Was Jack Dempsey a harder puncher than Evander Holyfield

LOL, that shows that one is a boxer, the other is nothing but big. From some of the comments, I think some of the people who don't know the difference between a guy like Bowe and a farmer who started boxing in his late 20s are upset that I don't discuss boxing with them. They should put me on ignore, I'm not going to discuss "boxing" with people who can't see the difference in Bowe and a farmer.

 

He was a seek and destroy fighter who looked to end things early. His wife called him a 4 round fighter, saying that he went all out from gate. And I'll submit that he was a lot better than his opponents until his championship years.

Vander was a smarter boxer who wasn't as apt to go all out in the first and wasn't necessarily A LOT better than his opponents at heavyweight. And he had to deal with some enormous and enormously strong, skilled guys. Going for broke in the first was not a great tactical option.

Given the disparity in their opponents, their results are painted on two, drastically different canvasses. That doesn't really tell us who hit harder. I would say they are pretty close either way.

 

What about Douglas? This thread is moving faster than I can keep up with... I'm still one of the lucky who is working or trying to.

 

OK. It can be argued it happened twice. I have no problem with that nor does it really go against my greater contention. Willard, like Douglas, was ripe for the picking.

 

I agree, there was an opportunity for a motivated contender there.

Fed Fulton or Billy Miske might have been champion if they had been in Toledo.

Willard might have been ripe to be beaten, but he wasn't ripe to be destroyed in that manner!

 

Evander obviously.

Far more explosive, better technique, better opposition to measure his power against, juiced to the gills, and about twenty pounds of lean muscle mass heavier. Plus he wasn't fighting with kid gloves or able to hover over his opponent ready to knock them down again. This is so obvious from watching them both fight that I'm saddened anyone can delude themselves into picking Dempsey.

I get it. Dempsey was a beast. Natural born savage. Yada yada. But he was a skinny LHW by today's standards with frequently poor technique fighting in an era of equally scrawny men or giant oafs with farmyard skills. That doesn't make him an ATG puncher by any sane person's standards. Compare him to other LHWs like Kovalev if you must (there's a legitimate argument to be made there) but anyone higher than that, let alone an ATG heavy like Holyfield, GTFO.

 

NOBODY can answer this correctly, it's all gueswork and suppositions.
KO percentage doesn't mean much given they both fought in entirely different eras and against totally different opposition.
A lot of Dempsey's opponents were rather small, so it's hard to determine exactly how hard he hit.
If we assessing their punching power in relation to their body weight, than Dempsey probably hit harder.
But if we are just comparing punching power per se, it's impossible to say.

 

Dempsey

 

10 posters say Holyfield? No one who fought Holyfield calls him the hardest puncher. He was just a solid punchers with good skills. Dempsey could start the end of a fight with one or two big punches. Down they went. Holyfield was never that type of puncher.

 

Of course dempsey hit harder... No amount of weight training will change that...holyfield had good power , never great power