Do Dempsey's Words Hold Any Water on The Willis Situation?

Dempsey, without a shadow of a doubt, gets most leeway on this forum. Patterson made the fight with Liston happen, Dempsey sure as hell could have made it happen with Wills. God knows he had enough time to do so. But just as with Greb he choose not to.

Instead he shat away three years in Hollywood. An unworthy way to treat a world HW title if there's ever been one. End of story.

 

I personally think that Dempsey wasting his time in Hollywood was slightly more worthy a waste of time than Willard being a circus strongman and Braddock doing nothing. Still a waste of time though. :good

In my opinion Dempsey could have (and probably should have) pushed harder for the fight to be made but at that point of his career he was thinking about everything other than actual fighting. There are no excuses really.

 

Sure, he wasn't in a league of his own in this regard, but in relation to how loved he is a fighter and champion... Very, very strange.

Actually I can see why someone wants to the make the very most of the title; i e low risk/high reward. Especially someone coming from poverty like Dempsey did. It's like the eternally ducked Burley said: "If I were the champ I'd stayed clear of Robinson [in regard to how he never got a shot at Robinson's title]"

What irks me is how Dempsey is made into this superman and icon when the basis for it is poor. And that the same people who will go to ridicolous length trying to smoothe over the very real flaws in Dempsey's reign scrutinize those of far more worthy champions' and loudly critize any real or perceived cracks in them.

This goes for Duran too by the way. All the guys making noise about how Leonard was sneaky and slippery before the Duran rematch and the fight with Hagler, but says nothing about Duran's handling of the Buchanan situation. Unreal.

It's something almost homoerotic with these fighters who have aquired the "man's man" and/or working class hero status. They are excused of almost everything while the guys that's perceived as darlings of the "liberal left" are put to another universe of standards completely. Pathetic. No more, no less.

 

The two largest influences on Dempsey through out his career were Kearns and Rickard. Both were 100% aganst a fight with Wills. The fights not promoted by Rickard were tiny in revenue compared to the ones he promoted for Dempsey. Selby had just been a disaster.

I strongly believe Dempsey freared no man. If given the proper supporet he would have fought Wills. However, he did not appear to ever make it a must for himself either. I believe he was a man of his times, he listened to management and that was that.

Wills was royally screwed, first by Willard and then by Dempsey. People forget Wills was much older than Dempsey and getting a bit long in the tooth by the time Dempsey fought Carpentier. Dempsey's rep has only been tarnished to a handful of us who even remember Wills ever existed.

 

I see what your point although to be fair, Duran's managers did offer Buchanan a rematch years later which Buchanan refused.

I also find it unlikely that he knew anything about the way business was handled unlike Dempsey who was already an experienced pro at the time of his title reign. When Duran got rid of his hand-picking managers he fought absolutely everyone while Dempsey didn't.

 

According to Buchanan the rematch that was offered was to take place under such conditions that it really wasn't an offer.

And however one wants to spin it, a title won on a foul should be cleared up. Louis, who readily let others take care of his business in most cases, cleared up the dodgy conditions that gave him the shot at Braddock's title by giving Schmeling a deserved title shot later on.

But otherwise Duran didn't shy away from a challenges, that's true. But if you can find so many ways to slam Leonard, then the same inventiveness would give you good angles at Duran as well I reckon. But for some reason this inventiveness isn't quite the same when it comes to Duran.

In the case of Dempsey it's used reversly: to show that he somehow ducked/avoided no one.

 

I don't really know about the conditions but from what I read Buchanan thought he was washed up at the time and instead chose to retire.

I think the reason people criticize Leonard is because he was calling the shots while a young Duran may have been "hiding" behind his managers Carlos Eleta as well as others. Often times the manager gets the blame but not the fighter unless the fighter himself is doing the "hand-picking" as is the case for example with Ray Leonard and Floyd Mayweather.

Leonard even admitted to it and bragged about it which surely annoyed many people. The truth is however that he did fight the best.

In Duran's case he eventually showed that he feared no one during the later part of his career when he was mostly responsible for making the fights.

 

I think both were ready to take on what was out there, but did so with a measure of prudence. It makes sense that Duran went after a guy like Barkley to get a MW belt. He probably was the safest option, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a great challenge. It was, and Duran performed fantastically.

Probably it wasn't an accident that Leonard called out Hagler when he did, either. But the same goes here, it was still one major challenge for him. Perhaps he's been a bit unwise and too open about it, but that doesn't change the basic facts.

This can be compared to the Ibrahimovic and Kaka transfers this summer. Both of them got what they wanted without forcing their club's hand. Instead their respective clubs (Inter and Milan) got very well compensated.

Still, Ibra will get roundly booed when he returns to his former ground, which Kaka probably won't. The difference is that Kaka professed his undying love for Milan all the wile angling for the move to Real. "Ibra" on the other hand didn't play the game, but plainly stated that he very well could move on.

That's really the difference between the two transfers.

 

Shelby was ruined not by the promoter but by Kearns himself. That is another fact generally lost on history and distorted by so called historians like Bert Sugar. The Shelby fight was on schedule to be a financial bonanza and very successful promotion until Kearns began threatening to pull out of the fight within a week or two before it took place. Suddenly telegraph offices were flooded with messages cancelling their reservations for rooms, rails, and tickets. The failure of Shelby can be squarely placed at the feet of Kearns.

I am consistently flabbergasted that some people believe the ridiculous tough guy hero worship that some people have used to completely distort histort as to Dempsey's legacy much of which is still going on in this thread by some.

 

Amen. And then some.

