What is the general consensus on Jack Dempsey in 1926-27?

Classic case of a child holding his or her ears and saying the same thing again and again and agian and again......:hi:Objective people are seeing you for what you are Klompton.

 

Objective? Do you even know the meaning of the word? You now claim I selective left out sources to color my book in Greb's favor. In order to make this claim you have to KNOW that for a fact so where are these sources I left out? I asked this of you numerous times and every time you disappear. So Im waiting. ics

 

you got that backwards Harding. I I am claiming to be a 30 yr journ and Burt the 80 yr old man. You get a LOT BACKWARD AND OUT OF CONTEXT. DON"T YOU KLOMPTON?

 

Is that supposed to be the name of your "work"? As I suspected nothing shows up on any search for that. You must be highly regarded.

If, however, that is true then I suspect you are the same drunk/pot head who used to call me up and want to wax poetic about boxing. It took one phone call from you to convince me that caller ID was one of the greatest inventions of modern man. Still in Costa Rica?

 

wned

 

I think that the hypocrisy is entirely on the part of Dempsey’s detractors here.

For a start, none of Dempsey’s supporters have ever attempted to denigrate Willard, based on the fact that Dempsey beat him.

You want to be able to dismiss Dempsey’s win over Willard, based on Willard’s recent inactivity, while still being able to denigrate Dempsey based on his loss to Tunney, despite his inactivity.

For contrast, I am saying that neither Willard nor Dempsey were in their primes when they lost the title, but that they were both still world class fighters, hence these wins still carry some authority.

 

In fairness it is my opiniton Tunney retired just as he entered his prime. I think his best performance, his most complete performance, was against Heeney.

That being said I dont think Tunney came up any easier than Jack Dempsey just because he had a rudimentary amateur background. Neither guy was exactly fighting world beaters early on. It gets bandied about how poor Dempsey had it and of that I have no doubt. But you often hear how he was starving when he fought Jim Flynn (not true), etc. Like much of Dempseys life these stories have been embellished because they make for great copy. Tunney didnt exactly have it easy. He was the son of relatively poor Irish immigrant parents who would often have to fight in the streets to defend his brothers (one of whom was murdered) from the local gangs. To claim coming up in the crowded and talent rich New York gyms in 10s and 20s was luxurious compared to fighting untrained miners and farmers in saloons was luxurious is a stretch to say the least. It sounds seedy and dangerous to say Dempsey was fighting all of these guys in saloons but would you rather fight a drunk miner with no training at the end of a 14+ hour work day or a trained fighter who is hoping to use you as a punching bag while he prepares for his next club fight? I'll take the drunk miner any day of the weak. Tunney has his negatives there is no doubt about it but you cant take away the fact that he was extremely tough, confident, in perfect condition, focused, very skilled, had a great ring intellect, and a strong will. You dont get those things being a cream puff. I dont like that Tunney stacked the deck in his favor whenever he could. I think he was smug, remote, elitist, and was more than willing to climb over and forget those who helped him along the way to get where he wanted to go but he was a damn good fighter who always improved from day 1 to the last. I dont have any problem stating Dempsey was more shot than Tunney (like I said, I dont think Tunney was shot at all but actually in or entering his absolute prime) I just dont think Dempsey was nearly as shot as some think because Tunney was always going to be too good for him and in fighting Jack Sharkey he was simply facing a guy who at that point was better than the Miske's, Carpentier's, and Firpo's that Dempsey feasted on as champ hes just damn lucky Sharkey was such a headcase and chose to try to milk the DQ. Had Sharkey gotten up and fought instead of trying to take the easy way out he may very well have won that fight and gotten a shot at Tunney which would have been interesting if Sharkey could have kept it together.

 

I disagree. People try to paint Dempsey's win over Willard as this Jack vs. the Giant fairytale win and it wasnt. To characterize Willards inactivity as "recent" shows a bias. Willard had been inactive for over three years and unlike Dempsey who was actually in shape for Tunney and trained hard for that bout Willard came into camp fat and overweight and took to his training with a disdain that left many experts wondering if he was taking the fight seriously. His sparring staff was a joke. The best fighter he hired was fringe middleweight contender Joe Chip who couldnt miss Willard with a left hook (the first punch Dempsey hurt Willard with) and was consequently taken off the active sparring list as the fight approached so as not to embarrass the champion in front of spectators. When Willard entered the ring he was soft and flabby looking around the midsection as opposed to the lean, rawboned look he took into the ring against Johnson four years earlier. This is all in addition to the fact that Willard was 37 years old, a much harder age to come back from a layoff than the 31 years Dempsey took into the Tunney fight which is usually still the prime for a HW or close to it.

 

You miss my point entirely. The Dempsey clan wants to ignore the advanced age and inactivity of Willard while using it as a shield for Dempsey in his Tunney losses. That is inconsistency and hypocrisy.

 

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Tunney maintained that he was at his absolute peak against Heeney, better than he'd ever been.

That's pointless semantics, I think.
With very few exceptions, fighters (and athletes in general) cannot take those multiple lengthy lay-offs and come good again.
I'd say Dempsey was significantly diminished.

 

Here is how Dempsey was regarded in 1961 in a "rating of the heavyweight champions" article by the editors of BOXING ILLUSTRATED and the experts "like Joe Woodman" who saw each of the champions up until this point:


"For slaughtering Willard as well as inspired performances against such outstanding opponent's as Firpo, Brennan, Fulton, Miske and Carpentier, Dempsey receives a very respectable 85 points in these ratings. This will surely be contested, with many insisting that Dempsey was the greatest of all heavyweight champions. However, the Maulers sweeping hooks would have left him an open target for skilful sharp shooters like Corbett and Johnson. And Jeffries would, we believe, have successfully absorbed all the Dempsey bombs and then swarmed back to win.

Dempsey was a fan fighter. Willingly he took punches to land his own. If ever a man fitted the word "fighter" it was Dempsey. Fancy boxers like Gibbons annoyed him. All he asked was that the other man stand and fight. It was an honest request, but smart opponent's like Gene Tunney rejected the offer"

 

I don't understand the Dempsey-Willard argument in relation to Tunney-Dempsey.

No one has said that Tunney's win over Dempsey wasn't impressive, just that Dempsey was over-the-hill.