Where do you rate Jack Dempsey and why?

Ok,i will wait for the other point.
With wills if you say we cant comment doesnt that invalidate his standing entirely according to your logic?
Basically we are then saying its between tunney and dempsey.
I accept possibly that tunney has a good style against prime dempsey,but i maintain that dempsey beats more top line heavies than tunney.
You see where this is leading?

 

These are generalisations not all of the modern eras show improvements but......Proof of improvements:

Speed - Generally the faster fighters of all time have mainly been over the past 30years, this is significant

Size - obviously the general size of heavyweights has increased. Being a big man alone doesn't win a fight, but being a P4P skilled big man gives massive advantages, 'a good big man beats a good small man'.

Skills - from film footage it seems to have reached a general plataeu around the 40s

Combination throwing - precise fast combinations drilled to the head and body. Some people quote Dempsey as being a great combination thrower, he was good but the speed and preferance for inside punching doesn't make him 1 of the best

Use of the jab - especially at the higher weights seems more common.

Peek a boo style - seems to be relatively modern with Patterson being the first world class boxer. The best practisioner in terms of skill is Mike Tyson coming years later after Cus perfected the style

Hooking off the jab - haven't seen many old timers doing this

Defense - different aspects of defense appears to have advanced over time.

A higher guard - something old timers didn't particularly use is an obvious 1

Lateral Movement - pre 40s fighters seem to rarely use lateral movement

Having said all that in the last 10-20years there have been a drop off in the number of quality trainers and quality boxing gyms although there still are great ones

 

I think he would have coped with Dempsey much the same way, he analysed Jacks style and took it apart beautifully. He made that 1 error against Dempsey but came back fine after the KD, obviously without the neutral corner rule Dempsey would be there to capitalise and recovering from a KD is harder in those circumstances, I think Tunney could rally back and take back over the reigns to control the fight

 

Well Wills was clearly fighting at the same level as Dempsey and sometimes doing better against mutual opponents (and vice versa). We can't say he'd beat Dempsey but in a similar vain can't assume he wouldn't. We just don't know how good he was, for all we know he may have been better than Prime Jack Johnson or a level or 2 below. What we can say with certainty is he was certainly allot better than anyone Dempsey beat

Tunney is inconclusive because of his premature retirement. I'm of the opinion he beats anyone Dempsey beat though. Sharkey and Godfrey fights would have been interesting.

Maybe Tunney's style of master boxer sees him compete better against bigger men such as say Foreman, Dempsey could well get bombed out by Foreman, Tunney could theoretically do a Jimmy Young job on Foreman (although may get destroyed too). Who knows

 

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Style and adjustments matter, but youth and physical ability certainly do too right? This is like comparing the Jones of the Paz fight to the Jones of the Ruiz or tarver fights. The difference in reflexes, speed of hand and foot, combination punching ability and head movement is very very significant, especially among fighters with a swarming style like Jack's who have a short short peak. You should think of Jack at the point of the Tunney fight exactly like a Tyson right before or after prison- slower, diminished killing instinct and skills, etc.

 

To be honest on all of your points i think you are mistaken and are using exceptions to prove your rule.
Heavyweights are bigger? Well outside the klits,bowe and lewis there havent been many massive great heavies. Most of the new crop are just fat. Solis,arreola,chambers,peter,etc. Tyson and holy were both small/normal size. Holmes was normal,etc,etc. PEDS are rife,this would have made the old timers bigger as well.
Speed is what it is. you cant tell me camacho,taylor,davis and such like were quicker due to new training or nutrition as they were old school. Even jones trained old school. (with some 'boosters' of course.)
Some of the old timers on peds could have been faster as well.
As for the skills,movement,hooking of jab etc,i think your mistaken and whats more stamina and ring generalship seems to have gone down,especially at the heavyweight class.
Just taking the eighties,a duran,leonard,hagler or tyson have not really been duplicated in terms of overall skills,sucess and physical equipment.

 

I think saying "fighters are faster today" is kind of silly without compiling a body of evidence based on empirical measurements of film and such. And even then, due to skipped frames and decayed footage you proably still wouldn't reach any sort of consistent SIGNIFICANT statistical basis for that statement. You're basically just looking at videos and saying that you think they look faster.

Hooking off the jab? if anything else i see dudes from the 40's doing this **** way more effectively than fighters today. Stick and hook is not a new term, it's about as modern as a one-two

 

no wills did not stop firpo, wills struggled with firpo it went the distance. it was a "mauling dreary afair" according to ring magazine. both wills and firpo blew their reputations as serious contenders with that debacle.

Dempsey’s fights with “Fat Willie” Meehan were not really official bouts that were sanctioned, rather exhibitions or something to that effect. Willie was said to be so blubbery it was awkward to score clean blows on him and so slippery it was impossible to dominate him at home over 4 rounds. At the time California limited fights to 4 rounds, which is another reason why Willie fought so many 4 rounders. When they fought, Meehan was in the navy teaching boxing and his bouts with Dempsey were part of a benefit for the army and navy. Dempsey claimed he was asked not to knock out Meehan who was a plucky, spoiling performer who was never genuinely knocked out in his first 123 fights. Neither Wills or greb knocked out Meehan either, though greb fought him over 6 rounds, a distance Meehan always said Dempsey would have knocked him out at. The man who did finally knock out Meehan was Gibbons who did get a shot at Dempsey.

dempsey was also 32 when he beat sharkey.

jeanette was 35 plus to 40 years old when wills beat him. in their serries langford kept knocking wills out untill he got too old. mcvey also beat wills when aged 30 and 31 but loses to him when he is 34 plus. denver Ed Martin was 40 years old. kid norfolk was 36lb lighter and 5 inches shorter than wills....

 

PP,Choklab has shown you are just using 'results' to justify what you want. I mean you are even putting out false results now,and disregarding that wills was also mashed by langord until langord was in a wheelchair with one eye,107 years old and suffering from syphillis.

 

Another newer is better discussion? How often did we have that? How often was this proven wrong already? Yawn ...

 

This is pretty much how I see it as well.

 

As for Dempsey's ranking: Ali and Louis are way ahead, no question. Marciano must be ahead as well, and Holmes due to his longevity. I'd give Lewis the nod based on his long time (and relative activity) at the top and that he beat everyone he met. Holyfield probably also, especially if you consider his work at 175 lbs+.

Johnson gets the nod, but not with 100% conviction. His record also raises some question; his title reign was actually worse than Dempsey's, so it has to be mainly on strength of his time as coloured champion.

Tyson, Liston, Jeffries, Wills and Foreman are trickier. So there is a possibility for him at top 10, but it's an outside chance.

 

Never, theres always been that pesky visual evidence that just wont go away

 

Visual evidence?
You mean the one were heavyweights are getting fatter and slower in general?
Or the one where the last twenty years were quite inferior to the eighties?