Harry Greb Confident He Can Beat Dempsey

What evidence is there that Wills was known to "dog it" when the going got rough? Was Dempsey dogging it against Firpo and Sharkey when he blatantly fouled?

 

1914-06-14 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (page IV2)
Both the final and the semi-final bouts at Brown's Gymnasium, Manhattan, last night, terminated in knockouts. Carl Healy was put to sleep by young Drummie in the sixth session of their scheduled ten-round bout, and Bartley Madden stopped Billy Lewis in two rounds.


1914-06-14 The New York Times (page S4)
The scheduled ten-round semi-final bout in which Billy Lewis, a Newark heavyweight, and Battling Madden of Jersey City, were the contestants, was stopped in the second round because the latter displayed no inclination to box. Lewis was winning at the time.

 

Regardless which one is correct, neither says Madden was knocked out.

 

1925-12-24 Buffalo Courier (page 10)
New York, Dec. 23 (AP)--The New York State Athletic Commission today denied permission to Louis (Kid) Kaplan of Meriden, Conn., world's featherweight champion, to engage in bouts with boxers of heavier division and exonerated Gene Tunney and Bartley Madden in connection with a complaint which attached suspicion to their heavyweight fight several months ago in St. Paul.
...
Tunney and Madden were cleared, the commission announced, because the charge that Madden had not given his best efforts in the bout was unsupported by sufficient evidence. On a complaint that Tunney's bout in Kansas City with Italian Jack Herman last July also was staged under suspicious circumstances, an anjournment of sixty days was granted for the submission of additional evidence. The board indicated doubt with regard to the charge by restoring Herman to eligibility. Both Herman and Madden were knocked out by Tunney.
...


Yes, that's all I'm concerned with, as I stated in my previous post:

 

I'm not an expert on that epoch, or heavyweights in particular, you'd need somebody else's help with that, sorry.

 

It's very interesting. One of Tunneys trainers lived into the 60's. During an interview regarding Tunney a reference was made regarding Tunneys punching power. The trainer stated emphatically that in Tunneys prime his right hand was "as feared as Listons".

What is important to note is how TIME can distort people and events into something they were not. What we believe how things were during Dempseys time may have indeed been something very different.

 

He fouled, didn't he? I just wonder why when Wills fouls, he's dogging it because he can't handle a tough fight, but when Dempsey fouls he isn't.

 

Fouling out vs fouling can be two very different things.

Greb as an example was an extremely dirty fighter. Fleischer wrote that Greb held and hit in his every fight.