Talk:Dempsey roll

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[edit] Manga invention?

All the references I've seen about the "Dempsey roll" are tied in one way or another to the "Hajime no Ippo" manga/anime. Therefore I'm fairly certain that at least the name of the technique has been invented by the manga. It would be good if someone more knowledgeable about boxing history than me, and who is not biased by the manga, would state if this technique has been recognized as such historically and named "Dempsey roll" independently of the manga or if this article is rewriting history according to a work of fiction. (Gnipahellir 10:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC))

After searching a bit on the web, I couldn't find too many references to the name "Dempsey Roll" other than Hajime no Ippo. The technique or rather, the concept of the attack, is very apparent in old footage of Jack Dempsey. Dempsey had a good sense of bobbing and weaving. He would use this to evade an attack and counter with a barrage of hooks. Normally he'd only have to throw a couple of hooks to down his opponent, unlike in the manga/anime where Ippo would hit his opponent much more. Even though the anime is dramatized, the motions and mechanics demonstrated are almost identical to Dempsey's. In my opinion, the information in this article appears to be correct. But I see your point that this article may be misnamed since the only actual name reference is to the anime. Though, I think the fact that this has been used by other boxers, like Tyson, shows that it has been recognized in a manner. That being said, it seems like the possible two solutions to this are:

• Keep the article name, but change it to an article about the manga/anime move and it's ties to the manga/anime
• Keep the article information and rename it to something more appropriate.

I've got some tapes I can check out so I'll keep researching and see what else I can find out. Any thoughts? Guyinblack25 06:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've watched some videos of Dempsey fighting and he definitely does what's described in the manga (in a less exaggerated form, of course). What I'd like to know is whether this was recognized as a trademark move during his time. I've noticed that there was an edit to the article on the 22nd of October 2005 by user Confuzion where he added the fiction tag but was later removed by an unregistered user with no explanation whatsoever, also the fact that the "Mike Tyson" article doesn't mention the Dempsey roll and the "Jack Dempsey" article only references it through a link to this article added by an unregistered user who didn't edit anything else in the article strongly points to the Dempsey roll becoming known as such because of the manga. I am in favor of keeping the name of the article, changing the body of the article to something to the effect of "The dempsey roll is a fictional boxing technique used by Ippo in the manga/anime based on a combination of punches and dodges shown by Jack Dempsey is some of his fights", and taking the article out of the "boxing terms" and "punches" categories, and putting it in a manga/anime category. (Gnipahellir 11:04, 19 December 2006 (UTC))

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find my tapes; they're boxed up somewhere. One was a tape about Dempsey, which if my memory serves me correctly, did not mention a "Dempsey Roll". The other was a tape on Tyson and had some commentary by him about past boxers, one of which was Dempsey. This one I never got around to watching. If I find it I'll post back if it had any relevant information. So at this point, switching the page to an article about the dempsey roll from the series sounds good. Although, I don't think that the start should say that the technique was fictional, but that the name given to it was popularized by the manga/anime series. This concept of this attack has been around and used by boxers and can even be duplicated today, so it is very real, it has just never been given an official name. But the dempsey roll that most everyone is familar with is the anime incarnation. Because of that I agree with you that it does not belong in the "boxing terms" category, but given its history and actual usage, I think it should stay in "punches" category. I think adding it to the "manga/anime" category makes sense too. On another note, what do you think of adding an animated gif file of the technique done by ippo? Any thoughts? (Guyinblack25 23:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC))

Ok, I found the old tape, and it didn't mention anything about a "Dempsey Roll". Tyson said that Dempsey was one of his favortie boxers and they even asked Tyson if he thought he had anything in common with Dempsey. But no mention of the words "Dempsey Roll" or even the technique. So the name appears to be an invention of the manga, but the move is evident in fight footage. It just appears in a much shorter interval.

Any more ideas on how to get the article to reflect this? (Guyinblack25 01:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC))

Hey, I´ve been away for a while. Good job with the article, I'll remove the expert tag. Gnipahellir 17:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I added an animated gif of Ippo using the dempsey roll. This was added to help illustrate the technique in case some users had trouble visualizing it from the description alone. If it is a bit of an eye sore or too distracting (personally I'm not sure), I can replace it with a still image and switch the animated one to a link users would have to click on to view. Any thoughts? (Guyinblack25 20:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC))