Jack Dempsey and Harry Wills

Valdez was rated # 2 going in Feb 1959 Annuel Ring Magazine ratings, the same year liston fought him. Valdez had beaten 3 top 10 ring magazine fighters in 1958 and had been turned down in a title shot vs patterson. Valdez was still very dangerous, and even after fighting liston went on to knock out top 10 Brian London.

Williams was not rated yet technically, but within the year he would be rated in the top 5 for 3 consecutive years. Liston fought williams at the peak of william's powers.

Both Williams and Valdez were clear top 5 heavyweights in the world when Sonny beat them

Harry Wills consensus # 1, Kid Norfolk, Sam Langford, Jack Johnson, Joe Jeanette was dangerous enough to be turned down by dempsey in which was described as a "black eye for heavyweight boxing"

Johansson would not fight Liston, despite liston challenging to fight johansson and patterson on the same night. Johannson was the only real top fighter liston never faced, and it wasnt sonnys fault. Henry Cooper's manager said "if we saw sonny liston walking down the street, we would quicky cross to the other side. we want no part of liston." Liston couldnt get a fight with cooper if he tried. Lavorante was not rated in the top 10 until 1962 and 46 year old Archie Moore put him into a coma that year, Lavorante was never a top challenger.

Now lets look at dempsey....Ducks an ATG heavyweight in his prime and # 1 contender for SEVEN straight years, Refuses to fight old sam langford in 1917, Runs out of the ring rather than fight a 39 year old Joe Jeanette, Refuses to fight top challenger Harry Greb, Draws the color line so he wont have to fight top challenger Kid Norfolk, refuses fights with George Godfrey circa 1924.

6'5 207lb Mike DeJohn, top 10 rated by Ring Magazine

6'1 195lb Roy Harris, top 10 rated by Ring Magazine

Albert Westphal German Champ, Apparently rated # 4 by monthly rating



You see there was no color line in the 1950s, so most of the top opposition liston fought was black....the white heavyweights had balls enough to take on the top black challengers, and they lost more than often which would have happened to dempseys white opponents.

Johnny Summerlin, Michigan Champion 19-1 and future top contender. Liston fought him in his 5th pro fight!

Marty Marshall, RATED TOP 10 by Ring Magazine when Liston fought him in just his 7th pro fight.

Did dempsey fight a ring magazine top 10 by his 7th pro fight?


Then Liston went to jail. Imagine if Liston had 1956 and 1957 to fight....he lost two prime years of domination. imagine how many more top 10 he would have beat.

This is incorrect. According to Boxing Register 4th edition Marty Marshall was top 10 rated when Liston fought him. Also do you realize Liston lost the ENTIRE 1956-57 years due to jail sentence?

Disagree. Harry Wills and Harry Greb were by far the two most talented and best contenders in the division. Harry Wills had already beaten sam langford 5 times, so fulton doing it wasnt that great of an accomplishment. Wills went on to DESTROY fulton. Bethea and Dejohn never went on to achieve greatness.

How can we tell with no ring magazine rankings in 1918-1919?, Wills was always consensus # 1 after beating Langford Mcvea and jeanette




You can spin this around all you want but history will always remember Wills and Greb as much better fighters than Fulton, and Dempsey did not take on either Wills or Greb.

 

Not at all. its just the white fighters were NOT giving the black fighters a chance to fight them, so they automatically got high spots. Add that to the fact newspapers were bias and racist and wanted the heavyweight division to be ruled with whites, while blacks were kept out of the loop.

 

I don't know if I can name three shittier ranked heavyweights in the history of the division.

Liston's era was horrible, reprehensibly horrible, irrevocable in fact. Not his fault, but also enhanced his reputation.

 

Well, SuzieQ absoluteley mauled this one. But I just want to add, calling Willard "champion" and calling certain fighters "top contenders" means so much less when many fighters are obviously discriminated against because of their race.

Willard was one of the very worst lineal champions ever, and in all likelihood wouldn't have been champion if he wasn't white and favoured by a racist system. It could also easily be surmised that many of the contenders Dempsey beat wouldn't have been as higly rated if they had to compete on a level playing field with the black fighters of the day. Yes, I know Fulton beat great black fighters, but in general I definitely believe this to be the case.

 

no he didnt and u know it

 

You can't seriously believe that this had nothing to do with the racism at the time.

It's a funny coincidence that champions and top contenders almost always was white up until WWII, a time when blacks was very obviously discriminated against. Then when the colour line started to dissipate after WWII (due in large part to Joe Louis, but probably also to the fact that the atrocities during the war had made open racism and discrimination a much more shameful thing) the reverse becomes true.

 

So what? Since then, he'd been flattened by Charley Powell, which ended his days as any kind of leading contender. Plus he'd lost another fight or two after that, before he fought Liston. By August '59 (which is when he actually fought Liston) he was no longer a contender of any kind.

And to be frank, he never really regained his reputation anyway after being exposed by Satterfield several years earlier.

If they were such "clear" top fives then they almost certainly would've been rated there. That's basically the whole point of rankings.

Regardless, Valdez wasn't the top five of jack at that time, by any standards. He'd been beaten/exposed by more fighters than I can count by then.

