Would Dempsey Have Stopped Bonavena??

Possibly yes. Oscar had steel whiskers, but he was dropped—by Ellis, by Ali. On the other hand he withstood the might of Lyle and Frazier without faltering, so who knows.

Doable for Dempsey, yes.

 

Exhaustion is the factor that would stop Bonavena going the distance and it was only Muhammad Ali who accomplished that. But if anyone else could manage then The Mauler would be the man.

Good post,Fergy.

 

He could certainly drop him and I would expect him to,
Folley and Ellis managed it.

 

At his absolute, explosive and accurate best, yeah, I think Dempsey could do it, and possibly in a few rounds or over a bit longer 5-6 rounds.

As stated earlier, Oscar was hurt and dropped by guys who didn’t punch as hard as Dempsey but it’s also true that he withstood some powerful hitters.

If it developed into an arduous, dour full route or near full route fight, Dempsey could still come away with a clear win I think.

 

I read “Jack Dempsey infested waters” and it reminded me I used to have a pet Dempsey cichlid, the fish does kinda look like Jack.

 

Typical! The one we had was a wimp, he got chased around by all the other less cool cichlids. I also read the wiki and apparently they really did name it after Jack based on its appearance lol.

 

Of course anything can happen in boxing, but it would be more than reasonable to make Dempsey favorite.