Georges Carpentier

[Great John L]

Carpentier is a pretty good fighter. He fought with Jeanette, and hurt Dempsey with a right early on. But he wasn't GREAT. He's good but not on that upper level of greatness. He never beat the best he had to beat.

[CarlosG815]

There were lots of su****ions at the time that the Levinsky fight was fixed to set up the lucrative million dollar gate with Dempsey. See reports like this:

http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?...levinsky&hl=en

Carpentier was on the verge of being stopped by Gunboat Smith when his manager jumped into the ring and claimed a dubious foul (Carpentier tried to do the same against Tunney). He had a questionable decision against a faded welterweight Willie Lewis go his way. Then there were the shenanigans with Siki who was supposed to take a dive but double-crossed Carpentier and knocked him out. That they felt a limited fighter like Siki had to be paid to lose to Carpentier is itself pretty revealing. Kid Lewis was a welterweight fighting a light-heavy. How much credit would you give Bob Foster if he KO'd Sugar Ray Leonard? Especially if he cheap-shotted him on the break.

Carpentier was hugely popular in his day and a very important influence on the growth of boxing in Europe (that is his greatness) but he was protected with set-ups and numerous su****ious results and usually took a pasting when he stepped up in class (Dempsey, Tunney, Klaus, Dixie Kid, Gibbons, Papke etc).

On the same token, Carpentier was much smaller than Dempsey, by perhaps 20 pounds. About the same difference as Kid Lewis vs Carpentier. The same weight difference pertains to Tunney as well.... So how much credit can you really give Dempsey and Tunney for beating Carpentier?

Carpentier was not a heavyweight...

[Kid McCoy]

On the same token, Carpentier was much smaller than Dempsey, by perhaps 20 pounds. About the same difference as Kid Lewis vs Carpentier. The same weight difference pertains to Tunney as well.... So how much credit can you really give Dempsey and Tunney for beating Carpentier?

Carpentier was not a heavyweight...

But he did regularly fight heavyweights and Tunney himself was only a light-heavy who moved up. No I don't give Dempsey that much credit for beating Carpentier. Going in it was a fight Carpentier had little chance of winning and so it proved.

[GJC]

Carpentier usually lost when he stepped up in class, unless the fight had been fixed in his favour or he got himself a specious DQ win. His significance is his huge influence on the development of European boxing rather than his actual ring accomplishments.

Kid is harsh here but unfortunately pretty accurate.
Carpentier was a good fighter but will be remembered a lot longer for who he was rather than his talent.

I'm not comparing him to Mickey Ward as he had more talent than him but to give an example I can guarantee that Ward will be more famous in 50 years than fighters from his era with a lot more talent if you get my drift?

[mickey malone]

Sauve, sophisticated and Debonair, Georges Carpentier was the darling of France.. Chiseled good looks and drapped in tweed, he combined pugulism with being a bit of a role player within the French aristocracy.. As a boxer, his main attributes were fleet feet with fast hands and he could **** a bit too, with well over 50 ko's to his name..

I'm not so sure whether or not any of his fights were fixed, but it has to be said (as many of you already have) that although fairly dominant in Europe, he wasn't as effective at world level..

I believe the fight between him and Dempsey is still a world record for the largest live audience to this day.. No doubt both fighters made a shed load of money, but it put a hell of a dent into Carpentier's greatness.. Carpentier had only just taken the 175lb title from Levinsky, and gets straight in with Dempsey of all people.. He only tries mixing it with him, busts his thumb in the 2nd and gets crowned in the 4th.. I think had he ignored his own hype and set about making some defenses of his title, he definitely had the talent to now be recognized as an all time great..

[JAB5239]

I believe the fight between him and Dempsey is still a world record for the largest live audience to this day.[/COLOR]

That honor has belonged to Julio Cesar Chavez and Greg Haugen since 1993 with more than 132,000 in attendance at Azteca stadium, my friend.

So good to have you posting again!

[mickey malone]

That honor has belonged to Julio Cesar Chavez and Greg Haugen since 1993 with more than 132,000 in attendance at Azteca stadium, my friend.

So good to have you posting again!

Ah, that was it, Dempsey Carpentier was the first million dollar gate..
Wrong record lol..

132,000!!...Them Mexicano's sure do love their boxing..

[Scott9945]

Kid is harsh here but unfortunately pretty accurate.
Carpentier was a good fighter but will be remembered a lot longer for who he was rather than his talent.

I'm not comparing him to Mickey Ward as he had more talent than him but to give an example I can guarantee that Ward will be more famous in 50 years than fighters from his era with a lot more talent if you get my drift?

Now that Mickey had a movie made about his life you can count on that. Good for him too.