The Great Trainers and Fighters on Dempsey: Simply The Best

[butterfly1964]

it was an ok article. dempsey was one of my favorite fighters, but there's no way he could beat a guy like joe louis. louis would just expose him of his flaws and knock him out in the mid rounds. ali was a freak of nature, and dempsey wouldn't be able to cope with the speed of a guy that big. foreman and liston is a bad style machup for him. tyson is just a bigger, stronger, and faster version of dempsey. holmes would also dance around him as well. i think dempsey has a good chance of beating frazier, though, but frazier's workrate was insane, and i doubt dempsey would hold up under the strain. other than those people, i don't think anybody else could beat mad jack, though. he makes #8 on my top ten heavyweights list.

but yeah, you gotta love jack dempsey.

[j]

well, an interesting kind of read. here are my thoughts:

Arcel’s verdict on the Manassa Mauler was thus: “Dempsey would have absolutely beaten any fighter who came after him – without a doubt. I know all about Joe Louis and how he knocked guys’ teeth out. I have every respect for Joe – I rate him number two. But Dempsey would have killed Louis, George Foreman, any of those guys. What Jack had was God-given – you can’t develop the kind of talent he had.

i honestly have some trouble with a blanket statement of saying this guy or that guy would have killed the other.

also, by jack's own admission, his skills were developed through hard work, NOT any "god-given" talent.

Dempsey was indeed a ring killer of men who could have killed anyone past or present on his best day.

wow, another extreme blanket statement. dempsey seems to be portrayed as inhuman, with super hero like powers in this article. actually, it's sort of irritating to see an article that is extremely biased as this is, but everyone has there opinion.

[mECHsLAVE]

That's a good, colorful article. Dempsey was of course a fantastic fighter, very hard on bigger men, but he could also be hit, staggered, hurt etc. He could also be outboxed.

Luis Firpo nearly beat him, and if you watch the film of the Dempsey-Firpo fight, you can see that Luis Firpo wasn't much more than a big, strong and aggressive man. He lacked overall boxing skills, threw wild, looping punches and didn't defend himself that well. His punching technique was poor. A good modern heavyweight would have made minced meat out of Firpo. Dempsey beat him but a smart boxer of modern times (like Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes) would have chopped up Firpo without ever taking any punishment.

How would a modern, big heavyweight have done against the Jack Sharkey that fought Dempsey? Sharkey was a fine boxer who was outboxing Dempsey in that fight before he was knocked out, but he was really only a big cruiserweight or small heavyweight by today's standards. He could beat most of today's heavyweights with superior speed and boxing skills, but not the best modern ones such as Ali, Holmes, Lewis, Tyson, Liston, etc. I also am doubtful that Dempsey was a better fighter than Joe Louis.

Anyway, when you consider all the evidence I can't put Dempsey at the top of the historical list of great heavyweights. For sure he is top 20, maybe even top 10, but I can think of several that I would have to put ahead of him.

Firpo didn't nearly beat Dempsey. He landed that one Sunday punch and Dempsey recovered and went right back to beating the crap out of him until he knocked him out cold. I don't see that as nearly beating him.

And your remarks about modern heavies beating him doesn't really make sense. You can't say "Oh, Lennox would have beaten him so he wasn't that great." First of all, who knows what kind of fighter Dempsey would have been in the modern era, or what kind of fighter Lennox would have been back then. Larry Donald would probably beat Jack Johnson if you could take him and travel back in time with his current skills, does that mean Jack Johnson wasn't a great HW? Cmon... you can only judge a fighter by comparing him to his contemporaries.

And painting Sharkey as a cruiser, yeah, and? Dempsey was a cruiser, too, by today's standards. Actually, he'd probably be a LHW the way weigh-ins happen today and the way fighters cut weight and dehydrate for weigh-ins. So if you want to compare modern fighters to Dempsey, compare how he would have done against some recent LHW's or cruisers. The guy was never over 200 lbs. People think Byrd-Wlad was a wide weight gap- try Dempsey-Willard. LOL And that was about as brutal ownage as you'll ever see, esp considering the size difference.

[hemichromis]

dempsey might well be able toi beat ali, think of frazier with a good right hand as welll as left, faster with better head movement.

[Kid Achilles]

More mobile as well. He was lighter on his feet than Joe and not afraid to take a backwards step. Good lateral movement as well. He did not always come straight at an opponent, that is a myth.

Just from what I've seen from the fight films alone, I would rate him as a more dangerous threat to Ali than Frazier. All Frazier has on him is superior stamina.

For me this is a pickem fight if we're talking about a young Ali. I can see Dempsey neutralizing Ali's movement with a savage body attack like he did to Gibbons, but I can also see Ali getting the best of it over fifteen rounds.

A post Ali layoff, with decreased endurance and footspeed, would get mauled IMO. Dempsey was several levels above George Foreman in skill, was quicker and more accurate with his shots, and a better finisher. Put Dempsey in Zaire and Ali does not last six rounds.

[Azteca]

That's a good, colorful article. Dempsey was of course a fantastic fighter, very hard on bigger men, but he could also be hit, staggered, hurt etc. He could also be outboxed.

