Why Jack Dempsey should be hightly rated

...and I'd say that Peralta and Tillis' only chance to beat Foreman and Tyson was in a longer fight.

 

Look, if you're just going to keep nitpicking little phrases out of my posts and ignoring the overwhelming majority of the points (which debunk your snappy little anti-Dempsey quips), this is going to become deeply tedious.

Second, you're just spinning numbers here. Miske had lost two of his last five in very close decisions, both to elite-level opponents (Norfolk and Gibbons). Since then, he had draws with Brennan and Levinsky (again, both legitimate ranking fighters) and had won his last fight. Miske had a career as a legitimate elite fighter and had beaten many name opponents. After losing to Dempsey, he went on a huge winning streak and beat guys like Brennan, Gibbons, and, by the way, Meehan himself, by a crushing one-round knockout! If you're going to pretend you can't see the difference between this and a journeyman who was consistently going to draws and losses with non-entities on the world scale like Hugh Walker and Martin Burke, then there's pretty much no use in even trying to talk to you.

 

Um, again, as I quoted already, the account states that his friends had mentioned before the fight that his hand was hurt, and McVey's notes that afterwards it was seen looking badly swollen. And even if the former weren't the case, that would still mean he was fighting half the match with a badly swollen hand.

 

I don't care what happened after the fight with Dempsey, I'm saying he shouldn't have gotten a shot before. He did and the basic selling point was that Miske had given Dempsey a good fight(s) beforehand. Same applies with Meehan. Imagine the tagline: "The guy who Jack couldn't beat". The public would have eaten it up.

 

...and funny enugh, it was done in response to Janitor's post that 'Meehan ducked a chance at Dempsey over 10 rounds when Jack was champ" that appears in one of the plethora of Dempsey threads.

 

Like Old Fogey mentions, Dempsey fought the very next evening. So it couldn't have been a major injury.

 

a contender like Miske who beat so many top contenders in his carrier atleast deserved one shot. BTW if i am not wrong the greb website credits Miske as a newspaper win over Greb, i'd have to look it up

 

Actually, I don't think there's too much wrong with Miske having a title fight (after all Stander, Roman and Wepner did), I was just making the point that Meehan's record over the previous year or so wasn't dissimilar- and the 'Can Jack beat him?' selling point was obviously a strong one.

 

Well stated thread-opener from Mendoza, most of which I completely agree with.

I rate Dempsey highly. He's up there with the very best.

Like any other great fighter he has a blemish or two on his record, a lacklustre result or two, a controversial win or draw, a loss or a bad aggregate score in a series with any "ordinary" fighter.

All the greats have some career record imperfections or a style they could never shine against, opponents that figure to be easy but were a pain in the ass.

Inevitably some people will pick up on such results and blow them way out of proportion and distort their historical significance and context.

I guess that's what drives this forum.

 

Lyle failed to floor Jerry Quarry. I don't think he flooed the small Gregorio Peralta either.

 

Willie would have never fought Dempsey in a longer fight. Funny how the other Dempsey fights pre title were scheduled for longer on the most part but everytime he fought Dempsey it was a 4 rounder.

 

do you mean to say that these articles in SF that u read were written three years after the actual bout?

 

I guess Meehan never agreed to fight Dempsey outside of California state, with it's stupid law of allowing only 4 rounds fights.

 

:good

 

Speaking of which, does anybody know exact date when that law was adopted? I'd like to read how they explained it.