Where do you rank Jack Dempsey??

1. Ali
2. Louis
3. Lewis
4. Johnson
5. Holmes
6. Marciano
7. Dempsey

 

It wasn't uncommon for the HW champ in those days to sit on the title and lighten his fight schedule.

You gotta remember, the HW Champion in those days, was an incredibly prestigious accomplishment and you could make a lot of money doing Vaudeville, endorsements and fighting exhibitions. It was smarter financially, not to fight and risk losing the belt.

Lose the belt and you lose your money maker - at a time when, for a guy like Dempsey, there wasn't any other choice to make real money. What's he gonna do, go back to Colorado and smash rocks?

 

Maybe, but he was easily the most popular HW champion of that time, too. Dempsey was like the Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan of his day - a flat out rock star before the phrase had been coined. He didn't just make a good payday from his HW reign, he became incredibly rich for the time.

 

He also made some of the worst films of all time.

This should count against his legacy.

 

He also made some of the worst films of all time.

This should count against his legacy.

 

It's not the same, McGrain.

Woods and Jordan work within the framework of organized leagues. It's not like Woods can say, "Yeah, I'll play the Masters but let's move it to July.". If he's not there when they host it, then he ain't playing it. Same for Jordan. The games went on, whether he was there or not.

Boxing is boxing.

I'm not excusing Dempsey - but I am pointing out that relative to that time and era, where opportunity for boxers (who were crawling out the of the academic woodwork) was slim outside their sport (and even within their sport), Dempsey's inactivity is understandable. Jess Willard did pretty good for himself until Jack annihilated him. After that.... what? Look at Jack Johnson... Jeffries... outside of boxing as the champ or against the champ, their chance of making a good livelihood comparative to boxing success, was highly limited.

Dempsey (and fighters that followed him) paid attention to that.

 

No, it's not. The truth is, Dempsey chose to fight infrequently - in part because of the financial opportunities that being the champ offered; in part because of the unwillingness to fight blacks.

Do you think Harry Greb would've fought as often, if he was making money per fight like Dempsey was? No, he wouldn't have - because he didn't NEED to. Dempsey didn't either. It was his choice, yes - but compared to EVERY other fighter at smaller weights or being a HW who wasn't the champion (and being the top contender isn't going to make you instantly rich), Dempsey didn't need to box. With one fight, he'd make as much in a year as 99.99% of all other fighters could make fighting 20 times in the same time period.

There is an impact. It would be foolish not to take that into account - but if I'm only going to rank fighters by accomplishment, then why bother bringing the likes of Wills and Langford up? They didn't win the title. End of story. But it's not.... and I think Dempsey did enough prior to winning the title and after winning the title to be high up the rankings.

When personal evaluation of how I think Dempsey would do against his fellow rankees comes into play, he ends up 7th on my list.

 

He's in my top ten, I have no idea why anyone would says he's somewhere between 75-100, that is ludicrous

The man was a flame of pure fire who tore through the division like a whirlwind, destroyed the incumbant champ like no-one had done before or since, rose from the hobo camps to being one of the greatest HW champs of all time and the biggest draw in boxing history. 5 count 'em, 5 Million dollar gates!