The Great Trainers & Fighters on Jack Dempsey

I dont understand that reasoning.
Firstly why would you call that method "head to head" as opposed to "achievement" ?
Norton achieved a win over Ali, so that ridiculous high ranking of Norton is being based on "what he did", which you were arguing for.

Secondly, Norton's win over Ali is worth a lot because of what ? Obviously, because Ali was really great. And why was Ali really great ? Because of "what he did" ? And against whom he did it.
And why and how would we rank the opposition that Ali beat ? By who they beat, what they did.
And it's an infinite regress.
So somewhere along the line we must be making a very subjective judgement on quality of opposition. "This guy is better than that guy" ..... which is basically the same as saying, "Dempsey is better than Holmes" or "Holmes is better than Dempsey" or whatever.

 

If we are ranking h2h, we have to take stuff like Norton beating Ali, or Douglas beating Tyson (Prime or near prime,)

I seen people belive that Toyko Douglas is just as great as Joe Louis.

So that has to factor in h2h.

 

Marciano is head and shoulders above Quarry without doubt.

 

:huh
If we are ranking them "on what they did" we have to take stuff like Norton beating Ali, or Douglas beating Tyson too, so what's your point ?

 

H2H is pretty much guess work and should not be used as the be all ranking system.

No I dont think Norton or Douglas top ten(Or in Douglas case top 20)

But in this H2H, we have to use the best versions of said fighter, and that should put James Douglas near the top 15, because me myself, I cant see many people beating THAT Douglas.

 

But all "systems" of ranking boil down to the same degree of subjective judgment.
It's the same whatever you call it.

Well, that's your opinion.

But I dont think much "head-to-head" ability can be proved in just one fight, against one opponent, one style.

 

Douglas could never make my top 15 under any system of ranking, head-to-head or otherwise.
Tyson might barely scrape in at 14 or 15, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

No you're not alone with this line of thinking because it pretty much mirrors mine perfectly. I too have seen that Dempsey at least made an attempt to fight Wills, and honestly, I think boxers get a bit of a raw deal when fights don't happen, because they are part of a team, and quite often who they do and don't find is out of their hands. You often see boxers saying I'll fight whoever I'm told (and paid) to fight.

On the issue of Liston - Clay, I personally think Liston's age may have played more of a factor than any "fix" but if there was a fix, I'm pretty convinced it would have occurred in the second fight, as opposed to the first.

And as to whether or not Dempey had loaded gloves against Willard, Monte Cox has a brilliant article on this very subject. One of I've read probably 4-5 times over the years.

I also read, (no sure where) that a bigger question is whether or not the damage Willard sustained actually occurred. I've read reports that the guy who essentially claimed all the damages that happened wasn't even a qualified doctor and that someone visited Willard a few days later and he wasn't anywhere near as damaged as would be expected had the type of damage he sustained during the fight actually happened.

That said I'm a huge Dempsey fan, so much so that I remember telling a client of mine whose an assistant Director that a movie of Dempey, with him riding the rails, would be the most interesting movie one could imagine.

 

I still think H2H is the best method....If we go by what a fighter did during his era against the opposition that was there at the time then Marciano beats every other champion because he was undefeated. How many here believe that? Or that Vlad spanks Dempsey or Louis. Or the Celtics of the 50's defeat the Lakers of last year. There's relative and comparitive analysis...For me I'll take comparitive if we're deciding the best or who would beat who. One man's strengths and weaknesses against anothers... not how each man did in his own era. Save that for rating legacy.

 

I personally think the answer lies in the middle. What you did when you had your opportunity counts, but who you did it against, also counts. Marciano did what he did against the opposition he had. Can't ask any more of the man, but how would he have done against the fighters of the 70's or the 90's. I suspect the outcome would have been vastly different, especially as the fighters got bigger. But maybe he would have been another Holyfield, in the '90's or Frazier in the 70's, who knows?

 

Which is exactly the way I feel. Give each fighter his due for what he accomplshed in hts own era but don't let those accomplishments cloud your judgement. Take Marciano for example. I am a huge Marciano fan and admire what he did in his own era but I get a little dumbfounded when some posters go crazy when someone suggests he could've been beaten by a modern fighter (let's say Holyfield for example). Rocky wasn't unbeatable. He had extremely tough fights against men who were quite a bit smaller than later greats such as Ali, Holmes, Holyfield, Vlad etc and those bigger fighters were as fast or faster than Rocky's opponents. To say Rocky could lose is not being sacreligious but informed and unbiased. The same goes for other old time fighters as well as thier modern counterparts. Ali is not God either. He could've been taken by another great from a different era too and to suggest this is not commiting a boxing sin. Excuse me for ranting but I'm just trying to make a point

 

Great post ... many here romanticize their favorites and refuse to factor in stylistic match ups, size handicaps and a realistic view of their accomplishments. Two great fighters, Dempsey and Marciano, have a busload of regular fans on this Board and deserve them. However, a few feel these fighters walk on water and get highly offended if you take their idols off their podiums .. whatever, it's all part of the sport of the Board ..

 

Nah. I think it's absolutely true that having a KO punch is considered a prerequisite for being a serious challenge to a dominant heavyweight champion.
I remember when Tyson was at his peak and Holyfield was moving up, a lot of the talk was about if Holyfield has a real heavyweight punch, because it was assumed a KO punch was a basic requirement for anyone attempting to dethrone Tyson.
Look at the buzz around David Haye : the only reason anyone ever takes this guy even slightly seriously as a threat to Wlad is because he can hit.

Rightly or wrongly, Carpentier WAS genuinely seen as a major threat by many writers and "experts". It was hype, but almost the whole of Europe and Great Britain were already under the impression that Carpentier was the best fighter in the world, and some of the Americans followed suit.

How big was the contingent in the press who were calling Harry Wills the #1 contender in 1919 ? I have found few references to him, although admittedly my research hasn't been extensive.