What rationale is there to rate Dempsey higher than Marciano?

Dempsey said nothing like that about Jess in the section of his autobiography covering their title fight. In fact, on the evening before the bout:

Jess Willard met with Tex Rickard to discuss plans for the future. According to some of the boys present, Willard downed an entire bottle of gin. Even Tex was surprised; after all, the fight was the following day. Rickard apparently asked him if the booze wasn't pretty potent medicine. Jess reportedly replied that it wouldn't do him any harm since meeting me in the ring would only be exercise.

The day after the fight, Damon Runyon wrote that, "The great doughy-like body of the giant was splotched with red patches," hardly a glowing testimonial of Willard's physical condition by Dempsey's best friend in the press corps.

Also in Dempsey's memoirs, Jack wrote:

Personally, Doc didn't think Willard had ever been judged accurately as a fighter. Around the time of the Jack Johnson-Jess Willard fight in Havana, a law was passed prohibiting interstate shipment of fight films...Doc had somehow seen the fight film and was coninced that Jess Willard was far from a natural fighter. To Doc, he lacked the animal instinct, the inner fury, and the all-important lust for battle.

That Dempsey makes mention of Willard's imposing size is understandable. But it would be surprising if he also described Jess as being in excellent physical condition, as Jess weighed in at 20 pounds more than he did for Frank Moran, had been inactive for three years, was 37 years old, and described by Runyon as having a "doughy-like body," unless it was a ghostwritten comment (like Ali's dreadful 1975 "autobiography" by Richard Durham, which identifies Zack Clayton as the referee of the Liston rematch). I wouldn't put such bull**** past Doc Kearns, making promotional claims on Dempsey's behalf.

 

Willard and Firpo looked crude to people who saw them live also. Note A J Liebling's comments at the very end of "The Sweet Science".

And the 1920's vintage cameras do not make Tunney look crude.

If the cameras of the era reveal flaws in Dempsey, it is because the flaws in fact were there. The films of the Willard and the Gibbons fights were quite good, photographed in natural light. They also reveal strengths--note how many refer to Dempsey's "pantherish grace", and speed of feet and hands.

 

It didn't look like Dempsey was trying to outbox Willard at all. I think he just ran out of gas after pummeling Willard in the first round.

 

If the bet story is true then it would make sense that he would go all out in the first round then settle back to a slower paced game.

 

In fact, Dempsey does appear much more fluid in his 1940 Atlanta exhibition against C.P. Luttrell, filmed in live sound with motorized technology. There are a number of other boxers who were filmed with both silent hand cranked movie cameras in the 1920s, as well as live sound in the 1930s. Loughran/Braddock was filmed in 1929 with the more primitive equipment, while the heavyweight title fights involving them in the 1930s employed more modern techniques. Walker/Milligan was manually filmed in 1927 London, but by 1929, Mickey's training for Ace Hudkins made him one of the first boxing subjects for talking pictures. Again, the improvement in motion reproduction is apparent.

 

Most of the fighting from what I saw in rounds 2 and 3 were inside, in which Dempsey kept bludgeoning Willard with lefts and rights to body and jaw. I just think he got tired, that's all. At times he would try to pick up the pace, but Willard would stand up to the punches. At times I even saw Dempsey breathe a little hard.

 

I realize this thread has been around for sometime, so I don't know if I'm really making a contribution, but here goes.

Dempsey fought during an era where the division was in serious trouble. At the time of his ascent, Jess Willard was the reigning champion and the likes of Johnson and Jeffries were long gone. He was probably the first real hallmark attraction that sparked the public's interest in the sport in quite sometime. Over the course of his career Jack compiled 25 1st round KO's, a record which I believe to be still unbroken by a heavyweight champion. Along with his remarkable punching power, Dempsey utilized a style that incorporated a lot of fast footwork, and utilization of the ring. This was a rare trait for a puncher, especially during such an early period in the game. His skills and stylistic traits were benchmarked by many fighters to come. He was also the first fighter to ever generate a multi million dollar fight gate, which transformed boxing into a lucrative earning venu for young athletes, without which, many young talented men may not have been drawn to the sport.

