Jack Dempsey

Muhammad Ali, bless him, billed himself as “The Greatest” but on his best day he would’ve gone down in a round or two under the speed and unbelievable punching power of Jack Dempsey. You think Ali was fast? Take a look at some of Dempsey’s fight pictures and see what real speed looks like. His bob and weave made him extremely difficult to hit and many opponents never saw the punch that kayoed them because he was so fast with his hands. On his way to the title, he destroyed every top ten contender; knocking each one out; the last five, just before he won the title, all in the first round. Nat Fleischer, late Editor of The Ring Magazine rated Dempsey as the roughest of all the heavyweights and rightfully so. Many untutored boxing “experts” say he would be too small for today’s heavyweights. That is pure rubbish. Almost everyone of the men he beat weighed well over two hundred pounds and were a lot tougher than today’s bloated tanks that tire in three rounds. His slaughter of the champion, big Jess Willard, who stood 6’7″ and weighed 250 pounds is recognized as the worst beating ever administered to a champion in all of boxing. He knocked Willard down 7 times in the first round; shattered his cheek bone and broke Willard’s jaw, all while weighing 181 pounds. Some say Mike Tyson was a killer, but you have to remember the caliber of men he faced was not the same as the men Dempsey faced. Not by a long shot. And, remember a second-rate fighter named Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson, so I think we can put that argument to rest. As for Ali, the great trainer Ray Arcel, who trained a multitude of champions from Dempsey’s day to Roberto Duran, when asked how Dempsey would have fared with the likes of Ali and Joe Frazier. Arcel said, “Jack would have had a picnic.” At his peak in 1919-1920, Jack Dempsey would have beaten any fighter who ever lived.

Jack Dempsey was truly “The Greatest” and not Muhammad Ali. Dempsey was the hardest hitter fighting has ever known and not even the likes of Joe Louis or Ali ever faced an opponent who could hit as hard or was as fast as Dempsey. He would have slaughtered any fighter that came before or after him and that belief is upheld by most boxing experts. Every punch he threw has his full bodyweight behind it and the man lived an incredibly hard life which toughened him like no one else. Today’s bloated, overblown fighters couldn’t even whip his sparring partners. In his second fight with Gene Tunney he had Tunney down for 18 seconds- not the 14 everyone believes. To me, he was the first heavyweight champ to regain his title but was robbed by the referee who was in on the fix. Tunney was great but he was no Jack Dempsey.

Jack Dempsey was truly “The Greatest” and not Muhammad Ali. Dempsey was the hardest hitter fighting has ever known and not even the likes of Joe Louis or Ali ever faced an opponent who could hit as hard or was as fast as Dempsey. He would have slaughtered any fighter that came before or after him and that belief is upheld by most boxing experts. Every punch he threw has his full bodyweight behind it and the man lived an incredibly hard life which toughened him like no one else. Today’s bloated, overblown fighters couldn’t even whip his sparring partners. In his second fight with Gene Tunney he had Tunney down for 18 seconds- not the 14 everyone believes. To me, he was the first heavyweight champ to regain his title but was robbed by the referee who was in on the fix. Tunney was great but he was no Jack Dempsey.