The Fall-Out On A Legacy...

[Goodnight, Irene]

This, to me, is curious. Let's take a hypothetical, here. Imagine, purely for the purposes of discussion, the following were proven, without doubt or room to refute...

A) Dempsey's gloves were loaded against Willard.

B) Foreman was poisoned against Ali, & Liston took an arranged dive in their first fight.

How serious an impact, in your personal assessment, of their legacies? They each still had other accomplishments, but these are major dents, you would have to think.

[Robinson]

A>That Dempsey knows how to take it out on a farm boy.

B> Nothing in Africa would suprise me.
Re- Liston...well its hard to imagine a steel jawed man like Liston
being rocked or dropped by a shot like that, but he is only human.

[Goodnight, Irene]

A>That Dempsey knows how to take it out on a farm boy.

B> Nothing in Africa would suprise me.
Re- Liston...well its hard to imagine a steel jawed man like Liston
being rocked or dropped by a shot like that, but he is only human.

Actually, in this case, I was referring to hypothetical proof of the first Ali-Liston fight being a fix. Would these revelations dramatically, or only slightly, drop your opinions on these two HW titleists?

As I said, they each had other accomplishments. They both were great. I do think this'd be a big hole in their legacies, though.

[Flump]

It would hugely tarnish their legacy in my opinion, whatever else they did would always be overshadowed by what happened, I guess the timing of the absolute proof would be a factor, Dempsey and Ali would never have became the revered figures they are if that was revealed while they were active.

[My2Sense]

Dempsey's legacy would suffer a huge blow, but Ali's would come tumbling down IMO.

Dempsey's legacy could be salvaged somewhat by his late career KO of future champ Jack Sharkey, which it could be argued is a bigger achievement than beating Willard. In Ali's case, you took away his two biggest claims to all-time greatness by far.

[Robinson]

Its often forgotten and seldom talked about but I agree that Dempseys
win over Sharkey is alot better than that off Willard.

Less impactful and visually appealing to watching Dempsey smash away
at Willard.

Sharkey is a guy that I find hard to define he seems to be a pretty
strong guy with decent skills. wish we had more film on him.

I could never imagine anyone in the media releasing or digging deep
enough int Ali-Liston II as he is a complete darling in memory these
days.

[p4p1]

Its often forgotten and seldom talked about but I agree that Dempseys
win over Sharkey is alot better than that off Willard.

Less impactful and visually appealing to watching Dempsey smash away
at Willard.

Sharkey is a guy that I find hard to define he seems to be a pretty
strong guy with decent skills. wish we had more film on him.

I could never imagine anyone in the media releasing or digging deep
enough int Ali-Liston II as he is a complete darling in memory these
days.

he is talking about there first fight not the second

[Robinson]

Got ya :)

[Slythex]

If such a situation were definitively proven, I think you'd wind up with a tarnished legacy a la Pete Rose or Barry Bonds. Sure, they still have their achievements, but there's almost a deliberate lack of respect for these guys.