clinch work and dirty boxing dempsey uses on the smaler Carpentier, clinching him with one arm while twisting him and hitting to the body with the other. can definitly see some wrestling work at play. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F70E15FE3D5D1A7A93C5A81788D85F468285F9
http://www.wrestling-titles.com/personalities/lewis_ed/best.html of course Ed might just be full of **** when he says this...
hard to find good sites, one problem is if you search "jack dempsey" "wrestling" you mostly get stuff about a old school pro wrestler called jack dempsey. then you get when dempsey acted as ref for pro wrestling. hard to find good stuff really. i do remember reading a actual book talking about dempsey wrestling. and of course i posted that new york times article. i also once saw pics of prime dempsey (not from his coast guard book) wrestling in training camp. it looks like real wrestling positions and it was clearly in camp. but now i cant find those pictures.
