Was Demspey's duck of Greb even more blatant than his duck of Wills?

Harry Frazee was a serious Broadway impressario and sportsman. He had money. All I can say is that the Wills purse offers to Dempsey were the largest being quoted for years, but still the fight did not come off.

 

According to the poll in Greb's backyard there was almost twice as much interest in recycling Brennan as there was in giving Greb a chance. Despite the fact that Greb had beaten Brennan before easily. And almost as much interest in recycling Willard as getting Greb a shot, despite Willard's thrashing at the hands of Dempsey being his only appearance in the last 5-6 years.
That's where PUBLIC DEMAND for Harry Greb challenging Jack Dempsey lies relatively, according to Pittsburgh's public.

It's worth noting this poll was taken before Luis Firpo beat Bill Brennan and Jess Willard.

Probably so.
It also implies heavyweight challengers should - as a general rule - be bona fide "punchers" with good KO records over durable opponents. (something Greb certainly wasn't).
On the other hand, perhaps Gibbons was underrated.

 

If Rickard was fully behind the fight, why do you think it didn't happen ? Quoting newspapers to back up the statement that Rickard was for the fight can just as easily be switched to Dempsey or Kearns who were also in the newspapers talking about "Harry Wills" for next opponent.
In 1926, when the New York commision declared that Dempsey could only fight there if the challenger was Harry Wills, I think it's fairly clear that Rickard really prefered Gene Tunney and the promotional angle of ex-marine Gene, and I have no reason to doubt the anecdotal stories of Rickard's reluctance to risk the baggage that might come with a black champion. I do however doubt that all this "ducking" of Wills was exclusively or absolutely Jack Dempsey's doing, which would be the only explanation if Rickard was all for it, since Kearns by that time was out of the picture. Wills was even past his best by this time.

 

Off topic. but to correct you....He was not # 1 contender all three years. Zora Folley took over as # 1 contender briefly at the end of 1959 all the way through 1960 until he was brutalized by Sonny Liston. Liston then took over as # 1 contender for good in 1961.

For the rematch mandatory johansson gave to floyd....Floyd was NOT the # 1 contender...and for the 3rd fight while patterson was champion, Johansson was NOT the # 1 contende.

 

1. On Brennan--Good point that he ranks ahead of Greb. I was referring to Brennan versus Wills as a contender. One thing, though. You are assuming that Pittsburg really got behind its hometown fighters. I remember reading an article in Ring Magazine about Billy Conn in which Conn was asked about how the local press and fans treated him and he went off onto a rant that they didn't do anything but criticize Greb when he was the greatest fighter in the world, so why should Conn expect anything more. Conn said something to the effect that the Pittsburg fans were the worst in the world.

2. "Perhaps Gibbons was underrated"---Perhaps. But he also might be overrated today. It is certainly interesting to get some insight into how he was viewed going into the Dempsey fight.

 

You serious? Dempsey-Greb would be a massacre. It would look like Frazier-Foreman I. A small swarmer cannot go into a GREAT bigger slugger and win. Never in history have we seen this happen.

2ndly, you are underestimating Wills chances. Harry Wills beat better opposition than Dempsey did in there careers, and was just as dominant against common opposititon. Its safe to say Harry Wills was by far better than any of the big men Dempsey ever victimized. I think there is good chance Harry might have beaten dempsey. If you go by accomplishments, Harry deserves to be rated higher. I think lack of film does a diservice to Harry.

 

Interesting. I didn't think of that.
Yes, as far as Wills goes I think the poll clearly illustrates he was by far the favoured challenger by quite some margin.

I think he was neither particularly bad nor particularly good a challenger.

 

"I think he was neither particularly bad nor particularly good a challenger."

That sums up my viewpoint.

To quote Joe Louis from another heavyweight matchup on the sort of match Dempsey and Gibbons was:

"When a man who can punch gets in the ring with a man that can't punch, the man that can't punch better be awful fancy and this man just ain't fancy enough."

 

To the topic, from the evidence I have seen from McGrain, I think it's worse than Willis. Greb was more than deserving as he beat title challengers before Dempsey even fought them. The Willis duck is still bad because NYSAC called for the fight, so instead, Dempsey chose to fight Tunney in Philly, the plan backfired.

 

Although technically Gibbons won only three rounds in both contests.

Now answer that one smarty pants!

 

Rickard has nothing to lose by lying. And by announcing he was interested in promoting the fight he guarded against being cut out of the deal if the other parties were thinking of going ahead with it without him. And Kearns and Dempsey were often talking about fighting Harry Wills. Alternatively he might be trying to embarrass Kearns and Dempsey at that moment because he had no grip on their plans at that point.
Rickard didn't suffer at all by making promises he couldn't keep, and his whole business was built on promoting heavyweight fights as "eliminators" and having the public and the top contenders eating out of his hand. I find the idea that he didn't want a black champion as highly plausible though. Silly as it seems now, the race thing was an issue.

Not really. The business side of boxing is often about bullshitting and playing camps off against each other, saying one thing and doing another. That's what these promoters do. All the time.
That's not "conspiracy theories", that's the business.