Where do you rank Jack Dempsey??

Dempsey Is One Of The Many Oldtimers That(in His Prime) Could Have Stuck With Any Of Todays Or Yesterdays Heavy,s Jim Jeffries In His Prime Could Have Demolished Johnson And Most If Not All Of Todays Heavys In My Op.

 

If you insist on rating a fighter/champion based solely on the quality of his opposition while he was champion then I'm afraid that Dempsey does'nt rate that high. But then neither does Johnson, Louis, Liston, Patterson, Marciano or Holmes for that matter. It seems that the best criteria for rating a champion is how he would have fared against the other top champions while they were in thier respective primes. Based on this criteria I have Dempsey in the top ten. The Dempsey that destroyed Willard and Firpo would have been a handful for any great champion past or present. That Jack was a killer. Fast, furious and powerful and as tough as they come. A dangerous two fisted bomber who kept coming. I've always felt that Dempsey would have been the one fighter from the "old days" who stood the best chance of giving Ali a hard time of it based on his bob and weave style and vicious left hook/right hand combos. Before Jack, boxing was sort of a stiff, constipated science. Jack sped things up a bit if you catch my drift. So yes I put Jack in my top ten based on these factors. Not on quality of opposition.

 

Take THAT Tommy Gibbons!

 

Perfesser Clownshoes, you could at least make an attempt not to recycle the exact same material over and over again.

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"Lookit me! Me and my numerous screen name sock puppets!"

 

Amazing Tyson gets beaten by Holyfield at 30 who was actually 4 years older, yet Dempsey can't be forgiven for losing to Tunney when he was 31 who was two years younger. A classic example of HH'S Bias.

Hagler was 32 when he fought blown up welter Leonard and a former lightweight Duran went the distance with him

 

A. Draws were frequently pre-arranged in that era, or there would be an agreement that the fight would be ruled a draw if there was no knockout, and in many regions, fights were called draws whenever they were at all close. There is virtually no fighter from that era, no matter how great, who doesn't have his share of draws on his record from making the rounds on his way up- Harry Greb, Jack Johnson, Sam Langford, every one of them has multiple draws against journeymen on his record. It just isn't meaningful and shouldn't be used as a criticism of a fighter from this era.
B. Dempsey only had one loss to Downey, and he later knocked Downey out in two rounds.
C. Downey certainly wasn't the only opponent with a winning record Dempsey faced in this time period- in fact, off a quick scan off boxrec, he beat opponents with records listed 23-6-8, 7-4-1, 2-0, etc.
D. Boxrec is extremely incomplete, especially on fighters from pre-1960, which its own editors will frankly tell you if you ask. Your scanning down boxrec and assuming its records to be accurate in listing literally dozens of fighters as being 0-0, 0-0-1 and the like is very unreasonable. For the most part, the 0-0 guys are just fighters only known from their fights with Dempsey, who quite likely had dozens of other fights against each other and other ham-and-egg level journeymen.

E. Dempsey was a hobo sleeping on park benches at this time and could hardly be reasonably expected to perform at anywhere near his full potential.
F. The Flynn fight was quite likely a fix.
G. Notice that a prime Dempsey, after he had hooked up with Kearns and gotten the chance at fair nutrition and preparation for his fights, annihilated all of these guys, aside from Meehan, who had his number in four-round fights(and even then, Dempsey had Meehan down in their last fight, which many fel he won). Many great champions probably would have lost some against guys with awkward styles in four-round fights; imagine if Frazier had to fight Mathis or Tyson had to fight Tillis in four-rounders.

I like how you're so fast to bring it up when a pre-prime Dempsey struggles with anyone, but skirt around Brennan, Fulton and the like in order to avoid acknowledging that they were quality fighters and a prime Dempsey crushed them.

Willard was 6'6, 240 pounds, had killed a man in the ring, and had never been knocked down, and Dempsey knocked him down seven times in the first round and broke several bones- this is a strong indication of genuine top-notch punching power.

It's "crooked" and "slick" to have Dempsey fight the light heavyweight champion of the world? I wonder, do you think it was "crooked" for promoters to put Ali in with Foster or Holmes with Spinks?

Gibbons was an ex-light heavyweight, but it is just not reasonable to pretend as though that automatically precludes him from being a quality heavyweight. He had never been stopped in over 80 pro fights, he had beaten multiple Hall-of-Famers and had gotten the better of heavyweight contenders like Billy Miske, who you yourself acknowledged above to have been a good fighter. Gibbons hardly "tied Dempsey in knots," but rather he boxed just well enough to keep from being overwhelmed, and Dempsey won over 10 of the 15 rounds.

 

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Its quite clear HH that your quite mad in the head.

 

right:good

A prime Dempsey beats Tunney regardless of what the overly baiased poster says. Dempsey ws OVER THE HILL. Ray Arcel agrees as does Nat Fleischer and countless other historians and fans and even Dempseys harshest critics

Remind be again Roy Jones an atg heavy :rofl :rofl :rofl

Foster over Louis :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl

 

Hey! I happen to love both sports. :twisted:

I do agree though, Dempsey was a fearsome specimen and deservedly should be ranked amongst the Top 10 greatest at HW .... :yep