Even if you love Dempsey, it is time for a generation to accept -

No but you should have!

 

Yes, because both Uzcudun AND Sharkey (and Godfrey) lost to Risko afterward, who Heeney beat.

No, Sharkey and Godfrey inadvertently steered themselves clear of Tunney by failing to establish themselves as the outstanding contender at any time during the two years that Tunney held the title.

No, it was Wills who wanted no part of Tunney.

NOT WHEN THE FIGHT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE, he wasn't. Sharkey lost to Risko after these rankings were compiled, which dropped his ranking even further down the list. Heeney meanwhile beat Delaney to raise his stock even more.

The only guy you could possibly argue deserved to fight Tunney in place of Heeney was Risko - but not Sharkey or Godfrey.

And I don't see what Heeney being "fat" has to do with anything.

...who himself then lost to the #5 and #7 men, who Heeney then beat.

After Heeney had already beaten him as well.

No it doesn't. No matter how you spin it, Godfrey still didn't do better against Risko than Heeney did, and historians' speculations don't prove or change anything.

Sharkey and Godfrey could've made themselves the #2 guys six months earlier, when it mattered.

Seeing as they were the hopeful challengers and Tunney was the rightful champion, the burden here was on them and not him.

You know that for a fact?

Blame them for not being good enough to distinguish themselves as the outstanding contender in the two years that Tunney was champ.

And I don't see how Tunney (or anyone) could know who was going to someday be inducted into the HoF, unless he was psychic. Especially since I don't even think a Hall of Fame even existed for boxing at that time.

Sharkey has also spoken well of Heeney - but here you are calling him a butterball talentless bum.

Sharkey didn't give Dempsey a "boxing lesson," he was KO'd. That result DISQUALIFIED him from being able to fight Tunney.

Not once he'd lost to Risko.

...and NOT the fact that he wasn't as highly regarded or important a fight as the ones Tunney actually WAS fighting and pursuing fights with?

Why not? That's clearly better than a LOSS to Risko and a non-win against Heeney.

How can you know for sure Godfrey deserved the decision without being able to see it and score it for yourself?

Beating 3-4 other guys already in the top ten and drawing with two others doesn't make you a legit top 10 contender??

What on earth does, then??

No, but he needed to beat someone - either Dempsey or Risko.

And he got that - against Maloney, Delaney, and Gorman.

That's your opinion, and irrelevant to a guy's earned standing in division ratings. Your father's friend Sharkey didn't share that opinion either.

Heeney had already beaten Delaney as well. So you're comparing one guy who had just beaten Risko and Delaney as opposed to a guy who was 1-1 against those same two, at around the same time. No matter how you spin it, the former is still much better than the latter.

LOSSES don't warrant anyone a title shot - especially if its against a guy the champion decisively outpoints twice around that same time.

More like Sharkey's loss to Risko dropped him from the top spot, and left Tunney's management to have to choose between either Risko (who Tunney had already beaten) and Heeney (who had just beaten Risko, and since beaten Delaney too) as their challenger.

That's debatable, and moreover, doesn't supersede the fact that they had the SAME competition and Tunney clearly proved himself to be better. We have about as clear and direct a comparison as we could possibly ask for.

Maybe, maybe not - but what you actually MAKE of those skills is what determines how good a fighter is, not simply what skills you have.

Maybe so, who knows.

No he wasn't, Tunney was able to outmaneuver Dempsey and keep him from getting in close and mugging him, and he got even more dominant as the rounds progressed whereas Sharkey's style began to disintegrate.

Tunney was never "knocked out" at any time by Dempsey, and had already beaten him cleanly and decisively anyway.

Gibbons (rated well over Godfrey and Sharkey at the time), Risko (who Sharkey and Godfrey lost to), Heeney (who Sharkey could only get a draw with). Of course, that's if twice beating Dempsey, the undisputed champion and top rated man in the division, wasn't enough for you.

 

Tunney didnt retire because of Sharkey and co.

He retire because he was set. His goal in boxing was

1, win the title/beat Jack Dempsey to do it.

2, make a million $(He did that with Dempsey II, and the Heenly fight was a last pay day)

3 Marry a rich girl to get into the wealty elite. And he needed the Million to do it.

After all that was done, he retire.

 

I just happened to come across an old NY Times clipping I have the other day, on the Greb-Walker fight. Wills' win over Charlie Weinert was on the undercard. The writer (James P. Dawson if I remember right) describes the win as one of the best performances of Wills' career, a very shockingly quick win over a rated contender (Wills was expected to win, but not by such a quick blowout), and says that the general feeling among those in attendance was that Wills has yet again reaffirmed his status as the best contender in the division. It also says that Jack Kearns had been barred from the arena, even though his fighter Walker was in the main event, because of the uproar among boxing fans that Dempsey had not yet made a fight with the outstanding contender Wills.

No mention of Godfrey, nothing about Wills being a vulnerable "poor old man," or that ilk. In fact, the complete opposite.

 

But you could probably make that argument as much about Langford in 1917 as you could in 1914.

