Greb and the Heavyweights- Tommy Gibbons

Wills could also blame Jack Johnson. Ck out this site: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...lly&y=10&x=13&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

If you want to read the articles from newspapers of that time, this is a good source. Go to the search engine and punch in- Dempsey-Wills, you will get the straight scoop from the writers who actually were there and who saw and talked to these past greats. I punched in, Jack Dempsey - Harry Wills, and there were 177 articles on it. Have fun searching the stuff on there, I love this site. There are other sites but this one was for me pretty durn good, give it a try.

 

Here is a sample:
Great Falls tribune. (Great Falls, Mont.) January 29, 1922
Dempsey Versus Wilis Bout Appears Certain
Following Big Offer
Brady Holds Best Pair Against Rickard in Game
of Promoting Next Big Match With
World's Champ.
By SPARROW M'GANN.
Special Correspondent of Great Falls Tribune
Copyright. 1922. by The Great Falls Tribune
New York, Jan. 28.—Jack Dempsey versus Harry Wills. That is the prime subject in fandom today following
Jack Kearns' statement that he was ready to match his champion against any fighter in the world. Wills included, provided the promoter would meet his terms, and the sensational $200,000 offer for the fight made by
William A. Brady, Today you may picture Rickard and
Brady as seated opposite each other in a poker game. Brady holds a pair, Jack Dempsey and Harry Wills.
Rickard also holds a pair, Jack Dempsey and Bill Brennan. If it comes to a show down, on the hands as they stand, who do you think will take the pot? Right the first time. The money will go to Brady. This seems so clear that no one looking on at the game has any idea that Rickard will stand pat. He will draw or may be he won't play the hand at all. He may draw Brady aside and say: "Look here, let's play your hand together."
Next Big Fight With Wills
Or, again, he may pull Brady's blackface card out of his hand while Brady isn't looking. Whatever happens, it is
not a bad prediction to say that the next big heavyweight championship battle will find Dempsey and Wills in the ring together. Tex Rickard has always wanted to promote a Dempsey- Wills bout. He has always said that these two heavyweights appear to be the only men in the country who could put on a battle worth paying big money to see.
But Rickard has been afraid of the bout because of the color. His opinion has been that the public does not favor
the fight because of the chance involved that the negro once more would hold world's heavyweight title.
Jack Johnson's career as champion, Tex believes, has made the bare idea of another champion of the same race generally repugnant even though it is known that Harry Wills is far different type of a man than Jack Johnson.
William Brady on the other hand was in the fight game when Joe Walcott, George Dixon and Joe Gans were
in their prime and their popularity in their day causes him to believe that the public would patronize a fight between Dempsey and a negro of their type, and so—having never forgiven himself for dropping out of the Dempsey-Carpentier syndicate—he wants to stage the next great heavyweight battle on his own hook.
It is doubtful if Rickard would sit back and let him do this. In fact Rickard today intimated that he would wait until after Wills-Kid Norfolk battle and then have something to say, meaning of course, that if Wills stows away the India rubber man in decisive manner he will make an offer for a fight. Since he has a lease on big arena on "Boyle's thirty acres" in Jersey City, it would seem that he is in a better position to bid higher than Brady or any other promoter.
Brady No Slouch
Still. Brady is no slouch when he is fully enlisted in a campaign. They don't make them any shrewder nor
any gamer either: Years ago in Reynolds hotel in Boston after a fight between Brady's man, Steve O'Donnell, and Jake Kilrain, then an old man, in which O 'Donnell had made a miserable showing. John L. Sullivan encountered
O'Donnell in the lobby and bawled him out most unmercifully. O'Donnell, who at the time was only 21 years old, stood for it until Brady, then a mere slip of a man, pushed him aside and gave Sullivan all that the ex-champion had given O'Donnell, with more to boot Sulivan could have flattened Brady with one blow but Brady bluffed him out of the hotel. Brady entered the pugilistic game from the theatrical profession. He took up Jim Corbett and was his manager when he defeated SuIlivan. Later he made a champion out of Jim Jeffries
and then retired, returning to the play
producing field in which ever since he has been consistently successful. He has never promoted a big championship bout but he has all the qualities to
make a successful promoter.
William A. Brady Offers Guarantees of $150,000 and $50,000 for Battle
New York, Jan. 28.—William A.
Brady, theatrical producer, has placed $50,000 in a bank here as a guarantee of good faith in seeking to match Jack Dempsey and Harry Wills, negro heavyweight.
Brady said if he could bring Jack Kearns, Dempsey's manager, to believe in the success of the bout, he would
post an additional $150,000. Dempsey's share would be $150,000 and Wills would get $50,000. Conditions would be the same as those under which the Carpentier
Dempsey bout was held. Kearns said he was considering the offer..

 

I wonder why Greb never fought Wills, if he were to defeat a big HW, I would believe there would have been no question of Greb being too small.
I know Greb fought many eliminators but one more wouldn't have hurt. Greb defeating a big HW, would make a stronger case for the Dempsey fight, but it never happened. Both were challenging Dempsey at the same time period, was it ever mentioned?

 

Maybe closer to the time, there was a lingering anger and frustration about the fight not happening. It could be that Wills, upon reflection, as he got older he then said that it wasn't Dempsey's fault.