Dempsey Overrated?

[Sugar Adam Ali]

I have yet to see anyone prove that Dempsey is not overrated.. If you think he is a top 10 ATG at heavy then yeah your overrating him,, even top 20 would be overrating him imo

Was he the biggest draw of his era, yes of course.. Was he a legend, yes.. But is an a true ATG, no, the evidence is just not there..

Opinions from famous names in boxing is not evidence, and claiming they are experts like the ones used in court is mostly wrong.. Experts in court are used to determine scientific fact, not judgement if a guy is guilty or innocent.. If that was the case, every murder trial would use a former top level homicide detective with decades of experience and have him get on the stand and declare someone innocent or guilty based on his opinion... Experts are used to determine facts and probabilities, not innocence, guilt, atg, or not atg...

If Dempsey is compared to other heavys throughout history, he falls woefully short of atg status..
Great offensive fight, but not an elite one... Oscar was a great offensive fighter, so was pryor, and both have wins as good arguably as Dempsey has, but they aren't considered elite..
I think you can put Dempsey in the same category as tito Trinidad, great offensive monsters, but not elite atg fighters and could be dissected by elite boxers one Tunney hopkins

Plus Dempsey dodged black guys

[Humean]

Expert opinions...the same type of opinions that hold up legally, and that people often pay money for via consulting gigs. Everything we think is formed from memories...anecdotal evidence is a type of proof, it has its limitations, it is not scientific in nature....and lastly the guys compared Dempsey to fighters they had also witnessed in the ring so no it is not worthless.

Expert opinions in a court of law are no where near as contentious as this though. As I said you are talking about someone using their memories of a fighter from decades before and then using those memories to compare with what they are seeing at present. There just isn't any value in such things, no matter who you are.

Now someone like Ray Arcel's memories of who was the best at some time in the past would carry some weight, not a great deal due to the inaccuracies of memory, various biases and just the general fallibility of any such claims, but if you add them to the memories of other contemporaries then it could all add up to being pretty convincing evidence. However using such memories to compare with what they are seeing with their eyes at present just cannot possibly work.

What you'd really want from an 'expert' is to have them watch back to back footage of both older fighters and newer ones and then they could compare them. Unfortunately there is very limited footage from the early decades of the 20th century and what footage there is is of a pretty low quality.

[sonnyboyx2]

Watching Dempsey vs Willard i see a young Mike Tyson. it is surreal how Tyson copied and molded his style by watching hours of film-footage of Dempsey. I always thought Cus D`Amato molded Mike Tyson. But it's clear Tyson copied Dempsey as much as possible, he throws left-hooks every time he gets close to Willard. just like Tyson did against Berbick. Tyson even wore the same haircut, shorts and boots as Dempsey. The grainy film-footage does Dempsey no favors whatsoever, it makes him look like he is swinging some punches stiff-armed from his thighs. But that is certainly not the case, in fact moving forwards to Dempsey vs Sharkey shows just how much the film-footage camera work had came on in seven years. In that fight Dempsey can be seen boxing and moving, bobbing and weaving throwing great combinations and power punches.

[young_robbed]

I have yet to see anyone prove that Dempsey is not overrated.. If you think he is a top 10 ATG at heavy then yeah your overrating him,, even top 20 would be overrating him imo

Was he the biggest draw of his era, yes of course.. Was he a legend, yes.. But is an a true ATG, no, the evidence is just not there..

Opinions from famous names in boxing is not evidence, and claiming they are experts like the ones used in court is mostly wrong.. Experts in court are used to determine scientific fact, not judgement if a guy is guilty or innocent.. If that was the case, every murder trial would use a former top level homicide detective with decades of experience and have him get on the stand and declare someone innocent or guilty based on his opinion... Experts are used to determine facts and probabilities, not innocence, guilt, atg, or not atg...

If Dempsey is compared to other heavys throughout history, he falls woefully short of atg status..
Great offensive fighter, but not an elite one... Oscar was a great offensive fighter, so was pryor, and both have wins as good arguably as Dempsey has, but they aren't considered elite..
I think you can put Dempsey in the same category as tito Trinidad, great offensive monsters, but not elite atg fighters and could be dissected by elite boxers ie Tunney hopkins

Dempsey could easily have a victory over Tunney if not for the long count. This is indisputable fact. That is potentially a great win over a great fighter.

