Sonny Liston vs Jack Dempsey

I think Liston takes him in under 5 round while i think it will be fairly competitve till that point. I see Liston dropping Dempsey a few times in the same round before finshing it.

 

Hey, thanks for saving me the trouble! (Anybody who thinks peak Dempsey couldn't slip a jab would do very well to watch the old shot version's mid ring counter right off of Tunney's evaded jab which initiated the Long Count knockdown sequence. Toledo Jack would have been doing that to Gene repeatedly, until finally forcing a stoppage.)

Dempsey was extremely effective at sliding to the outside of a left jab, under, and then up with a right uppercut to the jabber's exposed ribs. There are well-known still shots of him doing this. (I'm still way too technologically challenged to include such pictures with my posts, but many of you have seen them anyways.) When Sonny followed through with a jab, he usually scythed it to his right (unlike Tunney), which would make Dempsey's lateral dip to his right particularly efficacious.

 

Well you run away and hid from my point as long as you possibly could. I asked you about 5 times to clarify your claims of Witherspoon getting ko'ed by a middleweight in sparring. But no you pretended you couldn't see it. Even did a thread and you still fell short. Dinner proved to you the whole Patterson - Clay scoring thing yet you still tried to sneak it thru.

If you have to resort to outright lies to push your little man/prehistoric man obsession then you've got even less to contribute.

:good

 

Can you print your source that Dempsey turned down a fight with Jeanette please? I understand Dempsey , in 1916 refused a fight with the 33 year old Langford,when Jack would have been 20,I have never read he refused a fight with Jeanette ,who in 1916 was 37,please post your source for this.

 

Here's a comment by a guy very much in the know from the time of Dempsey

 

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When Dempsey fought Tunneyin 1926 Dempsey weighed190, Tunney189 1/2. In 1927 Dempsey192 1/2 Tunney189 1/2,How was Tunney a Light Heavy ? He hadnt made 175 for some time, Dempsey weighed between 185 and 192 1/2 in his defenses prior to meeting Tunney,hardly a big Heavy!

 

Frazier fought best contenders like Ramos,Zyglewiz,Stander ,and Daniels,,and on his way to the title never met ,Al jones,Thad Spencer,Leotis Martin,Amos Lincoln,Sonny Liston,or Floyd Patterson,he may have beaten them all ,but lets not pretend he dominated the contenders of his time ,look at the Ring ratings when he was beating upi the likes of Zyglewiz.He defended against Bonavena,whomhed allready beaten,Ramos whod been fed a string of stiffs,Zyglewiz who wasnt ranked ,and had no business fighting for any title,,a good defence agianst Quarry,,a unification against Ellis ,another good win,a ko over a 33 year old Light Heavy with an abysmal record against even moderately talented Heavies,a 15 rounds duel to the death against a man who after nearly 4 years in exile ,and with 18 rds unde his belt put him in the hospital,then two shameful "defences" against unrated Stander and Daniels.

 

We're adults here, you can say "crap".

At any rate though, why was Dempsey so afraid to fight them? There were no ring rankings yet, but i think they were still among the top fighters of that period.

At their worst they were comparable to Eddie Machen in the late 60's - and Frazier took him out.

No, it is not.
It is really not.

How are Sharkey, Miske, Fulton and Gibbons "all the way" over Frazier 2x, Bonavena 2x (including once when he was young and didn't avoid dangerous fights like Dempsey did), Ellis and Bugner?

I know plenty about their careers. Of all old timers i've seen, the rule is that a fighter looks much less impressive on film than he is made out to be, because gloved boxing hadn't fully developed yet and this was of course reflected by the standards they judged them upon.

You can blame the film all you want, but sloppy film doesn't stop Tunney from looking bad, and he dominated Dempsey twice. I don't think those two are unrelated, more like cause and result.

The difference here is that Liston has many wins over good fighters - Patterson twice in one round. Patterson alone is greater than Sharkey and he didn't make it out of the first round on two attempts. Sharkey was ahead on points and quit on a foul by Dempsey when ahead on points.

