What sort of fighter was Harry Wills

Wills totally shut Firpo down and manhandled him on the inside. The one thing Firpo was good at was brute strength and Wills handled Firpo in clinches easily.

 

The way he created space and fired off fluid combinations is spectacular and offensively speaking he was the best heavyweight in propably the first 60 years of the sports history.

My issue is that firpo is well known to be something of an unskilled strongman in the squared circle. A top contender of his time, no doubt, but his skillset was very thin.

If someone like that can time dempsey it makes me fear what an intelligent power punching heavyweight could do. He was also timed and dropped against flynn so it's not like we can call it a one off. It seems that overhand right would always trouble jack.

I mean if you were to put him in with rocky, how many right hands could he realistically expect to take?

My main point is that whilst jack consistently demonstrated a superior in-game with those he fought, he didn't fight anyone with a good inside game themselves so it is difficult to gauge his abilities there (aside from the aforementioned athletics).

Wills did fight some great infighters (langford for a start) and although he was largely dominant his opponents were largely past their own prime.

I suppose the question is could you imagine wills timing jack on the way in with a big right hand?

 

Not a chance

Louis >>>>>>>> Dempsey

 

Ofcourse. How does that disagree with what I said?

Infact louis is the reason for the cutoff. I think offensively dempsey what the best heavyweight up until louis came along.

 

I stand corrected

 

Unpredictable certainly. He was strong, rugged and hard hitting.

I think you'd be hard pressed presenting any footage or writeups portraying him as a skilled operator.

The main point being, as far as counter punchers go, firpo is somewhere on the lower rungs.

 

He was an extremely strong, hard punching with a crushing right , awkward brute with a ton of heart who was in the best condition of his life against Dempsey and fought the fight of his life against Dempsey .. for that fight , that night he was a very dangerous man ... for most of the rest of his career he barely trained , looked it and performed like it ..

 

A guy like that would not get to the top any more. Plain and simple.

He managed it in his era because boxing hadn't yet evolved to the sport it has become.

I don't think i'd be far wrong calling him one of the least skilled top 4 contenders in heavyweight history.

 

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come off it Janitor, ffs. These two are absolutely dire

 

That is nonsense mate and you know it. Superheavyweights today are infinitely more skilled than they were in those days.

Take the top 4 today. You have Wlad and Povetkin both olympic gold medalists. You have Vitali who's probably a top 40 heavyweight. And you have Haye who won a silver at the world amateur's and unified the cw division.

A modern equivalent to firpo is larry olubamwio (sp.) a strong man who can bang but doesn't really have any visible skills.

Firpo wouldn't break the top ten today and I think we both know this. My main point is it is hard to gauge jack's inside game when firpo is the main showcase. A showcase who nearly knocked him out.

 

If Firpo was as bad as people make out it doesn't say much for Harry Wills.

There's absolute no excuse for an elite contender failing to stop an out-of-shape 'strong man' with ZERO BOXING ABILITY.
Wills was only a couple of years past his best after all.
It's not like we're talking 'Butterbean Holmes' here ..... and by the sounds of it Firpo wasn't even as good as Butterbean.

 

Wills got criticised for his lacklustre victory over firpo.

I didn't know he was out of shape for that fight though, do you have any sources for that?

He was highly ranked in his era, that's beyond dispute. But he's also quite clearly one of the least skilled top contenders in history.