Who beat better opposition Sonny Liston or Jack Dempsey

Choklab--you can use "erratic fringe guys" as long as you're fair and use the same criteria for all champions.

Dempsey opponents

Here is the Bill Brennan going into the Dempsey fight and afterward

Battling Levinsky--L 12
Homer Smith------W 10
Battling Levinsky--D 12
Jack Dempsey-----KO by 6
Tom McMahon-----D 10
Joe Bonds---------KO 3
Harry Greb--------L 10
Harry Greb--------L 10
Billy Miske---------L 15
Billy Miske---------D 8
Harry Greb--------L 15
Harry Greb--------L 10

12 fights--2 wins--7 losses--3 draws

*certainly erratic--if he isn't fringe, why wasn't he?

What about Billy Miske, who was better

He had some wins to balance the losses, but he had plenty of losses from 1917 to 1920

1917--Kid Norfolk --L 12

1918--Jack Dempsey--Draw 10
1918--Harry Greb--L 10
1918--Jack Dempsey--L 6

1919--Harry Greb--L 10
1919--Kid Norfolk--L 10
1919--Tommy Gibbons--D 10
1919--Battling Levinsky--L 12

1920--Jack Dempsey--KO by 3

Interestingly, weights are given for a few of these fights. For the 1918 Greb fight Miske weighed 177, Greb 150. For the 1919 Gibbons fight, Miske weighed 177, Gibbons 162.

*Miske was better than Brennan, but still unable to compete at all with Greb and Norfolk, who were not heavyweights.

Battling Levinsky

Fought a great deal, but had a lot of losses,

1917--

Lost to--Tommy Gibbons, Bob McAllister, Harry Greb, Bill Brennan,
Drew with--Jim Coffey, Bill Brennan, Bartley Madden

1918--

Lost to--Bartley Madden, Harry Greb,
KO'd by--Jack Dempsey

1919--Lost to Harry Greb, Harry Greb, Johnny Howard, Harry Greb, Harry Greb

1920--KO'd by--Georges Carpentier
lost to--Boy McCormick, Charley Weinert
Drew with--Chuck Wiggins, Jack Renault

1921--Drew with--Bob Roper

1922--Lost to Gene Tunney

In all the fights they had with him, none of these men could beat Greb, who seems to have been a smallish middleweight at the time,

and they were having all sorts of close fights, draws, and losses to other fighters.

All these guys were erratic.

 

No I think the point is Dempsey did beat more opponents with more "at the time" world rated or leading contender credentials than Sonny Liston. I fully accept Both fought erratic fringe guys too.

Bill Brennan was 22-2-3 when meeting Dempsey the first time. This time around Bill had already beat names like homer Smith, Bartley Madden and Battling Levinsky. Bill had yet to fight Greb and Miske. Dempsey was the first man to knock Brennan out. At that point with a boxrec record if 22-2-3 Brennan was decent. That time around Bill was considered a leading contender for Willards title. One report listed Brennan as already having fought 67 times with over 40 KO wins. He was a contender at this point but Dempsey might have softened him for Miske and Greb.

Levinskey was only fringe and erratic. So was Carl Morris and Gunboat at the time they fought Jack Dempsey. They were much like Valdes, DeJohn and Bethea when facing Liston in that respect though all were better known than the novice Billy Hunter.

Miske was decent though. You can make a case for erratic fringe labelling after 1919-1920 but the first two times Miske fought Dempsey was in 1918 when he had a better record. On boxrec Billy was 20-1-1 and 23-1-2. He had already drew with both Greb and Fulton and beat Charlie Wienert, Jack Dillon, Gunboat smith and Battling Levinsky. He was a current leading contender.

In all there is a much stronger case for putting Brennan and Miske in the "current leading contender list" (in their non title fights with Dempsey) than there is in putting them in the "erratic fringe guy" list. I would put Miske and Brenan in the curent list rather than Billy Hunter, Mike DeJohn and Wayne Bethea in the "current leading contender list" for Liston.

 

Cleveland Williams was not among the best heavyweights in the world before 1961 but I agree with everything else. :good

Liston missed out one guy within 1960-1963 and Dempsey missed two guys out from 1917-1927 so it kind of evens things out dosnt it?

 

Yes, but Dempsey still beat a lot more key fighters, in part because he had a longer time span to work with!

 

OK, so how many good black fighters were there?

Wills, obviously.

Norfolk, lost to Gibbons.

Tate, ignored today because he embarrassed Harry Wills.

Godfrey, never got his career off the ground!

 

He later changed his mind, and announced with a big fanfare, that he had dissolved the color bar!

The facts are complex.

 

I think Patterson was a lot better than Bob Satterfeild. I think Tommy Huricane Jackson was a better fighter than Cleveland big Cat Williams. At least Tommy could beat contenders. Sonny beat better fighters than Williams after losing the title. How can you be sure Williams could have blown out any world champion? Williams never blew out a current contender!!!

 

Ingo was an outstanding challenger of his era. He dominated Europe at a time when the top American contenders Folley and Machen went 1-3-1 against European champions. Then ingo wiped the floor with Machen. Ingo was automatic title shot material in 1958.

As a contender Johansson was ALWAYS rated ABOVE Liston. He was rated as early as 1956 when Sonny was in the Slammer. Ingo was climbing up the ratings not down them. When ingo won the title There was a rematch clause. When did he duck Sonny?

I don't think Sonny ducked ingo. Sonny had a rematch clause with Floyd and Ali himself. Ingo and Sonny just didn't get to fight because it was a rematch clause era with fewer title fights per year than usual.