What do you mean? Ali beat all time great like Liston, Foreman and Frazier. He proved himself against very good fighters - Dempsey didn't.

Now if Ali got knocked out in 1 by Henry Cooper, but went on to beat Folley 5 times and then fought Terrel to win the title, defended it against Bugner's, Lubbersses, Fosters 6 times between 64 and 70 while ducking Foreman, Liston and Frazier and then after losing one-sidedly to Frazier , then narrowly beating Ellis on a low blow and then again got dominated by Frazier and retires, then you have a similar case. Because only then, it is clear that he struggled when stepping up in competition and while that was past his best, he never prove it against the best.


I really don't understand why you keep brining up this point about Dempsey having the bad luck that his opponents look so bad because of the film.
It's like Robinson blaming his exhaustion on the heat: asif Maxim fought out of a refridgerator. Dempsey looks fine on film against Willard, compared to how he did against Tunney. Willard, on the other hand, looks horrible. They shared the same ring, though. It's not the film that's making them look so bad, it's Willard's total lack of skill that does. Tunney looks just fine when he dominated Dempsey.

I don't have it here, sorry.

I'm sure someone here has the article, Mendoza, Senya or someone else. The article stated that Dempsey's opponent cancelled last minute. Dempsey made his ring walk and to his suprise there was not a soft lemon, but Joe Jeannette. Who, as you pointed out, was old and ring weary. He had been calling out Dempsey for quite a while and hoped to be able to fight him this way, as a substitute. Dempsey would have none of it and walked out of the ring with unfinished business while being booed by the crowd. So much for the myth of a fight against a black guy not selling.



Now don't get me wrong; i normally don't really have a problem with him not fighting top guys pre-title. Tyson fought **** opposition pre-title as well. But the essential part here is that Dempsey NEVER fought top opponents. When Tyson won the title, he fought every top contender so much that in late '89, Holyfield was the only heavyweight still standing. Not so much with Dempsey: it was not a matter of a safe guide to the title untill fighting top opponents. It was a pattern of complete disregard to fight top opponents throughout his entire career. That is why i blame him for not fighting them. The only reason he fought Sharkey was to regain the title.

Tunney did grow into a heavyweight frame indeed, but at the age of 28 or thereabouts. He is a natural heavyweight. And yes, Dempsey was a tiny heavyweight which he would pay for dearly against the likes of Lennox Lewis. Marciano was small too, but his record is lightyears more impressive so he makes up for it.

 

I think it should be noted that pretty soon after Dempsey left Kearns he signed on to fight Tunney. It was mostly Kearn's doing, Dempsey fighting so infrequently.

 

why does it matter? Why should Dempsey fight Jeanette and not the fighter who he was supposed to fight? What other fighter would do this? This is not two weeks notice, or even two days this is grandstanding at the time of the bout. And what people fail to mention is that this was a very young, green Dempsey and Jeannette was an established top ten guy for years.

The whole thing is ridiculous and I actually lost more respect for Jeanette than Dempsey. It would be like Calvin Brock jumping in with Dennis Boytsov
for some reason.

 

Weather or not Dempsey would have lost to Johansen, isn't the point. Floyd Patterson was a fighter who set many records and who fought during a very competitive era. Dempsey was great to, but his career profile doesn't ad up no matter how much noise his name recognition makes. Only a few title defenses in several years. A ducking of a top challenger. Winning the belt from an inactive fighter. Failure to face numerous challengers because of skin tone. Facing at least 33 fighters who had less wins than losses, or worse yet, no pro fights at all.

No disrespect intended to the old school, but by comparison to his cross era counterparts, Dempsey's resume was very poor. I wish other posters would simply settle the dispute by saying that Dempsey was good, given the standards of his day, and stop trying to make an argument for him being better than future legends. Contrary to what they believe, they are actually hurting the guy more than they are helping him.

 

you criticise Dempsey's title reign but Patterson is the wrong guy to compare because Dempsey's title reign is better than Floyd Pattersons.

Brian London, debuting Rademacher, Tommy Jackson, McNeely. I wouldn't even expect Roy Harris to beat Bill Brennan for instance.