Was Wills Record In Dempsey's Reign That Awesome?

But who beat Lee Anderson a few months before Norfolk quit to him.

Norfolk was already blind when Wills beat him too.

Firpo won a series of elimination fights to get his title shot. Norfolk kept getting KO'd every time he was on the cusp of big things.

 

I know that a lot of people here don't rate Firpo, but he is certainly one of the more defensible title fight choices of team Dempsey. Had the Ring Rankings existed at the time, he would have been either #1 or #2, perhaps ahead of Wills.

If Firpo is so bad then it ultimately hurts Wills, because Wills claim to be the #1 contender was based on his win over Firpo. After the debacle with Tate, this was the win that really got his career back on track.

 

I didnt ever dispute the quality of wills victory over Norfolk.

In fact I have always said that instead of Dempsey taking time out of the ring he'd have improved his legacy incredibly by defending against wills, Greb and Norfolk. He is my choice for the 3rd best opponent Dempsey didnt face.

What I did say is that firpo and Fulton are arguably wills two best victories whilst Dempsey was champion and I stand by that. Both were easily top 5 heavyweights at the time of wills victory over them and both underlined wills status as leading contender. In terms of heavyweight victories these can be argued as more significant than a Norfolk victory imo.

Norfolk is a great victory though, no doubting that.

 

I am not sure just how arguable it is.

They were the only two that contributed significantly to Wills status as the #1 contender.

 

They cemented that status but his dominations over the fellow coloured contenders certainly helped.

As I said I class them as his 2 best victories during this time.

 

If you were to make a list of every great fighter in the mix during Dempsey's reign, he would feature.

That's my reasoning.

 

Agree on most points, in particular the double standards.

 

Once again my answer to this Dempsey ducking black fighters is more to do with the boxing bizz

were the big whig white guys in control of boxing gonna let a black guy fight for the title after Jack Johnson

i took the white community 20 yrs to warm up to it and let Louis fight Braddock and that was only due to fear of the belt going over seas to the enemy

and not everyone all at once liked Louis

Louis had to also really play by the rules and put on an act for the public

why would Wills get a shot less than a decade after Johnson

 

Not true. Wills fought Kid Norfolk just two months after the Tate "debacle" in a bout promoted by Rickard as an elimination bout to face Dempsey.

Gibbons had been fasttracked to face Dempsey but after running in to Greb it was conceded that Wills was the best challenger due to Greb's size.


The Tate fights were barely a blip on the radar.

It didnt take another two and a half years to re-establish himself. It didnt even take two and a half months.

 

You are such a broken record. Its very simple:

Tommy Gibbons (white) was fast tracked to face Dempsey. Harry Wills was universally accepted as the top challenger.

In early march 1922 Wills fought an elimination bout to face Dempsey against Dempsey's other top black challenger. Kearns said Wills would have to win impressively to be given a shot. Wills knocked the vaunted Norfolk out in 2 rounds.

Then Kearns said that the winner of Gibbons-Greb would have to win impressively to get a shot. It was expected that Gibbons would win. Gibbons lost in dominating fashion.

Who got the title shot? Not Wills. Not Greb. Gibbons.

How much did Gibbons weigh in his eliminator since its such a factor for you? 171.

How much did he weigh against Dempsey? 175. And yet you think that was one of Dempsey's greatest wins. Like I said: Double standard.

But hey, if Dempsey really wanted to fight a threatening heavyweight he had a six foot three 220 pound black shadow on the horizon.

Now you can claim what you want but anyone with any sense, i.e. anyone other than you on this forum, knows that Dempsey defended his championship against two light heavyweights and two blown up light heavyweights. None of whom was a better fighter or more deserving than Wills.

You can beat around that bush all you like but thats the facts.

I'll make it even more simple for you. While Wills was awaiting his shot at Dempsey, this "feared" champion defended his title against a man he knew was dying, a man he had already beaten by KO once, a man who was so mismatched that they would not let him train in public for fear of killing the match, a man who lost not one but two title elimination matches, a man whose title winning elimination match was against a 42 year old fight with only two fights in 7 years.

If you wish to want to argue that this is somehow a great resume, or anything other than obvious duck go ahead but this record just keeps on quacking.