Perry, even if everything you said is true, which l believe to be the case, at the end of the day you still have to consider actual accomplishments, including title defenses. You can't just ignore these objective stats entirely and focus only on mythical H2h outcomes, that's simply too subjective. At the very least l think you need some weighted average between win/loss record, level of comp, time at the top, title defenses, then if you also want to also include likely h2h outcomes than at least you have a combination of objective and subjective categories, but you can't just have one subjective outcome to define a ranking.
No S, what SPEAKS VOLUMES is your visceral hatred of Jack Dempsey that is apparent to anyone who is fair minded and reads boxing history assiduously as I have for over sixty years. Dempsey and fighters of his tougher era that you can imagine trained down to their least amount of weight and by fighting so damn often kept themselves in top shape. Have you seen any photos of the better heavyweights of those harsher days that were fat and bloated looking as if they just discarded their bras ? Hell NO. Dempsey was big boned from the waist up and would easily today with the modern diets and lesser fights be 210 pounds very comfortably today... So keep up your hatred S of one of the toughest and greatest heavyweights ever, and one hell of a beloved gentleman to boot Jack Dempsey because you sir know more of boxing evaluations than all the great boxing figures of the past... Bah, Bah, and Bah I say to you...
Dempsey is above all of them. Which I don't say lightly. Foreman and Marciano are debatable. Dempsey vs. Willard is arguably the best performance in boxing history. He is perhaps the best puncher of all time. His peer testimonies are unmatched by anyone before Ali.
Let’s say that we judge him solely on the quality of his record. His demolition of Fred Fulton was the most dominant wins over the top contender that the heavyweight division has ever seen. Let’s not forget that Fulton was seen as a standout, over a long period. His demolition of Jess Willard was one of the most dominant wins over a reigning lineal champion that the division has ever seen, even without taking the physical disparities into account. Let’s not forget that Sonny Liston’s standing hangs mainly on his wins over Floyd Patterson. His title defences were all against people who would have held a top ten ranking, if such rankings had existed, and most ATG resumes essentially hang on a string of wins over such fighters. After he lost the title, he became one of the few lineal heavyweight champions to defeat the heir to his throne, when he knocked out Jack Sharkey. His resume is also pretty strong on versatility. He has wins over small slicksters, superheavyweights, boxers, sluggers, boxer punchers. Let’s not forget that the main criticism of Rocky Marciano hangs on the type of challengers who were available, and there is clearly no such issue here. Taking it all into account, it is not a particularly hard resume to sell. Its only serious weakness is that it is missing a couple of key fighters, and there are other ATGs that you can level that criticism against.
It's better to be underrated but our opponent,expert,& fans know we are great than being Overrated but only make disappointed. Are dempsey in this forum underrated or overrated? You choose. & you know the answer.
Lineage and title defences. If you believe in "true lineage", Dempsey is 6-2 in title fights, compared to Liston's 2-2 and Wlad's 4-1. If your'e really into the title and you're really into title defences as equivalent to dominance and all that there. As an aside, you can rank Dempsey above all of them based upon head-to-head. When it comes to head-to-head, unless those fighters actually met nobody is "right", therefore nobody is wrong.
It's not just Wlad and Liston. There are others on the list Dempsey would be above using that the main criteria. Tyson and Holyfield.
Bert did. He was waxing poetic on a 210 pound Dempsey... when Jack was a scant 180 (+the weights in his pockets) when he had his greatest victory. Read his post.
:good Oh yeah. I missed that. I only saw the bit about Frank Gotch. Dempsey possibly lied about needing weights in his pocket to come in at 187 against Willard. It's a common story in boxing. No doubt it happens a lot, but lots of guys claim it to make out a huge weight difference was even more huge. Billy Conn claims he was 169, not 174, against Joe Louis. Henry Cooper claimed he trained himself down to 175 or less for the Clay fight, and pocketed weights so he'd be announced at 185. Apparently promoters worry that too big a weight difference would effect the gate, or possibly get them in trouble with authorities. Which is undoubtedly true. Except in these cases, the fighters in question had consistently been weighing in at the announced weight or higher in previous fights.
The colour line has nothing to do with it. It is literally not a factor relating to lineage. That he didn't face his #1 contender is significant. Dempsey arguably missed out on two of the three best challengers of his era, which makes for a comprised reign, but it's still a reign. And still a reign that's inarguably better than Liston's, for example, even though Liston didn't draw the colour line.
The legitimacy of the concept of lineage (a very dodgy, proto-superstition on its best day) is devalued in an era where such a large potential talent pool is disqualified from participating.
