Dempsey's take on the non-fight with Wills

I think it's pretty even near the top but Wills has the greater names. Depending upon how you feel about allowing multiple wins over opponents as proving quality I'd suggest that it's either slender to Wills or to Wills by some distance in terms of paper resume.

 

Well, he's a puncher.

But even that is arguable. Wills beat Firpo too, he just didn't nearly lose in the process.

 

Very odd considering how completely he out-boxed him.

Still, the Dempsey-Firpo fight was legendary before it had even finished.

 

Would he have been a massive favourite? I'm not so sure. Take a look at what happened to the Dempsey-Carpantier odds ffs...

 

Yeah, I meant Fulton.

 

Apart from Carpantier being favourite to beat Dempsey by fight time? I don't think I really need anything else! These fighters basically became whatever that awesome publicity machine wanted them to be.

As far as the odds go, whatever Tex fancied, basically.

As far as the fight itself goes, how about this. Dempsey is a smaller, faster fighter with good footwork and a punch capable of taking out anyone he gets right on the end of it. Wills dominated a series with a fighter that absolutely fits that description in every way.

Langford and Dempsey are different fighters of course. But I think this attitude that Wills didn't figtht Dempsey but Dempsey is still to be considered the favourite because of how he did against bigger fighters generally is about as valid as picking Wills because of how he did against Langford.


Gun to my head I say Wills is greater. As far as a fight between the two goes I'd lean to Dempsey, but I wouldn't be confident, not least because of the derth of footage.

 

That, we will never know. What we do know is that there were two outstanding HW's in the era. We know that Wills was a genuine HW whereas Dempsey would now fight as a CW. We know that Wills probably beat the better men straight up. I don't see that as particularly easy to call.

That's reasonable, but it works both ways. That is to say, the first time Wills met Langford he is listed as 14-1-3. Now he doubtless had more contests than this, but when their rivalry started, Wills was definitely extremely green compared to Langford, who was already ATG.

That first fight was a draw, with some sources having Wills winning. Wills was much the bigger man, but that aside, this is an absolutely astonishing result.

Langford had had over 100 fights to Wills 25 (Boxrec) when Sam first beat Harry. The first time Wills beat Langford I think he was past-prime, but Wills only had around 30 listed fights. I bet he had more, but he was still greenish. And Langford didn't really extend him in that fight.

Again, based upon his outstanding performance in their first contest I would be cautious about making any definite claims here.

I disagree. Jack looked plenty vulnerable against the much slower Firpo for a spell. He puts himself in a dogfight with these bigger men as a matter of course and he won these dogfights, but like Armstrong and Tyson after him, Dempsey might have found that the right bigger man would have brought him something unpleasant coming back.