I know it's not entirely relevant I just see some people act like Wills was Dempsey's kryptonite and would have dethroned him. Just wanted a general consensus.
Dempsey would have smashed him, but he didnt, and that is our bottom line. If we went on what people thing fighter A might have done, then David Tua is an all-time great !
You are embarrassing yourself with this schoolyard tripe. And are again lacking substance. Figure out who George Gleshof is and proceed from there to threats of the Mann Act prosecution against Dempsey.
Based on film footage Wills was not that skilled or at least not skilled enough to keep Dempsey off of him. It would have been a short night.
That's why boxing is so beautiful. Anything can happen on any given night. Funny how some of the biggest wins in boxing were the underdog winning. Willard vs Dempsey, Hagler vs Leonard, Mayweather vs Pacquiao even, Liston vs Ali, Tyson vs Douglas, etc.
Don't have to, don't care, off topic. What does this have to do with Dempsey's ranking? Should he have fought Georgie Boy?
The head GOL who still dksab, making a brilliant observation, he's right we don't know this, nobody knows, you know why? It didn't happen. Now tell me what is an opinion? Shamu, this was his opinion, nothing wrong with that. Since All of shamu's replies have substance we await your insightful replies. Next he will share his wonderful revelations on fecal matter, stay tuned.
1 - "Failure of Harry Wills to win the decision over Bill Tate at Portland has ruined his chances to secure a match with Jack Dempsey, according to local followers of the sport." 2 - Nothing much in here about Wills-Dempsey really; the article is more about the supposed excellence of Tate. 3 - "Every sport admits that Wills is Dempsey's logical opponent but so far Dempsey and Kearns have evaded the issue....Tate has met Wills five times in the ring and the best Tate has managed was a draw." The first article is interesting, and the first of its kind that i've ever read, thank you for that. Unless i'm misreading it, the second and third are dissimilar to the first. Overwhelmingly, the DQ loss doesn't seem to have affected Tate. I agree with you that it is likely Tate would have achieved a (low)rankings after the draw.
This is why I lowball Tunney relative to how I normally see him ranked (top 20, sometimes top 10). Tunney was still, clearly, absolutely brilliant, probably as good a light-heavyweight as Harry Greb, possibly a better heavyweight than Jack Dempsey. That's exceptional in the extreme. Why? We can see him exhibiting wonderful skill on film, his record as a boxer is absolutely exceptional and when he stepped up to heavyweight he took on good if not great heavies and went undefeated. That's more than enough for me. Let me ask you a question: which heavies between Johnson and Louis would you say are clearly better than Gene Tunney?
Me too. But the suggestion seems to be that the press we are reading - not Ring - is likely to be biased in favour of Harry Wills. That seems unreasonable.
This post gets some criticism later in this thread, but is just a statement of fact. Greb won the American light-heavyweight title in 1922 from Tunney and later lost it back to Tunney. Greb was probably by this time a natural super-middleweight (but light-heavyweight in that era) who could sweat down to make the 160 lb. limit and held the world title at that weight.
"some people act like Wills was Dempsey's kryptonite" I have seen very few. Most simply point out that Wills was generally considered the top contender at the time. For example: Time Magazine 4-28-1923 "It is generally accepted opinion that Harry Wills is the only man in the game who can stand at Dempsey's level. There is vague talk of a fight between the two at the Polo Grounds on Labor Day." Actually, when it comes to kryptonite, the opposite is true. Dempsey supporters fall back on what on easy victim they think Wills would have been for him rather than Wills supporters claiming Dempsey would have been an easy victim for Wills. Wills supporters generally focus on that he had earned a shot and should have gotten it. *just an aside, I don't admire Dempsey speaking out over the years about what he would have done to Wills. He didn't fight him, for whatever reason, and he should have as champion. Bragging about what he would have done to Wills under these circumstances is distasteful to me.