[billeau2]

[QUOTE=Sugar Adam Ali;15369605]I have yet to see anyone prove that Dempsey is not overrated..

And I doubt you will because one seldom if ever proves a negative.

[Scott9945]

Dempsey could easily have a victory over Tunney if not for the long count. This is indisputable fact. That is potentially a great win over a great fighter.

It is not indisputable that Tunney couldn't have beaten the count. He wasn't stretched out on the canvas or anything. And Dempsey signed off on the rules before the fight. Besides the knockdown, he lost every round to Tunney.

[billeau2]

Expert opinions in a court of law are no where near as contentious as this though. As I said you are talking about someone using their memories of a fighter from decades before and then using those memories to compare with what they are seeing at present. There just isn't any value in such things, no matter who you are.

Now someone like Ray Arcel's memories of who was the best at some time in the past would carry some weight, not a great deal due to the inaccuracies of memory, various biases and just the general fallibility of any such claims, but if you add them to the memories of other contemporaries then it could all add up to being pretty convincing evidence. However using such memories to compare with what they are seeing with their eyes at present just cannot possibly work.

What you'd really want from an 'expert' is to have them watch back to back footage of both older fighters and newer ones and then they could compare them. Unfortunately there is very limited footage from the early decades of the 20th century and what footage there is is of a pretty low quality.

We are talking about someones like Ray Arcel. The actual memory jumps are not that great. Trainers who saw Dempsey via Jack Johnson had worked with both guys. then trainers who started with Dempsey carried up to the seventies and had seen all fighters up to the seventies. In both cases you had active men in the field evaluating based on a rubric of skills and....where you take issue, recollections.

One could find fault with recollections, but there are categories of skills that are described including footwork, different skills in defense, parrying, technique etc. For example, One thing about Dempsey was his untelegraphed punches and how destructive they were. This is not recollection this is understanding technique and can be evaluated as objectively as watching the films you give as an example.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

[QUOTE=billeau2;15372062]

I have yet to see anyone prove that Dempsey is not overrated..

And I doubt you will because one seldom if ever proves a negative.

Ok well no one has really made the case for him as an atg top 10 guy...

If your going by top ten names/draws then yeah jack dempsey is top 10 but if your going by resume, opponents, skill, size, etc then I don't see how he can be top 10

[Humean]

We are talking about someones like Ray Arcel. The actual memory jumps are not that great. Trainers who saw Dempsey via Jack Johnson had worked with both guys. then trainers who started with Dempsey carried up to the seventies and had seen all fighters up to the seventies. In both cases you had active men in the field evaluating based on a rubric of skills and....where you take issue, recollections.

One could find fault with recollections, but there are categories of skills that are described including footwork, different skills in defense, parrying, technique etc. For example, One thing about Dempsey was his untelegraphed punches and how destructive they were. This is not recollection this is understanding technique and can be evaluated as objectively as watching the films you give as an example.

In regards to various technique and skills someone like Arcel still has to remember how proficient a certain fighter was at said technique and skills and then compare that with whomever they are watching at present. How could anyone possibly do that? Sure he can question the current fighters competency in various ways but how can he remember the older fighters accurately? All he will 'remember' is the good stuff and forget the bad. That phenomenon happens all the time, if someone tries to compare Golovkin to Hagler they will correctly point out faults in Golovkin but then have some idealized memory of Hagler, forgetting how imperfect Hagler was too. The reality is that even the 'good' that someone like Arcel 'remembers' is likely to be inflated in his mind.

[K-DOGG]

In regards to various technique and skills someone like Arcel still has to remember how proficient a certain fighter was at said technique and skills and then compare that with whomever they are watching at present. How could anyone possibly do that? Sure he can question the current fighters competency in various ways but how can he remember the older fighters accurately? All he will 'remember' is the good stuff and forget the bad. That phenomenon happens all the time, if someone tries to compare Golovkin to Hagler they will correctly point out faults in Golovkin but then have some idealized memory of Hagler, forgetting how imperfect Hagler was too. The reality is that even the 'good' that someone like Arcel 'remembers' is likely to be inflated in his mind.

But still, actually being an eye witness and having years upon yeas of corner work and gym work and eating, sleeping breathing the sport as Parcel did is voting to count for more than some fanboys opinion.....by a long shot; and will be about as close to the truth as you can come on a subjective matter such as this.