Even if you love Dempsey, it is time for a generation to accept -

I think that most of the pressure was coming from the media and the fight fans, and that latterly the NYC caved to it and started applying pressure.

Rickard comes out of it better than you might expect, when you start looking at the details.

 

This is 1 of the best reports at the time. The newspaper states:

Rickard had claimed Wills was better than Tunney
NYSAC demanded Dempsey fight Wills before anyone else
Rickard uses Wills not meeting Tunney as an excuse imo to not make Dempsey-Wills

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...oEhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=d4sFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1678,2155255

That's not barring the bout though, it's setting conditions on the bout that Rickard wasn't happy about Wills as a mandatory. If you scroll up you will see I've already listed those conditions being set on the bout and other bouts.

I've read the piece and there's allot of speculation on the authors part that I've not read in the papers of the time and I've read allot including most of the points he makes. It was media speculation Muldoon didn't want the fight, when in reality he pushed for it. The author comes across somewhat as a Dempsey apologist for my money.

Neither Muldoon or NYSAC blocked the bout, Muldoon believed a World Champion shouldn't avoid the Coloured Champion. He did want Dempsey to fight Tunney before Wills though but was no longer the commissioner I believe. There was a merry go round of commissioners at the time.

They'd been demanding he face Wills since at least 1922 and possibly before. The 24 hours was years after Dempsey had been told to defend against Wills. It was probably after Wills had taken NYSAC to court. If he did want to fight Wills, he didn't have much urgency to do anything about it. Especially when he said he'd never fight Wills.

Based on what? If NYSAC/Muldoon are setting conditions on the fight, it's for the fight happening in NYC where they can make money off it.

The commission did agree to take his deposit ofcourse and demanded the fight, blocking Dempsey-Tunney

I still haven't seen any evidence they refused to sanction the bout. They wanted cheap seats for the masses, which creates an issue but not so much if you put all the cheap seats at the back.

I knew about Fulton/Firpo being eliminators but assumed the Norfolk fight was part of a black dynamite circuit. There was talk of Wills-Gibbons, I'm not sure why it fell through, but probably money. First they were talking about Wills getting 300k in the papers, then another paper said it fell through because Wills demanded 300k.

The Tunney eliminator I'm unsure about as I don't trust Rickard's word too much. Wills had already won a court case to force NYSAC into demanding the fight by this stage.

Did you know Wills and Jack Johnson were signed to fight in the early 20s but the local commission (not NY I don't think) blocked it because Johnson was an ex con? That would have been fascinating even if Johnson was in his early 40s by this time.

 

OK Power Puncher, you have most of the story, but not all of it.

Nobody is disputing that the NYC mandated Dempsey Wills, but they were not consistent. According to Roger Khans book Muldoon placed the conditions that you have listed on the fight, and when it looked like Rickard might agree to them, he flat out said no to the bout in New York. Rickard later tried to make the fight in Canada. Now I know that Khan is a pro Dempsey writer, but he tends to be wrong in his interpretations rather than his facts. Having squashed the fight in New York previously, Muldoon later turned round and announced that Dempsey had 24 hours to announce his intention to fight Wills.

My point is that it is easy to establish what Dempsey, Rickard, and Muldoon did, but it is harder to establish what their motives were.

Wills Gibbons likely fell through because Wills felt it was unfair to him. He had already won three eliminators, and he probably reasoned that Rickard's plan was to match him against the top white contenders, until he got the result he wanted i.e a white #1 challenger. I agree that Johnson Wills would have been interesting.

 

This I've seen no evidence of and Rickard never agreed to the conditions or to match Dempsey and Wills. Roger Khan actually contradicts himself here and I'd have to see a primary newspaper source to believe it.

The whole concept doesn't make any sense given Dempsey was barred for not fighting Wills. You can't bar a fight, then bar the boxer for not making the fight It doesn't make any sense.

I think Roger Khan is spinning a wide yarn here

I haven't seen much evidence for this either other than a spurious article saying it may happen in Canada. If he was looking to get it sanctioned there would be more in the archives.

And does he just present or does he twist the facts? Does he quote his sources? If he doesn't it makes it more questionable.

Again the 24 hours was after years of being requested to fight Wills. NYSAC saw the Wills Tunney fight as the new champion of world, rather than who would challenge Dempsey.

I'm not sure Muldoon was the commissioner at this time either. Again I don't see how the fight was barred. Dempsey was barred from New York and boxing from allied commissions.

Ofcourse although much is wrote of each man.

I think it was money. Wills figured if he wasn't getting a shot he wanted championship money. His dream for a title match seemed much more than financial though.

Wills later said he thinks he could of got his title shot if he dropped his manager Paddy Mullins who he owed a debt of thanks too.

 

One interpretation would be that Muldoon tried to price Rickard out of the fight, and when Rickard persisted in negotiating, he simply said no. Some newspapers accused Muldoon of trying to kill the fight, simply by the terms he outlined:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...uYgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6W0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5681,1618891

This would suggest that Muldoon clearly changed his stance on the issue at some point. Perhaps he had a crisis of conscience, or perhaps he relented under media pressure, but I don't think he can escape blame in the matter.

Here is a link to Khans book, and he discusses the matter starting on page 301:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...wBQ#v=onepage&q=dempsey wills muldoon&f=false

The same accusation is made by Robert D Arment in his biography of Bat Masterson (page 226), who was a law enforcement official in New York at the time. He stated that Muldoon blocked they bout over fears that it would cause race riots:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...wCA#v=onepage&q=dempsey wills muldoon&f=false

 

One possible issue with rating Wills is that many fighters of this era seem to have failed to face their best contemporaries which could make it difficult to gauge the significance of wins. Jeannette and McVey for example failed to face the best white heavyweights of their era which could make it hard to evaluate exactly where they rate.