Lewis is above Foreman and Marciano. How a guy who almost exclusively beats retreads on his road to the title, then hides from his best challengers while picking also-rans and hype jobs AND sits on his @ss for three years while supposedly wearing the crown beats out anyone on that list is beyond me. This is where an objective study of the sport devolves into cartoonish, adolescent awe. Willard was an old, overconfident, undertrained, inactive fighter. That Dempsey's victory over him is hailed as the greatest performance is ludicrous. I will take Louis over Schmeling, Liston over Patterson, Ali over Liston, Frazier over Ali, Tyson over Berbick, Bowe over Holyfield... and dozens of others ahead of the fait accompli in Toledo.
Why are they disqualified form participating? Your point of view on lineage excludes this argument from appealing to you. I didn't say it was a good argument, or even one that appealed to me, just one that forms the basis of arguing Dempsey higher than some of those guys.
Why? He won the title from the man who beat Jack Johnson, and got his title shot by beating the man who beat Sam Langford. I don't think that the colour line had any bearing on his status as champion.
Well, it might be argued that he only kept it because he drew the colour line, which is Seamus's point. But from a sporting perspective it's no different to any other fighter that didn't take on his most qualified challenger, and there are loads of them.
Willard was thought unbeatable after taking a thrashing from Johnson and coming on to win in spectacular fashion and then taking care of highly rated Moran. Dempseys win needs to be taken in the context of 1919 and not through revisionist eyes.
This is not true. I was reading articles just the other day where a huge swathe of "top boxing people" as you like to put it were picking Dempsey to beat Willard. He wasn't thought "unbeatable" at all. In fact, there were some writers who thought Dillon might beat him.
It comes down then to a question of when the fight would have been made. He could theoretically have taken Wills as his first challenger, but even then he wouldnt have fallen off the planet if he lost. In terms of how the fight would probably have been made, it would likely have been his last defence anyway, so not much changes.
A lot changes IMO. Dempsey's reign would be "legitimised" by his facing Wills. A lot of people, on here certainly, seem to think that a 7 yr reign with the same #1 contender installed for much of it loses meaning in a sporting sense becasue of his failure to meet that contender. There were two outstanding heavies in this era: Wills and Dempsey. I think a win for either one would have meaning for their standing no matter when it happens.
While a win over Wills would have significantly enhanced Dempseys historical standing, its absence does not devalue any of his other wins. Even defending the title that many times, and over that period, requires a certain consistency of form.
Now while Dempseys challengers were not the best or brightest available, I think that they were legit top ten guys for the most part. This combined with the timeline, makes it a difficult title reign to replicate.
Hence his greatness. But it's still a reign with a pair of fat unanswered questions. If you take the ESB HW top ten, there really isn't another fighter with two such questions.
Forget what Dempsey didn't do, or should have done. Dempsey was a game changer. His ranking is all in how you argue cos it's all opinions anyway. I am not going to say he deserved to be ranked anywhere top 10, 50, or 100. It's all a matter of opinion. What isn't is his popularity, and these fights, his run to the title, the Willard fight, Firpo fight, the Sharkey fight and one round of the Tunney II fight. Forget that he didn't fight and he should of fought, he didn't but all these years later he is still remembered fondly except of course. here. What should be remembered is what Dempsey did for boxing.
Indeed. The main factor limiting the length on lineal title reigns is that most champions simply dont have the mind-set, to remain consistent once the title is in their hands. I dont think that Dempsey did have that mind-set to be honest. I think that he was just such a lethal finisher, that his B game was enough to take care of most peoples A game. In Wills however, he would be up against somebody likely to exploit any weakness in his game.