WRONG, FULTON was the consensus #1 in 1918. Wills wasn't considered a leading contender until he supplanted Fulton a couple years later.

Again, NONE of those fighters were considered leading contenders. Langford's days as a serious top contender were ended by his first loss to Fulton (and possibly even before that), and Norfolk had recently suffered a big setback when he was embarrassingly KO'd by Langford. Johnson and Jeanette were barely even in the picture by this time.

None of this changes or diminishes the work Dempsey did on his way to winning the title in 1918 and 1919. Just like Liston quitting twice to Ali and then running off and hiding in Europe doesn't change what he did in 1960 and '61.

None of these fighters were top contenders.

Harris was probably rated around #5 or 6 at most.

DeJohn was near the bottom of the top 10 when Liston fought him.

Westphal was not a contender AT ALL when Liston fought him. In fact he was a total nobody.

Based on what?

Summerlin was never a top contender, he only cracked the rankings briefly in the mid '50s, and I'll wager never even made the top 5.

More importantly, the key word there is "future." He was not a contender of any kind when Liston fought him, barely even was a prospect.

Marshall was never a rated HW.

Not at HW. I guarantee you if Marshall was rated at this time, it was only as a LHW.

Maybe, but they'd yet to prove it yet, which is what matters.

You JUST said earlier that Langford was still a top contender in 1918/1919 and that Dempsey should've fought him, plus you've been making a point all thread that Dempsey should've fought him in 1917.

But now because it's been pointed out that a white fighter actually did fight him and beat him at that time, now all of a sudden beating him doesn't mean much.

How do you reconcile such an obvious contradiction here?

Key words there is "went on." He hadn't done it yet.

Because Fulton was considered the consensus #1, and therefore no one else was, black or white.

NO HE WASN'T. You're either just making this up, or just assuming this. EVERY contemporary source clearly acknowledges Fulton as being the consensus #1 at this time, not Wills or anyone else.

I haven't "spun" anything. The only spin here is coming from you - either saying this guy was scared of that guy, or this guy would've lost to that guy, or this guy was really a contender even though he wasn't, and so forth. All I've done is repeat exactly what things were and what actually happened.

So what? What history "remembers" a century later doesn't change what the facts actually were at the time. Dempsey still fought and beat exactly who he was supposed to and expected to in 1918 and 1919. No amount of revisionism or false memories change that.

 

That version of Tyson would've been a perfect replacement for Merchant:good

Fantastic analysis, and knows his boxing. A genuine student of the sport, thanks for that :good

 

How does "racism" make certain fighters better than others?

Was "racism" the reason Fulton twice whupped Langford?

Was "racism" the reason Gibbons stopped Norfolk?

Was "racism" the reason Sharkey whupped both Wills and Godfrey?

That isn't true at all, Peter Jackson, Jack Johnson, Harry Wills, Joe Louis, and Jimmy Bivins, just to name a few, were all acknowledged as top HW contenders in that time, and for quite some time each.

What black heavyweights should've been recognized as top contenders that weren't?

 

Man this is nonsense. I never said racism made anyone better than anyone else, I just stated that it made for unfair competition. Now this is a fact. That black contenders sometimes have been beaten by white contenders doesn't change this one bit.


[/quote]That isn't true at all, Peter Jackson, Jack Johnson, Harry Wills, Joe Louis, and Jimmy Bivins, just to name a few, were all acknowledged as top HW contenders in that time, and for quite some time each. [/quote]

Isn't it true at all that racism made it easier for whites to reach the top than for blacks!!!!??? Again you cite a couple of instances to disprove something which is nothing but plain fact. Actually, the very fact that two of the guys you mention didn't even get a title shot, and that one had to follow the champ around the world to get it, and another had to be very, very carefully managed to get one. And this is four of the biggest "black" names pre WWII in the HW division. Does that imply fair terms for you?

Enough with nicities. If you can't admit to the simple fact that the very prevalent racism in boxing pre WWII made it much harder for black fighters and easier for white fighters, and that Dempsey used this divide to his advantage by steering away from opponents he deemed dangerous then your'e a ****ing moron. No ifs, no buts.

 

but it isnt a shame that wills never matched himself with Greb, Gibbons or tunney?

 

It's ironic that John L. Sullivan said it the best ..."any time the color line is drawn there is a black fighter someone is afraid of ." ... in my opinion every champ who worked the color line has an asterik next to his name, period ...

 

Yes you just did, you said the reason more of the best fighters in Dempsey's era happened to be white was at least partly because of racism - and you said that was a certainty, not even just a possibility.

No, I cited numerous instances which show how you were clearly and deliberately distorting the truth to push your point. Black fighters have often been recognized as leading HW contenders, and there were times when the top spot was practically monopolized by a black fighter.

What does that have to do with the fact that you flagrantly lied about blacks seldom or never being recognized as top HW contenders?

I'll ask again, WHAT blacks weren't recognized as top contenders that should've been?

Why? Because you don't like being exposed for your shortcomings, or called on to actually back up your ****, so you have to run and hide behind some childish battle of insults instead?

Get lost.