What rationale is there to rate Dempsey higher than Marciano?

I have to agree with you, Dempsey is pretty overrated.

 

Charles and Moore get whipped, but that's more reasonable to pick them as they are technically modern boxers, even though that's not the case.

Greb and the others, especially block Langford, aren't even worth mentioning H2H.

 

Thankyou, that was hard to swallow. While you're at it, take that talentless hack Greb off of it also, and little wide man Langford.

 

Free alchy and cigs.

 

Now come on amsterdam,UD JESUS??????
Jesus would have negated calzaghes offense with his 'CROSS' arm defense and his 'WALKING ON WATER' footwork,not to mention he truely was SUPERNATURAL.......:hi:
ps; no offense meant to christians,just a bit of light humour.....:good

 

"pretty" is different from insanely. I cannot believe u would agree with him

 

Louis had only 3 ko's in his last 8 fights! As for your quwestion, probably not. Brennan was a pretty hard and accurate hitter though

 

Chris, while u do make some good points, u have to realise that these old time historians seem to rate theuir rankibngs more on a head to head basis rather then accomplishments, and head to head there is nothuing wrong with rating Dempsey over Marciano. Oh i am not saying that i am in agreement with these old timers and some of these lists are awful , however some historians like Ray Arcel seemed to be far less biased and praised modern fighters too. For example Arcel always praised Locche and claimed he was cleverer then Perp, an old timer. So while there were undoubtedly biased histoprians, there were also some who weren't as biased and quiet reasonable. Again there is nothing wrong with rating Marciano over Dempsey, howebver there isn't anythuing wrong with doing the other way either since a large part of my rankings is on a head to head basis

 

Right now he should be more woried about Mikel Kessler.

 

I'll get around to reading the whole thing in a little bit, but I would have to disagree that "Walcott was the only guy close to beating Marciano".

The first fights with Roland Lastarza and Ted Lowry were regarded as very close fights which could have gone against Marciano. Rocky was badly cut against Charles before stopping Ezzard with an illegal shot behind the head.

 

First off I will say that I quite respect the logic of ranking Marciano higher than Dempsey. I do think however that the following counterarguments have to be made.

While Marciano in my opinion beat better opposition and was more consistent I think you have to give Dempsey a significant edge in depth. If there had been rankings throughout Dempseys title reign he would have beaten substantialy more top 10 fighters.

Dempsey was a lot more dominant against a many of his top oponents than Marciano often destroying them in 3, 2, 1 rounds or less. Fred Fulton was probably a top 3 heavyweight when Dempsey iced him on under a minute. The way he beat him has to be factored in.

If we disregard legacy and go on head to head then Dempsey ranks a lot higher than he would otherwise.