Where do you rank Jack Dempsey??

Here you show once again that you have zero knowledge about boxing, especially practice-wise. You can´t define when a prime starts and when it ends. Tyson for example was with 31 shot, washed up when we compare him with the 86- Tyson. Fighters like Walcott entered in their prime when they got older, kind of these fighters are like vine, the older they are, the better they are (like some women too)...

 

Ray Arcel, worked with 18 world champions including Barney Ross, Tony Zale, Ezzard Charles, Roberto Duran, and Larry Holmes. Quite a span of time and talent there. He also sparred with Benny Leonard.
Arcel said that he considered Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey to be the three greatest heavyweights in history and that he could not put a cigarette paper between them.


This is what he had to say about Dempsey-

"The thing about his weakneses is. Well, he didn't have any".

Some people would have us beleive that romanticism alone led him to rate a fighter who he really knew was only a glorified streetfighter over all but two subsequent champions including the likes of Larry Holmes.

 

I generally don't give too much weight to the opinions of old-time boxing scribes; even Nat Fleisher opinion doesn't have any great effect on my own thinking regarding the abilities of fighters from that era.

But Ray Arcel, a trainer of elite fighters since Woodrow Wilson was President all the way up through the reigns of Roberto Duran and Larry Holmes - his opinion means a great deal to me. He has a degree of intimate familiarity with the greatest fighters of the sport that is unrivaled. Ignore his analysis at your own risk.

 

All-time heavyweight ranks
-I have him around three or four

All-time P4P
-Definetly top twenty

 

In law there is something called stare decisis, which means a judge ordinarily respects past judicial principles and decisions; he does not jump on the bench and begin to question all prior rulings to suit his taste.

Today we tend to underestimate opinions not blogged or shouted out by a TV talking head. If past generations revered fighters like Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis, we should not simply disregard this as corny hero worship, thus placing ourselves as smug judges of millions of human beings who were once as alive and kicking as we are now. Past boxing greats were recognized for very solid reasons, by fans and experts of the time alike. I suggest greater respect for opinions past and we can thus avoid a lot of going around in circles, attempting to rewrite history (“Carnera was a great fighter!&#8221

Jack Dempsey should never be considered a bum, because he will never be one. He was the greatest fighter of his generation. When comparing eras, let’s not forget that more recent stars have had much more to build on than early greats; I know late bloomer Lennox Lewis for instance learned a lot from Muhammad Ali, and Ali himself learned from Jack Johnson. Today’s athletes have so many advantages of all kinds in training; early greats had very little; in fact, many were innovators, the originals. But can you imagine taking away the heritage of the past from later performers? They could not be who they are. Dempsey is still Dempsey without Tyson. Tyson could not be who he was without Dempsey.

On the other hand, it is a tribute to past boxing greats that they can still compare favorably to more modern greats. I still think Ali beats Lewis and Dempsey takes Bowe. I think Rocky Marciano is a bit overrated, but I will never consider him anything but the great champion he was.

 

definet top 5 in his prime he could hav estood with any heavy of yesterday or today

 

While I generally agree with this post, you state that Dempsey "was
the greatest fighter of his generation." While I think most of his own
generation would have agreed, there were vocal dissenters, such as
Ted Carroll, and their criticisms remain pertinent today:
1. Dempsey did not fight Wills, the top contender of his era. As Wills
actually defeated the tougher opposition, how can anyone then or now
be certain Dempsey was the better fighter.
2. Dempsey lost to Tunney, probably the best fighter he fought, badly.
Dempsey probably was past his best, but how much is an issue in
dispute, as he was only 31 and two years older than Tunney. This is
the evaluation of James P Dawson, the boxing writer for the New York
Times, following the Tunney fight in 1926:
"In defeat, Dempsey was revealed as an overrated fighter, a man
who was good, but never great. It sounds uncharitable in view of his
courageous stand to say he had nothing but heart, but that verdict
must be uttered.
. . . Dempsey won the title from a cumbersome hulk in Willard, he beat
a broken man in Miske, and a comparative middleweight in
Carpentier; he couldn't do a thing with a brainy fighter like Gibbons;
he battered an unschooled floundering giant in Firpo, and fell when he
first faced real opposition from a man who was determined and unafraid
and who could fight as well as box."

 

Thats so true mate,any one who knocks dempsey as badly as HH,is either nuts,or jealous as hell that people still love a guy who fought decades ago,id give jack a chance against any heavyweight who ever lived to be honest.

 

Yeah mate sure,jack lived in the worst time in american history,he did not know where his next frigging meal was coming,he walked into bars in some of the roughest places in america and took on any one just to eat,get serious he was a street fighting killing machine,you are a right knob jockey.
He would kill most of those soft as **** guys you just mentioned.atsch

 

And how can anyone be so sure of Wills being greater given that most historians who actually saw them did not rate Wills in the top 10 and there's no film of Wills Either. Plus Wills beat tougher fighters then any pre Louis CHAMP.

That's not the only point. The second fight, when Dempsey was in good shape, he dropped Tunney and won 3 of the rounds. Thw two years argument does not work because Tunney was coming off his very best wins whereas Dempsey was coming from a three years layoff in poor shape.

This is nonsense. This writer fails to mention that Dempsey was past it when he met Tunney not to mention Tunney was an outstanding fighter himself. 95 percent of the writers in Dempsey's day would disagree with this

Amazing how Dempsey gets criticsed for failing to ko Gibbons even though he won most rounds, yet Jack Johnson gets a pass for fighting to a newspaper draw with middle weight O'Brien. Or Jeffries's draw with over the hill light-heavy Choynski.

 

:nut :nut :nut :nut :nut

 

1. Many say Dempsey was "the greatest fighter of his generation."
Few say Wills was. Carroll was a dissenter, and one of the few black
sportwriters of that era to write for a mainstream white publication.
There were other dissenters. Jack Gibbons, for example.
2. Dawson was one of the top boxing writers of that generation. I
think his opinion is certainly interesting and of value.
3. I agree that Dawson was too harsh concerning Gibbons. On the
other hand, he could have mentioned the second Brennan fight. Off
his record, Brennan was a good but hardly outstanding challenger who
still managed to give Dempsey all he could handle for twelve rounds.

Bottom line--Jeffries,Johnson, Louis, Marciano, and Ali were clearly
the best heavyweight for a few years at their peaks. It is not so
clear with Dempsey because of Wills and this certainly clouds the
issue of whether he was "the greatest fighter of his generation."

 

I have no idea about some of the others,but dempsey was yes,whats so hard to understand here.