Was Jack Dempsey "a joke"?

I am I HUGE fan of Dempsey I like rough and tumble fighers. However it maybe be the quality of the film but he doesn't look very un "refined" however a joke? a say NAY
 
YukisHeart said:
picture:

Carnera_300h_269273a.jpg
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Primo Carnera-- not willard
 
If he fought today he would be laughed out the building.
 
Guys that were both shorter and lighter than the 6′2
 
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Here what I think of the Ali interview. I think he sees Jack the same way Floyd looked at Gatti. I think he looking at Jack's style and seeing someone that just throws bombs and comes forward with no d. I am not saying that, that is what jack or gatti are. I just saying that I think that is what Ali and mayweather see when they watch tape of them.
 
jack dempseys books are a very good read. i love the late great jack dempsey. Certainly not a joke. i love that aggressive style of his
 
I skimmed your post...

you are quite the boxing noob. Btw, that's not Jess Willard... that's Primo Carnera. He was a real life giant, and was actually the World Heavyweight Champ... ironically tho, if someone you mentioned could be called a "joke" it would be Carnera, not Dempsey.

No offense or "bashing" meant towards Carnera, but from what I've read and learned about Carnera, he was little more than a spectacle to attract people to boxing. He did hold the title for a couple fights, but there is some controversy associated with that title reign and how Carnera won it
 
YukisHeart said:
On the "there were blacks who would have beaten Dempsey" front, I'm still none the wiser, but someone did point me in the direction of a video of him "sparring" Big Bill Tate. I've heard back in Dempsey's days sparring sessions and exhibitions were often really full blown fights, but advertised as something else because it could be tricky getting a fight sanctioned. Someone in the video's comments thread on YouTube says Dempsey knocked Tate out in the second round with a big left - does anyone know anything more about this?
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Dempsey himself has been quoted as saying that he feared Sam Langford and went out of his way to not fight even the shell of Langford because he was a dangerous, tricky fighter ("The hell I feared no man. There was one man I wouldn't fight because I knew he would flatten me. I was afraid of Sam Langford."). There's also the rest of the avoided black quartet from the era (Joe Jeanette, Sam McVey & Harry Wills) who fought each other when the color line was drawn (mainly because the white champions and even Jack Johnson felt that there was no money in fighting those tough 4 guys) and were regarded as the real top contenders of their era (despite the white challengers getting the shots at the time).
 
I read that Dempsey was willing to give a shot to some of the Black contenders but the social conventions of that time made it impossible?

Anyone know more info about this.

By the way, wasn't Dempsey 1/4th Cherokee Indian himself from his mom's side?
 
Fisticuffa said:
I read that Dempsey was willing to give a shot to some of the Black contenders but the social conventions of that time made it impossible?

Anyone know more info about this.

By the way, wasn't Dempsey 1/4th Cherokee Indian himself from his mom's side?
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The general consensus is that Dempsey himself didn't really care about the color line and would have fought almost anyone (with the possible exception of Langford) but his manager/trainer 'Doc' Kearns and promoter Tex Rickard were adamant about maintaining the line to allow for bigger money gates against the top white contenders. I remember the Tunney biography talking about it and maybe the Dempsey biography as well.

And yeah, Dempsey was part Cherokee.
 
YukisHeart said:
My understanding is that Dempsey pushed hard to fight the top black contender, Harry Wills, but the NY athletic commission refused to sanction it. There were specific rules in place banning blacks from fighting for the heavyweight belt in Dempsey's time (I think I even saw something about there being a Coloured Heavyweight Championship, and that Big Bill Tate - who Dempsey sparred with and knocked out - once challended for it) because of the race riots the bouts had kicked off before.
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William Muldoon (the first NYSAC Chairman and a legendary Greco-Roman style Pro Wrestler and later trainer to other wrestlers and boxers like John L. Sullivan) did advocate the color line, but he also was being nudged by Rickard to nix any match-up. There were laws banning mixed race fights in NY, which was partially because of Johnson's reign and also to protect white fighters from dangerous black opponents by implementing the color line that fighters had advocated for decades (John L. Sullivan being a noteworthy example). I'm pretty certain Muldoon was forced to retire shortly after making a comment publicly regarding the color line and how it'd never be broken, however.
 
TheRatman said:
Here what I think of the Ali interview. I think he sees Jack the same way Floyd looked at Gatti. I think he looking at Jack's style and seeing someone that just throws bombs and comes forward with no d. I am not saying that, that is what jack or gatti are. I just saying that I think that is what Ali and mayweather see when they watch tape of them.
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putting gatti's name with dempseys is sacrilige. you're lucky I'm not a mod:icon_chee
 
Had a closer look at Big Bill Tate - Dempsey's huge black sparring partner - and it seems he was seriously legit: World Colored Heavyweight Champion in 1917. If it's true that Dempsey knocked him out with a left in the second round of one of their exhibitons - exhibitions not usually being exhibitions as we currently understand them back then but rather an excuse to have a proper stand up fight without having to get licensed - then that seems to pretty well settle the question of whether or not he could have stood with the black boxers of the day.
 
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