I don't know if I can rate Dempsey's legacy higher than Marciano's 49-0 record, but I will say this much, Dempsey evolutionalized the sport of boxing to a greater extent than probably any fighter with exception of Joe Louis in its one hundred plus year history.

That said, I still have Marciano a bit higher on an all time list, for his dominance, competition level, and unbeaten record, but Dempsey's social and fundamental importance to the sport will always hold more value in my opinion.

 

Very well expressed Woddy, a post which indicates careful study of Dempsey's footage.

Head to head, I believe that Dempsey's best would prevail over Marciano's best, but whether you agree with that or not, if you believe that Rocky would have prevailed over more of history's other top champions, then he should certainly be higher on your list. (I'm not sure that Frazier could have ever beaten Foreman head to head, but because I think Smoke would have beaten more of the HW division's other champions, I rate him over Foreman on an all-time basis.)

 

I just want to drop in this quote from Dan Daniel in the May, 1956 issue of Ring Magazine, as I think it is very revealing. Daniel compares Dempsey to Louis:

"The customers have revived the old dispute as to whether Dempsey, in his prime, could have whipped Joe Louis.
It is strange, but yet the truth. As time rolls on, Louis and his superlatives recede into the background, and Dempsey's skills become more and more impressive.
This traces, in part, to the fact that Louis is the more recent fighter. So many thousands of fans have seen Joe swinging hot leather. But how many actually saw Dempsey in action the day he took the title from Jess Willard in Toledo in 1919? How many watched him lose to Gene Tunney at Philadelphia, and again in Chicago?"

I find this odd. He is saying Dempsey's reputation is eclipsing Louis's because hardly anyone is still around who saw him fight. I think this most revealing.

 

Would Dempsey have triumphed over more all time great fighters than Marciano or vice versa? Honestly, I haven't a clue. I personally don't rate fighters by virtue of how well I think they'd due against other fighters accross eras. I often prefer to rate them based on individual accomplishments. For each boxing fan, these acheivements hold different amounts of weight. For me, Marciano's claim to never having been beaten, along with his win/ko ratio, and victories over several hall of fame fighters goes a long way. Dempsey, of course, as I've already stated has made contributions to the sport that were priceless.

I suppose it depends on one's point of view. I think both men played a very important role in the development of boxing over the years, and are both a great credit to their perspective generations.

 

When the interstate transport ban on boxing films (which had been implemented after the race riots following Johnson-Jeffries) was finally lifted by FDR on July 1, 1940, one of the first (if not the very first) cinematic releases of a historic prize fight filmed during that ban was "Birth of a Champion," the live time movie of Dempsey-Willard displayed on the big screen for all the public to see. (FDR revoked that ban on the same day Dempsey boxed Luttrell in Atlanta [with Toledo eyewitness Nat Fleischer as the referee], both events being highly promoted in advance.)

Jack boxed two more exhibitions that July, before substantial crowds (in Detroit, and Charlotte, North Carolina), so the opportunity to personally compare an older version of Dempsey in live ring action against his peak performance in a silver screen theater presentation was actually afforded to several thousand fortunate boxing observers. Dempsey knocked out all three of his exhibition partners in two rounds, so it wasn't too short to reveal anything at all (like Tyson's 20 seconds of action against Marvis Frazier), or Joe Frazier's playful charade with Willie Herenton last year. Jack did well enough to evoke memories of his youth, hooking Luttrell completely out of the ring.

Again, it bears repeating that theatre goers were not evaluating the peak Dempsey with inferior, herky-jerky videotape or youtube footage, but on much larger than life projected silver screen images from smoother motion movie film stock. In reality, Jack was still lethal enough at this time in his life to flatten the steel chinned Tony Galento with a harder punch than Max Baer and Joe Louis were able to inflict on Two-Ton, so seeing Dempsey in the flesh at either Atlanta, Detroit or Charlotte still had some value. (Lou Stillman described the hook Jack flattened Galento with as the hardest punch he'd ever seen in his gym.)

 

I think that ultimately Dempsey must rank higher head to head than in terms of resume.

Ray Arcel said that the three best heavyweights he ever saw were Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Muhamad Ali. He said that he could not pick between them but that Dempsey was the best all rounder.

I have times when I think he was right.

 

Rocky didn't look that good on 1950s film at times