Luis Firpo nearly beat him, and if you watch the film of the Dempsey-Firpo fight, you can see that Luis Firpo wasn't much more than a big, strong and aggressive man. He lacked overall boxing skills, threw wild, looping punches and didn't defend himself that well. His punching technique was poor. A good modern heavyweight would have made minced meat out of Firpo. Dempsey beat him but a smart boxer of modern times (like Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes) would have chopped up Firpo without ever taking any punishment.

How would a modern, big heavyweight have done against the Jack Sharkey that fought Dempsey? Sharkey was a fine boxer who was outboxing Dempsey in that fight before he was knocked out, but he was really only a big cruiserweight or small heavyweight by today's standards. He could beat most of today's heavyweights with superior speed and boxing skills, but not the best modern ones such as Ali, Holmes, Lewis, Tyson, Liston, etc. I also am doubtful that Dempsey was a better fighter than Joe Louis.

Anyway, when you consider all the evidence I can't put Dempsey at the top of the historical list of great heavyweights. For sure he is top 20, maybe even top 10, but I can think of several that I would have to put ahead of him.

mokele, you post at CBZ? That post looks awfully familiar.

[yrrej]

Anybody can say what they will, but, in the context of the times, when fighters had to fight, and they were wearing what amounted to little more than work gloves, rather than padded mittens, Dempsey was busting people up, broken ribs, jaws, etc. Who regularly does that today? How long would they hang around and take that kind of punishment? Who would fight for the money he was getting or show the kind of dedication he had for the paltry rewards of the sport? Who could even train under the circumstances he endured without the nutritionists, masseurs, personal physicians, and other amenities of fighters today? Who among the heavyweights has come up fighting from a young kid without the benefit of Golden Gloves, Olympic venues, and real gymnasiums, poor though they may sometimes be? Dempsey belongs right up at the top....

[rocco1252]

More mobile as well. He was lighter on his feet than Joe and not afraid to take a backwards step. Good lateral movement as well. He did not always come straight at an opponent, that is a myth.

Just from what I've seen from the fight films alone, I would rate him as a more dangerous threat to Ali than Frazier. All Frazier has on him is superior stamina.

For me this is a pickem fight if we're talking about a young Ali. I can see Dempsey neutralizing Ali's movement with a savage body attack like he did to Gibbons, but I can also see Ali getting the best of it over fifteen rounds.

A post Ali layoff, with decreased endurance and footspeed, would get mauled IMO. Dempsey was several levels above George Foreman in skill, was quicker and more accurate with his shots, and a better finisher. Put Dempsey in Zaire and Ali does not last six rounds.

AGREE WITH YOU 100%, If and I mean a big IF when I say this..If Ali made it past the 8th round against Dempsey it's his win but I dont see it happening, sooner or later whether or not Ali was dancing around him Ali would have been hit and hit hard, and if Ali got close enough he would have been sleeping really fast right there on the mat.

You have to take into consideration the times, if Dempsey had all the same training exercises and a regime like boxers of today and even the 70's he would have been 10 times better. Furthermore look at the gloves Dempsey used and the size difference in opponents he fought, for a small guy with small gloves to take beatings like he did and still get up and fight like he was never hurt and come back and knock people out cold with 1 shot he has to be a warrior. I mean just look at how many times he fought fights right after another and this isnt even including his exhibitions which some say he had over 100 on top of his 83 fights wheres the time to heal?? He didnt take any until toward the end of his career, I mean this guy was tough as nails and just kept on going. He had more dedication and more heart than any of todays fighter past and present.

I rank him higher on the all time greats list than I do Ali Foreman and Frazier because of these factors.

[butterfly1964]

AGREE WITH YOU 100%, If and I mean a big IF when I say this..If Ali made it past the 8th round against Dempsey it's his win but I dont see it happening, sooner or later whether or not Ali was dancing around him Ali would have been hit and hit hard, and if Ali got close enough he would have been sleeping really fast right there on the mat.

You have to take into consideration the times, if Dempsey had all the same training exercises and a regime like boxers of today and even the 70's he would have been 10 times better. Furthermore look at the gloves Dempsey used and the size difference in opponents he fought, for a small guy with small gloves to take beatings like he did and still get up and fight like he was never hurt and come back and knock people out cold with 1 shot he has to be a warrior. I mean just look at how many times he fought fights right after another and this isnt even including his exhibitions which some say he had over 100 on top of his 83 fights wheres the time to heal?? He didnt take any until toward the end of his career, I mean this guy was tough as nails and just kept on going. He had more dedication and more heart than any of todays fighter past and present.

I rank him higher on the all time greats list than I do Ali Foreman and Frazier because of these factors.

what the heck? ali has never been knocked out with a couple of punches. it always took alot of punishment for ali to be close to being knocked out. so why would dempsey be able to do this? dempsey doesn't punch that damn hard. he wore extremely small gloves, so the punches hurt more. he's not a better puncher than sonny liston, or foreman, or shavers, or louis. if a guy like tommy gibbons could stand toe to toe with dempsey and last the distance, then ali would have no trouble doing that as well. ali would winn a comfortable ud or an mid to late tko.