Which raises the question, did Wills ever beat a version of Langford that was better than Fulton? (Most people at the time apparently didn't seem to think he did, as his win over Fulton was generally considered to be his biggest win up to that point.)

And if Fulton, and not Langford, was actually the biggest win of Wills' career, what does that mean for his resume/legacy as compared to Dempsey's?

 

Yep.

In his time as a HW, he:
-KO'd the #2 rated contender (who had never before been KO'd).
-Tried to make a fight with the consensus #1 contender (and was turned down).
-Unseated the undisputed champion.
-Rematched and defeated the ex-champion, who had won an eliminator to earn the spot.
-Successfully defended against a current leading contender.

There was no one left as the clear cut #1 challenger at that point, so he retired.

It's not his fault if the other contenders in the division couldn't get their **** together in the 3 years he was there.

 

"Did Wills ever beat a version of Langford that was better than Fulton?"

I grew up in the Minneapolis area, where Fulton was from. There was a TV show in the area (following the Friday Night Fights) discussing boxing. Fulton came up for discussion quite a bit. No one thought Fulton was somehow as good as Langford. What they thought is that he got lucky. Langford suffered a severe cut over the eye in training but went through with the fight anyway because he needed the big payday. Fulton reopened the cut almost immediately and went on to stop Langford on a TKO.

I don't remember a single commentator who thought Fulton was in either Langford's or Wills' class.

 

Kevin Smith used to post on this board on the Dempsey, Wills, Tunney situation. He finally gave up, his last post being to the effect why bother as the same old myths resurface over and over again.

I tend to agree. This was just a very confusing legal situation. These are the facts as far as I can gleam them from Smith, the NY Times, and Time Magazine:

1. Kearns had signed Dempsey to an exclusive contract with Rickard.

2. Dempsey nevertheless entered into a negotiation with Promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons to fight Wills. Dempsey and his lawyer may or may not have known about this contract.

3. Wills was negotiating with Dempsey in good faith.

4. The negotiations were for a 10 round ND fight in Indiana. Wills would have had to ko Dempsey to win. Indiana was also a stronghold of the KKK. Why Indiana?

5. In the midst of these negotiations, Rickard announces that he has signed Tunney to a contract to fight Wills. Wills was not negotiating with Rickard at the time. He was negotiating with Fitzsimmons to fight Dempsey.

6. The guarentee money is paid to Wills, not to the champion, whose check bounces. Most fishy.

7. When Dempsey signs to meet Wills, Richard and Kearns announce to the press that Dempsey is under exclusive contract.

8. Rickard, who has promised Wills a shot at Dempsey on numerous occasions, gives Tunney the shot.

9. According to writers of the time, Rickard has been informed by the "very highest sources" in Washington that boxing would be banned if a Dempsey-Wills fight were made.

That is as far as I know the facts. I think it silly to assert Wills ducked anyone, myself. He was the duckee, not the ducker. Dempsey's and Tunney's agreements to fight Wills were charades. Perhaps one or both of the fighters did not know that, and perhaps they did, but who can dig out the truth now. I think the only real issue is was Washington and Coolidge really involved, or did Rickard simply prefer not to chance a race-based backlash at a time when the money was rolling in with exclusively white championship fights.

 

From an unknown boxing magazine:
“Dempsey always denied that he was afraid to meet Wills and felt he was tailor made for him. “I could always lick those big, slow guys. I personally never ducked him. I thought the fight should take place.”
In fact, Dempsey actually signed a contract to defend his title against Wills. Harry got his $50,000 guarantee in advance. Dempsey was to receive an advance of $300,000 against a guarantee of one million. Instead he received a down payment of only $25,000 and when that check bounced he bounced the fight.”

In comparing the opportunities to fight both Langford and Smith at that stage of his career, Dempsey said that although he knew Smith could lick him at the time, he felt he would eventually be able to lick him once he gained more experience in the ring. Langford on other hand he could never envision himself beating. Explaining further, Dempsey said that at the time he was asked to fight Sam, he was about 21 years old and wouldn’t have stood a chance against Sam. He didn’t mean that he was afraid of him physically, but knew better than to get in there, after a little more than a year’s experience, with a man of Sam’s ability and punching power who had been fighting for fourteen or fifteen years.

One later speculation was that George Godfrey, who was Dempsey’s favorite sparring partner, may have had a great deal with Jack’s attitude toward Langford. Godfrey would have had ample opportunity during the long periods he spent with Jack to tell him about the two times Langford knocked him cold. Godfrey often said “Sam was the greatest of them all.”

 

That's easy enough to answer - Floyd Fitzsimmons owned his own area in Michigan City, Indiana.

 

Interesting. That is a solid explanation. Unfortunately, though, the Indiana authorities were not willing to let a mixed match go on, even if Floyd came up with the guarentee money.

 

What vision troubles was he having until Fulton beat him up?

No, it's not the "obvious" answer, unless you can first illustrate that there was a drastic difference between Langford in 1914 and the one Fulton beat.