This is a only a personal appromixation, but I'd say 70% is down to his rugged good looks.:hey I shite you not.

 

Except when the black on black fight in question was a safe one, for instance against a journeyman named Battling Jim Johnson. However, a black on black fight involving a dangerous guy like Mcvey, Jeannette or Langford clearly was out of bounds. :roll:

Johnson hid behind the color line that he for so long loathed, himself.

Exactly, the public and media did.

And let me tell you a little secret about promoters: they only care about one thing, money. Where there is public interest, there is money. Where there is controversy, there is money. However, given the realistic chance that Dempsey might lose to Wills, soft touches like a 7:1 underdog in Miske or already beaten 4:1 underdogs like Brennan are more attractive. And that's exactly what happened. Even if both of them lost several times to Greb in the months leading up to them receiving their title shot.

But wait, Greb wasn't black?

 

He's the heavyweight champion of the world, not of America.

 

This is true but taken completely out of context. In July Dempsey had only recently arrived back to the US from a trip to Europe where he was scouting out soft touches for prospective opponents. He even stated he would be willing to meet the winner of Carpentier-Lewis (for which he was ringside), thats right a guy he already demolished in 4 one sided rounds and welterweight. Upon returning he made no mention of fighting Wills. The two names on his mind at the time were Jess Willard and Bill Brennan (imagine that, two guys he already knocked out). He had verbally agreed to face Bill Brennan in Michigan City on a Floyd Fitzsimmons card when the NYSAC stepped in and demanded that he agree to fight Wills within 17 days. Dempsey then verbally agreed to face Wills (while still negotiating with Willard and Brennan, as well as Greb). Wills manager demanded that the fight be held in NY because NY was pressing Dempsey so hard to fight Wills. Another stipulation Mullins (Wills manager) demanded was that the contract have a stipulated time period within which Dempsey would be forced to face Wills, Dempsey and Kearns would not agree to this. The best that Mullins and Wills could get out of Kearns and Dempsey was to agree to fight within sixty days of accepting an offer from a promoter. All parties understood this to mean nothing because if Dempsey and Kearns didnt want to fight Wills all they had to do was not accept whatever amount a promoter offered them and then they could go on forever ducking Wills. It should be mentioned that while all of this was going on the Governer of New York publicly stated that he would not interfere with a Dempsey-Wills match. So be it for the theory put forth by Dempsey apologists that state officials destroyed the fight. As soon as Dempsey and Kearns signed articles they publicly stated that it would be at least one year before they faced Wills. Dempsey never went into training and instead Kearns continued to negotiate for matches with Willard, Brennan, and Greb. It has often been parroted in defense of Dempsey that the match was eventually killed by the NYSAC because they didnt want a mixed race heavyweight championship match. Thats bull****. Muldoon, head of the commission, was crusading at the time to halt the explosion of ticket prices for boxing matches (which were helping to create million dollar gates). He first stipulated that the fight could not be priced above 15 dollars a ticket (which was a tidy sum in 1922/23) and when Rickard refused these conditions Muldoon would not sanction the bout. This however did not preclude Rickard from holding the fight out of state. He had promoted plenty of boxing matches (and very successfully) all over the country (Reno, Toledo, Goldfield, Jersey City, etc) and had also shown that when higher authorities were averse to a fight he could take it on the heel, promote in a place where commissions werent a problem and make a success of it. Instead Rickard simply allowed the fight to fall apart, as did Dempsey, and Kearns. Again, the actions of those who had a vested interest in the champion speak louder than words. Rickard never seriously began even trying to promote the fight and Dempsey and Kearns never began preparing for the fight. Ever. They simply did not want to risk losing their meal ticket. period.

I have to call bull**** here. As stated above there were plenty of places then as now that simply did not have commissions where the fight could be held, or places where the commissions were favorable to the match. To pretend that EVERYONE was against this fight is ridiculous because newspapers regularly held polls as to who Dempsey should fight and Wills was always the top guy.

No it doesnt because the match could have easily been held right across the border in Canada at someplace like Montreal or Toronto where big matches were being held and promoters were favorable and also where people could have easily been housed and ported to for the fight. That excuse simply does not wash. Furthermore, its not like Dempsey would have been going to France to fight Carpentier. It would have been an American against an American in a foreign country. No home court advantage for anyone. Anyone who thinks Dempsey would have gotten anything less than preferential treatment against Wills anywhere in the world is nuts.

So you think by having one fight in three years against an up and coming fringe contender like Johnson (several of whose wins were considered suspect) Willard put himself squarely in the title picture? Over men like Wills, Greb, Gibbons, et al? Seriously? Just answer if you think Willard deserved to be ranked ahead of those men.atsch I didnt label the Wills-Norfolk and Greb-Gibbons bouts eliminations Rickard, Dempsey, Kearns, and every newspaper that covered them did. But I guess you think its ok for the champion to defend against the guys who loses an elimination rather than face the guys who win one?? And Firpo was absolutely promoted to a fight with Dempsey merely by virtue of wins over shot contenders. Brennan, Weinert, and Willard were completely through by the time they fought. Again, it boggles the mind that some are willing give so much slack to Dempsey as to suggest that Firpo legitimately deserved the right to face Dempsey ahead of Wills or instead of Wills after coming to the US THREE YEARS into Dempsey's reign, fighting a bunch of worn out retreads, and with Rickard's backing calls out the champion. Meanwhile Wills had been A top heavyweight, if not THE top heavyweight since at least 1919 if not before. If that isnt giving the champion a TON of slack I dont know what is...