Sonny Liston vs Jack Dempsey

Whose clock?

 

A lot of people impy so, dmt.

I mean, how can you justify him being top5 or even top3 when the best guys he beat are Miske, glass jawed Fulton, padded record Gibbons and Sharkey by a foul?
If you add an all time great Willard to that, at least you could make a decent case.

A lot of people talk about the Willard fight asif this one sealed his legacy, while in fact Willard was old and **** in the first place. An ancient version of Johnson couldn't miss him. Entertaining beatdown? Yes. Legacy making fight? No, though that's a "yes" in the eyes of most people who don't know that much about Dempsey and his worthless title reign, it seems.

 

Didn't see Wills getting whupped.

 

Fulton had only been knocked out twice before he fought Dempsey and most of his KO's came at the very end of his career, I don't think it's fair to say he had a glass jaw (Dempsey knocked him out in 18 seconds by the way). Gibbons had beaten Greb twice, Miske several and went on to beat Carpentier and Kid Norfolk. Sharkey was winning on points, but I wouldn't call it dominating and Dempsey was able to pull off a come from behind knock-out. He went down from the left hook. You also left out Brennan and Levinsky

 

Neither did I but Willard was heavily criticised for not facing Fulton and Miske had a similarly strong claim to a title shot when Dempsey fought him.

 

So Willard as well as Dempsey ducked deserving guys. Fair call.

 

Might I ask who has claimed Willard to be a strong champion.

He was hyped after he beat Johnson but that is about it as far as I can see.

 

what other guys then Wills did Dempsey "duck" while champ? He came back to give Tunney a shot who was the #1 guy after all

 

Lets not give Wills an entirley free pass here. A lot of top challengers wanted a crack at Wills to get his No1 ranking. Harry Greb Tommy Gibbons George Godfrey and Gene Tunney all wanted to fight him but were never able to come to terms.

 

How come Gibbons's record was so padded, i mean he had like 10 fights vs hall of famers in about 106 fights. So that means that roughly every 10.6 fights he fought a hall of famer, hardly padded. Plus he had a few fights vs Miske who should be in the hall IMO

 

No worries, so now we have Dempsey, Willard AND Wills ducking people. Sounds like ducking was commonplace. Well obviously it was.

 

It still is, it always has been.

 

The one big unification fight that did get made under Willard however was Dempsey Fulton.

This is why Dempsey got to fight Willard. He was more willing than Wills to take on the other top men like Fulton and Miske.