Who is your money on

I think you are missing the point of this, though.

It isnt about Vitali. I never said anywhere that Vitali couldnt take a punch or anything like that. People tend to suggest/assume Willard did not have any skills compard to modern fighters. They may be right, they may be wrong. We will never know because they are from different eras. In fact, for all we know, if Dempsey Willard II were to happen, Dempsey might not land so big early and might go on to lose the fight for all anyone knows. In fact, the result of fighter A vs Fighter B is not the forgone conclusion we tell each other. Muhammed Ali doesnt beat every fighter in history every night, he doesnt even beat every light heavyweight every single night, at least not comprehensively.

Anyway, the point is that Vitali is a skilled superheavy. If Dempsey can do this to him like he did to the other super heavys he faced (willard, Fulton etc) then it means that in picking a fight you cant take the easy out of saying Lennox is more skilled than Willard.

The Braddock thing is nothing sinister for Lennox either. Lennox has never fought anyone as small as Dempsey. Therefore, most assume that if he faces someone that small, then regardless of how good they are, he will be too small, they wont land a single blow, wont be able to hurt him at all, and will drop the first time he lands a punch. If this doesnt happen to Braddock, it is unlikely to happen to dempsey.

Incidentally, the flipside is that there is no disgrace for Lennox to struggle with Braddock. Baer certainly did, and he is arguably a big strong classy superheavy. Just because Braddock takes him the distance doesnt mean necessarilly that Lennox loses the fight. But it means that you need to think a little harder. Maybe Lennox's win over Tua was a win over a guy with the power to take out big guys early and would be more suggestive of how a dempsey fight would go?

And it isnt fantasy. If both those guys do to the modern guys exactly what they did to guys in their own time (which is really all we can ask for) then the results posted are certainly possible.

By the way, i know you asked me not to answer with questions, but do you think that Jimmy Braddock goes okay against Rahman and/or McCall? I really do find it strange to understand why it is so unbelievable to some that Lennox might struggle (yet still win) against Braddock. I think there is an excellent chance of this happening actually.

 

It depends on whether or not your opinion of old matching up vs new and/or other unknowns is correct doesnt it? Or if some of the stories from some of the unfilmed fights of fighters are correct or not.

Take the Tunney fight for example. His chin is highly questionable but it was never broken (same goes for Ali pre exile - he answered it). By going the distance with Shavers, you would think that Tunney would answer it too, wouldnt you?

I didnt really put it in the scenario, but one possibility is that we could match say Joe Walcott with Joe Mesi and he could be outclassed, slower doesnt hit as hard etc. In fact, it could even happen with Muhammed ali (maybe not the slower bit). But if you solely use athletic times it is possible that the best 70s athletes are no better than todays ordinary athletes. If Joe Mesi were to beat Muhammed Ali or even JOe Frazier, there is no way in the world that i would be picking Joe Louis to beat Vladimier Klitchsko.

I agree. But one fight can certainly give you plenty of evidence. I mean would you rate Jack Johnson as highly if Jeffries had knocked him out. Or Holmes, if he was outpointed comprehensively by Ali. Or Vitali if he lost to Lennox (okay bad example) but you get the point.