He wasn't but it was a wicked world. If you were a top black heavyweight contender pre 1945 you basicaly had two options. Either: A. Establish yourself at the No1 challenger, do the minimum necesary to maintain that status, and hope that sombody did the decent thing. or B. Clean out the division, fighting all the top names multiple times if necesary, untill people were more interested in your fights than the champions. Wills chose option A. The black fighters who broke through the colour bar generaly did it by option B. If Jack Johnson had been in Wills position he would have fought Grebb, Tunney, Gibbons and Godfrey three times each if necesary. He would have targeted any fighter who Dempsey had fought for the title and tried to do better against them. If he could get Dempseys brother into the ring he would give him a good hiding. Perhaps ultimately Wills lost the battle but won the war. He was the only black fighter to retire with his fortune intact before the 1950s and he was probably much wealther than Dempsey later in life.
You presume that these white fighters were willing to fight Wills. I think the evidence for that is weak. Wills, and later Godfrey, would have jumped at the big paydays matches with white fighters would have given them. Why in the hell would they want to stay on the "chitlin' circuit" fighting for peanuts. It was his matches with Firpo, Weinert, Johnson, Sharkey, and Uzcudun which gave Wills the nest egg he shrewdly invested to become a wealthy man. I doubt if he made much fighting Langford, McVey, and Norfolk endlessly in minor venues. Johnson got a shot because the champion was a Canadian fighting in Australia. He never would have gotten a chance in the USA. Times and politics had changed by the time Louis came around. All the rest of the other top black heavyweights, Langford, Jeannette, McVey, Norfolk, Godfrey, and Gains, were frozen out the same as Wills,
Greb had a great deal of respect for Wills and thought he was the best heavyweight in the world. I dont think Greb would have fought him unless he was getting paid a ton of money. Money talked in regards to Greb but I think he was savvy enough to realize that Wills presented some serious obstacles physically and stylistically. He was supremely confident that he would have beaten Dempsey, Im not so sure he felt the same way about Wills.
Smith was having his last figth against Wills it took place in Havana ,and Smith said he "only went down for the boat ride".Of the others .Dempsey had wrecked Fulton in 1 rd kod Firpo in 2 rds and kosd Smith earlier too,all this was BEFORE they met Wills.I asled the question why didnt Wills meet Gibbons,Tunney, Godfrey,or Greb.no one has come up with a satisfactory answer so far. Three of Wills biggest scalps are over LHV's Jeff Clark ,and Kid Norfolk,and an aging 5 foot 61/2 inch Langford.
You could also say the same thing about Gibbons and Tunney, their biggest scalps came against LHWs and even middleweight's...
Dosnt your own book detail him calling Wills out? It is interesting that he thought Wills to be the best heavyweight around.
What answer do you want? The reason he didn't fight these men is that they would not fight him and moreover he wasn't in the same weight class with them. The answer is the same answer as to why Sonny Liston did not fight Gene Fullmer or Jose Torres. Do you really think Wills should have called out the middleweight champion? If a Wills-Greb match were made, it would have to be on the basis that Greb demanded it and plugged for it enough to overcome the "foolish" factor. Wills was 8 inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Greb. Gibbons was not much larger. Janitor implied Johnson would have fought all these men several times, etc, to force Dempsey's hand. Well, Tunney NEVER fought a black man. What makes anyone think he would ever have fought Johnson? And why exactly does Dempsey's hand have to be forced? Really, I think this question is rather foolish--on the order of asking why young black people didn't get good educations at top white colleges or why didn't black baseball players play in the major leagues against Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to prove themselves? Black people did not draw the color line. White people did. Men like Norfolk and Clark fought Wills because they could not get that many fights against white fighters of their own size. Whatever his height, Langford by this time was a heavyweight, not a middleweight or small lightheavyweight.