Tyson and Dempsey switch opponents

No.

You see what you want to see. Every guy I talk to on here thinks their favourite old time fighter was "malnourished". It's not true. Dempsey was making good purses fighting his pair with Johnny Sudenberg. If, for some reason, he chose not to spend that money on food, he would have been malnourished but he almost certainly was. Why wouldn't he? One thing he did do though which kept his weight low - maybe artificially low - was he often walked between assignments where there was no rail to ride. In the desert. Sometimes miles.

So he might have effectively been reproducing modern camps by doing this, maybe. But he certainly wasn't "malnourished" while he did it. Dempsey walking 15 miles in the desert, then setting up camp with two sparring partners, then engaging in professional boxing while starving is just something that didn't happen.

I will say that maybe prior to his making this kind of money, Dempsey was malnourished, that's not impossible, but there is absolutely no way to know, and he was a regional headline act (B-side) at the time he labelled a Middle. If he was malnourished, he was an idiot.

I speak to people here who tell me that "Kid Blackie" fought "bareknuckle" while "in the hills" against "tough men"; surely better for preparing a fighter for a professional prizefighting career than amateur boxing?

Either way though, it has no baring on Dempsey's weight. He as a middleweight.

"Jack Dempsey, the husky Pueblo middleweight, who will meet Johnny Sudenberg at the Hippodrome next Monday night in a ten round bout arrived in camp this morning. Several local men have seen Dempsey in action…and all [are] united in the prediction that Johnny had better be ‘right’ when he crawls through the ropes.”

Normally, I would guess that such a man would make the modern 147lb limit, 154lb at the least, but in truth, I'm not sure with his desert-walking shenanigans. I wouldn't push it, put it that way.

Boxrec does not record this. Which fights do you think Dempsey weighed over 200lbs for?

I didn't say he was a small man. I said he was smaller than super-midldweight Callum Smith. And he was.

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Shorter, less rangy and comparable in ring weights despite Smith only having 24hrs post-weighing in at 168/175. In an "unlimited" fight he would be bigger weight-wise than Jack for sure.

 

Do you remember off the top of your head if Pollack had anything to say about Dempsey getting enough food, whether it was ever true and when it might have ended? Probably impossible for even a researcher of his quality to verify but if anyone could.

 

Jack Johnson has nothing to do with Jack Dempsey.

I've already covered this off. He was making reasonable money as a headlining act in regional middleweight fights. If he was malnutritioned it was because he decided not to spend that money on food and I don't believe it happened.

But maybe he didn't get paid for those fights. Maybe he got ripped off. Maybe he was almost starving when he did ten rounds with Johnny because he was so absolutely amazing. It's possible - incredibly unlikely - but it could happen.

Isn't it just also possible he was, you know, a middleweight in the early part of his career?

Like Tommy Gibbons, who fought him for the title, Gene Tunney, who fought him for the title, Georges Carpantier, who fought him for the title, Billy Miske, who fought him for the title, Jim Flynn, who beat him, Willie Meehan, who beat him, like so many of his peers who made the absolutely natural progression from Middleweigh through to heavyweight who absolutely were not malnutritioned.

And while we're talking, do you ever ask yourself, why you are so determined to fight, tooth and nail, usually without producing any evidence, for the status of Dempsey, Marciano, Walcott, and the rest as "big men"?

 

Were all the other guys I listed malnourished?

He was getting decent money as a middleweight, I think. I don't have a press clipping which says "Dempsey got paid $x at 6 and was seen eating two beefsteak at 7 in Mahoney's." But I know that he was previewed, covered in detail by the local press, that he stayed at a hotel pre-fight. Maybe he was fighting for free in these circumstances, but I really, really doubt it.

I have, consistently. I've said "Dempsey would turn pro as a middleweight" I haven't said he would spend a career there. I then found a bigger fighter, one who is demonstrably bigger than Jack, who spent years boxing at 168lbs and 175lbs. This is my expectation for a career arch for Dempsey but even still I've conceded that he might box at 201lbs plus.

As reported by local newspapers and Pollack.

You hope, you wish I guess.

Dempsey was 21 in 1915. Looking at the TBRB top five p4p by this point in their careers, Bud Crawford, Canello Alvarez and Naoya Inoue were all pros. Spence was a year away from turning pro. Usyk had a long running am career. So maybe, maybe not but presenting it as face "assuming other factors weren't involved" is demonstrably untrue, especially for a blue-collar working class pugilist like Dempsey.

Personally,. I think it is much more likely that he would turn pro, given a recreation of his background.

Again, if you can "feel" something that will help you hold on to "big man Dempsey", you will. But it's usually going to be exposed.