Of the Black heavyweights of the 1920's could any defeat Dempsey?

What do you mean by "when the Wills fight could have materialized" ? Dempsey didn't want to fight a n*ggers after he was badly hurt by one in 1916. The fight COULD have happened anywhere after that, when Wills clearly was not on the decline.

And what does it matter anyway? Tunney easily beat Dempsey, twice, so Jack wasn't exactly as good as he used to be either; or he just never was that good.

Why is Dempsey the center of the universe here? What if Dempsey doesn't have the style to beat Wills? What if Wills, a much bigger man, ties up the aggressor while outboxing them from the outside? How can you say anything about styles at all, when there is no film of Wills during his prime?

Again, this is what i mean by the arrogance of Dempsey fans when they write Wills' chances off to retain the heroic status of their idol for writing history in doing the greatest ducking job of all time, all weight classes.

It may have been a blitz, but it could just as well have been a shutout decision like the Tunney fight was, which, by the way, was against a man unproven against heavyweights. Wills was much bigger, but unlike Firpo and Willard, he seems to not have been completely devoid of skill and ability.

 

Chris, Dempsey seems to be a sore spot with you, or is it just his fans? The Dempsey of the Willard fight has a lot of pluses to him in my book.

 

Our task is not made easier by the fact that we dont know precisely what Wills style was but he seems to have been a long range counterpuncher who was not exceptionaly mobile and relied heavily on clinching to keep ofensive fighters at bay.

If I am reading his MO corectly then Dempsey eats his cornflakes out of Wills skull. Dempsey was the last heavyweight in the world that you would want to try to smother in the clinches.

Dempsey is probably the best infighter in the history of the heavyweight division including Louis. He could throw sustained combinations in a space of 12" all night so you had to put yourself in harms way to get close enough to hold him. Under the liberal terms of the day he could inflict terible damage in the clinches using tactics legal and otherwise and the reff would not stop him.

For whatever it is worth Dempsey did not see Wills as a particular danger. He was much more afraid of the ageing Sam Langford and the young George Godfrey. This suggests that he thought he had the style to beat Wills.

Of course if I have misinterpreted Wills style or not seen a crucial dimension to him then that all goes out of the window.

 

I don't think Dempsey was afraid of any man ,he did not want to fight Langford when he was still a relative novice at the top level ,he was managed by "John the Barber" at the time, he was a flesh pedlar that would put sex traffickers to shame.Godfrey was a sparring partner for Jack for quite a while,and his rather slow MO suited Dempsey's tiger like rush.I think Wills would have been a handful for Dempsey,but that Jack would have eventually laid him out .It appears the smaller clever guys gave Jack the most trouble, we are hampered by lack of prime footage of Wills, but Ive never read he was very quick or mobile.

 

Then Kearns must have done, because they sure didn't take any chances on Wills.

 

Harry Wills may have had a chance but it is not a lock that he could do it, Dempsey was overwhelmed with the success which was Tremendous.....I would give Langford a chance because he was pretty fast but Dempsey was fast and hit hard and Wills looked slow and jACK LIKED FIGHTING BIG GUYS....still Dempsey was no easy mark

 

That may very well have been down to powers considerably more influential than Kearns. Certainly Rickard ,and Muldoon the incumbent commissioner did not want the fight, though Muldoon spoke out of the other side of his mouth for public purposes.

 

Contempories of Wills spoke of is strength,he was noted for it,once carrying the coffin of a friend down several flights of stairs of an apartment building,when other friends had given up.His mobility and speed may be less of a given however.

 

Wills was custom-made for Dempsey. Tall, a bit ponderous and not overly fast. Dempsey tore up those type of fighters when he was on his game. Unfortunately, our best footage of Wills is well after his prime.

 

I dont like the ideal that people just write Wills off like that. Dempsey and his party should be blame for not giving Wills a shot. And just because you guys "Think" Dempsey may pull a Dempsey Willard on Wills, should not mean Dempsey should be let off for that.
Wills was rank 1 nearly for ALL of Dempsey's 7 year rein.

 

Wills would be the most likely to beat Dempsey. I personally think stylistically that he would have been a nightmare for Dempsey. Dempsey wanted no part of him. Whether he would have beaten Dempsey is up to debate but Kearns and Rickard both felt he had a good enough chance to win or make Dempsey look bad enough that they avoided him.

 

And this is based upon....... absolutely nothing. There is no film of Wills during his prime.


Hey, i know another one.....


George Foreman is custom-made for Dempsey. Dempsey feasted on bigger guys. Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, too, were custom-made for Dempsey, because, look at how he destroyed a 37 year old fat Willard, and look at how he just managed to beat 210lbs Firpo who has worse boxing ability than most amateurs !




To pick a great fighter without the slightest doubt over any other great fighter is enough foolishness by itself, but when you see that Dempsey struggled to and was badly outclassed by Sharkey and Tunney, neither as good heavies as Wills, and then conclude that he'd easily beat Wills, is nothign short of stupidity.

 

And doing with this with no good film to back it up with... How many other fighters gets this HUGE benefit of doubt that Dempsey gets from some quarters?

 

Does anyone see stylistic similarities between Lewis-Tyson and Dempsey-Wills?