Question to those who rank Dempsey high

And when one ranks Foster below 17 at 175 i'm not sure his rankings mean anything to be quite honest. That's the relevance

:yep

 

I could argue with equal justification that if sombody ranks Foster above 17 their rankings are meaningless.

What exactly is your point?

 

Equal justification? You'd be laughed off the planet. Ridiculous.

 

you need to go and sit down in a dark room to compose yourself here.

 

I'm thinking you've lived in a dark room, a very long time. Foster outside the top 17

:rofl

 

no offense but this is a rather unfair post. Dempsey fought black fighters (before title) and repeatedly sparred with them. If the society at the time was too racist for Wills to get a shot despite Dempsey signging to fight him then it is not Dempsey's fault.

 

What do you think of someone ranking Foster worse than 17 in a 175 list dmt? Do you think it fair? Would you consider it outrageous? Foster did a helluva lot more in his own division than Dempsey ever did, and over a longer period too. Their records aren't even remotely comparable.

 

yeah i do think it is not fair to rank Foster outside the top 10, he's like #7 for me, maybe #6. But atleast Janitor does not spend hours unfairly criticising Foster as many here (not you though) do with Dempsey. I just think that ur point was rather unfair towards Dempsey.

 

We'll go again then. My response was to janitor claiming Dempsey would destroy Foster in one round. Do you find HIS comment fair? Or are you just judging mine? Dempsey didn't even stop the light hitting 175 Gibbons. Carpentier lasted 4 with a broken thumb. Do you find his immense speculation and throwing out of Foster fair?

 

Dempsey not defending against some of the better black fighters of his day, may not be his fault, but at the same time we can't give him a higher rating, on the basis of a mere concession.

Understand something dmt, some people here are giving Dempsey a rating of #5 or better. Having an opinion is fine as far as I'm concerned, but to award a fighter with such a substantial rating, requires more explanation than just " it wasn't his fault that he didn't fight for 3 years, and couldn't fight Harry Wills".

We have to rate Dempsey based on what he actually DID accomplish. So far what we have here is a man who won the title from a 38 year old fighter who hadn't fought in 3 years. Then he proceeds to hold the title captive for a number of years giving very few title shots to worthy contenders. This type of performance and behavior simply does not warrant being rated in a top 5 context. Everytime a thread is created on Larry Holmes as champion, the very same people who defend Dempsey are the first to point out that he failed to give Greg page a title shot. Holmes was a man who defended his title 20 times in the same duration that it took Dempsey to put together 6 defenses for Christ's sake!!! I also won't buy the argument that Dempsey's quality or " body of works" as some like to call it was better. If Jess Willard or Luis Firpo were better than Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers, Mike Weaver, Gerry Cooney, Tim Witherspoon, or Trevor Berbick, then I must really be missing something here. Not to mention, Holmes was properly repremanded by having his title stripped for failure to defend against a mandatory. No one ever took Dempsey's belt away, despite the fact that he was more or less an absecent champion.

 

That's a damn good post. You know, you're right. Many of the very same people are the first to come in and hammer Holmes for the very same matter. Double standards.

I'll give you due, we had many a barney over Holmes latter dealings but you took on board the facts and changed stance totally. Not many people could ever have done this which is a pity, as the pure facts were there for all to see. Kudo's on that one.

 

Thanks for the compliment,

I try to be impartial and give both credit and crticism where it is properly due. There are way too many posters who rate fighters based on shear admiration as opposed to actual acheivements. There are many fighters who's character I didn't particularly care for, like Tyson for example, but I don't allow this to influence my decision as to where he should be rated. Holmes had many flaws as champion and we've gone through them together more times than I even care to remember. He did however, have accomplishments that exceeded fighter's, who I actually admire more, and for that reason I still rate him higher than those fighters who I'd otherwise favor.

 

Fair post. As you realise (and others didn't), for all my criticism of Holmes he was still coming in at 3 on my ATG Heavyweight list. It was quite funny copping criticism as a hater when i ranked Holmes about the same as the other and even higher than one of em

 

I respect all the opinions of posters here, or at least most of them. I really wish the hell people would be more objective and not so opinionated as to how they went about rating fighters. So many put their emphasis on shear legend or name recognition rather than solid material. It makes debating damn near impossible. I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to give up on certain issues because its more or less like shoveling **** against the tide. If you remember a poster by the name of Sonny's Jab, I think he felt pretty much the same way I do.

 

Yeah fair enough. To be honest i don't mind debates where one poster has his mind made up already, but has thought deeply about the subject to come to where he sits. Stonehands is one, tho he's not totally shut or anything. He i think, like i, see many a good debate as you giving your, he giving his and each debating a bit against the others points. In these scenario's i see no need for meeting in the middle or conceding. I believe these debates gives an observer a really good look at the opposing points and he is in the excellent position of being able to make his own merit from both sides. I quite like a good deep debate where neither gives ground as they are quite entrenched in their own view.

A good example is the superlative debate or two stonehands and Meta5 had ages back. I'll never forget that one, awesome depth and hard fought, but never beyond civil. I should have saved the damn thing.