Michael Spinks vs Jack Dempsey

I think Dempsey's movement looks terrific in the 1919 footage of him sparring against Bill Tate.
You can see he has lightning reflexes. Dempsey was hard to hit at his peak.

People mocking the Duran comparisons are implicitly holding Duran up as some sort of unassailable standard of excellence, a sacred cow, in the same way they accuse those who defend Dempsey of doing.

If you happen to mention Dempsey had lots of skills and phenomenal talent you get scepticism and ridicule. But it goes without saying that Duran really WAS all that. (?)
Never mind that it was RAY ARCEL who made the Dempsey/Duran comparison (and he used DEMPSEY as the yardstick obviously).
Arcel, who knew real talent and ability when he saw it so well that he came out of retirement to work with Duran, always held Jack Dempsey up as the standard.

And it's not only Ray Arcel. Many knowledgeable people who saw Dempsey live were greatly impressed by his sheer talent, natural fighting ability, speed, skill and power. At his peak he bobbed and weaved and attacked explosively, with a remarkable quickness of hand and foot.

Bringing up the Tunney fights is silly. Dempsey got beat up, but he'd been out of the game for 3 years, and had had a 2 year layoff before that. He'd lost his legs badly, and he'd been reduced to a slower-paced slugger.

Anyway, the Dempsey critics know all of this already but seem to enjoy the ritual of finding ways to down-grade this particular fighter.

 

So what made Duran better defensivley?

 

Something called a guard, parrying, more complete head movement, overall movement and shoulder rolling

 

The Young Duran didn't have the same impressive defense as say the '79 version

 

I think that Dempseys head movment was technicaly at leat equal, and amazingly even more active. The fact that we can make tis out on film of the period shows just how good it was.

 

I have done so.

I wondered if you, or anybody else who sneers at the comparison, would like to give a breakdown, suported by film of how Durans head movment was better.

 

The ignorance surrounding Dempsey is baffling.

When people are actually claiming he didn't use a shoulder-roll !

Not only can this be seen on film, he was one of the very best, AND he wrote a detailed boxing instructional manual explaining how to properly execute said move and various other defensive moves.

Some idiots here actually think Jack Dempsey could barely box.
Dempsey spent years learning and perfecting the craft of boxing, and developed one of the purest and influential styles of all-time.

A guy who trained 20+ world champions said something like, "Dempsey could do it all. He had the most of everything. He had no real weakness"
Dempsey wrote perhaps the best manual on boxing ever published.
Dempsey displays tremendous skill and talent on film.
And some morons here think he was some sort of unskilled palooka.

Brilliant. :good

 

exactly. I mean the arrogance has gone so far people are starting to claim he was only a bit past when he met Tunney (ridicolous) and that Spinks would beat him atsch