What's your take on the Greb/Dempsey Sparring Sessions?

[billeau2]

One has to understand that some guys have two gears: When they fight theyb fight, other guys have ten gears, like Max Bauer....He often would clown around but of he really got focused and angry he had a hell of a right.

Dempsey strikes me as the type who wouldn't give a **** getting a split lip from a middle weight. Certainly if they fought both guys when in the ring were killers. But Grebb's sparring supremacydoes not mean much to me. I also do not think Dempsey would anger easily. I don't know this but I have a feeling that if Jack played fast and loose with his temper we would have seen some evidence there of....For example, Tony Galento was a bit of a boorish individual, and we know he decked Jackie Gleason! we know he was murder on his sparring partners, etc.

[Viti Ben-Wa]

One has to understand that some guys have two gears: When they fight theyb fight, other guys have ten gears, like Max Bauer....He often would clown around but of he really got focused and angry he had a hell of a right.

Dempsey strikes me as the type who wouldn't give a **** getting a split lip from a middle weight. Certainly if they fought both guys when in the ring were killers. But Grebb's sparring supremacydoes not mean much to me. I also do not think Dempsey would anger easily. I don't know this but I have a feeling that if Jack played fast and loose with his temper we would have seen some evidence there of....For example, Tony Galento was a bit of a boorish individual, and we know he decked Jackie Gleason! we know he was murder on his sparring partners, etc.

Good points, but I think it speaks volumes his own manager said they wanted no part of Greb and they instead fought many fighters Harry had already beaten first instead of fighting Greb himself.

[TBear]

I rarely put much faith in sparring stories. You never know, it could be the first day of camp for one fighter and he might not be in the same shape as he would be in a couple weeks. Additionally getting in the ring with your first sparring partner of the day when you are cold and he has been sparring for awhile affects performance. Either way, over the years we have seen fighters in pro bouts defeat other fighters that claim they did good in sparring. As billeau2 pointed out, being in a professional bout is different than sparring which is basically "practicing".

[billeau2]

Good points, but I think it speaks volumes his own manager said they wanted no part of Greb and they instead fought many fighters Harry had already beaten first instead of fighting Greb himself.

Greb was a scary dude.

[Viti Ben-Wa]

One has to understand that some guys have two gears: When they fight theyb fight, other guys have ten gears, like Max Bauer....He often would clown around but of he really got focused and angry he had a hell of a right.

Dempsey strikes me as the type who wouldn't give a **** getting a split lip from a middle weight. Certainly if they fought both guys when in the ring were killers. But Grebb's sparring supremacydoes not mean much to me. I also do not think Dempsey would anger easily. I don't know this but I have a feeling that if Jack played fast and loose with his temper we would have seen some evidence there of....For example, Tony Galento was a bit of a boorish individual, and we know he decked Jackie Gleason! we know he was murder on his sparring partners, etc.

Love the Gleason story! Had never heard that before and had to look it up!

[Ray Corso]

What I know about the sessions is simply that Grebb gave Dempsey good work when finding spar partners wasn't that easy. Remember the days of fighting often were a few years away so sparring partners were important then like now.
Grebb had tuff times with partners often himself and my best guess is that 165lb Grebb wasn't getting 185-191lb Dempsey's full power.

I shook Mr. Dempsey's hand when he was about 75 years old, I never felt a mans hand like that before or since. He also seemed to be bigger than life, there's a few men like that. At that time he was about 200 but from about 50 to 65 he was about 220lbs.
There's a well known story of Dempsey being the mark on a attempted robbery in New York City. Two men attacked him, one who put his hands on Dempsey was knocked unconscious with one right hand, and remained that way for up to 5 minutes until the police showed up. I think Dempsey was 70 yrs old! The other man ran!
Once Dempsey had earned money and was safe from bills and hardship he lost some of the drive he had. Prior to that the guy was a ****ing animal and think about Tyson trying to emulate the Great Jack Dempsey!
Ray Corso.

[soul_survivor]

yeah, heard that robbery story before, might be true.

Fact is, people put too much emphasis on sparring, back then and now. Sparring is a form of training and people use it differently. Some take it lackadaisically, Ali for example would purposefully allow sparring partners to beat up on him. Who knows what Dempsey wanted out of that session.

[Scott9945]

yeah, heard that robbery story before, might be true.

Fact is, people put too much emphasis on sparring, back then and now. Sparring is a form of training and people use it differently. Some take it lackadaisically, Ali for example would purposefully allow sparring partners to beat up on him. Who knows what Dempsey wanted out of that session.

Ali was terrible in sparring. Lots of guys were allowed to look good against him. But Ali got what he wanted out of those sessions and the results proved he knew what he was doing (except for perhaps taking too much punishment in retrospect).

[billeau2]

Love the Gleason story! Had never heard that before and had to look it up!

haha yeah "the greatest" walked into that one! Poor mr Gleason.

[Ray Corso]

They wanted quality work and as the middleweight and heavyweight best they got it!
As for the Dempsey "story" its true!
Ali was NOT terrible at sparring he preferred to work on his blocking and covering up for when he was stunned or hurt. You see fighters today get hurt and they haven't a clue what to do. Do you see heavies today reaching out and grabbing when their rocked? Your supposed to cover every scenario in the gym.
Ali didn't need to work offense in spar time he did all that once his legs were in shape. Everything about Ali started with his legs, most of his training to put punches together came on the heavy bag.
Spar time is an individual thing, some guys need a lot of rounds and others don't. If your a student and learning techniques they have to be applied in the ring so a novice will get ring time and plenty of it. At the beginning it will be controlled but once your ready to fight open sessions tell the story. Everyone needs to be informed eventually.
Ray