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

Difference between Johnson and Dempsey is while both ducked the top black fighter of the generation while champion, at least johnson took on them Pre-Title. Its better to have them on your resume than not.

 

I think people are a bit tough on Jim Johnson, calling him a journeyman.

He was probably the best credentialled black fighter at the time, who had not been already beaten by Jack Johnson. In fact, in todays environment, he was probably the equivalent of an alphabet title holder or at the very least, one of the Number one contenders/Mandatories that keep getting shots at titles nowadays.

 

I've always criticized Johnson for ducking the 4 most significant challengers during his pathetic reign. But like Dempsey, he seems to be a saint that historians or boxing fans otherwise don't dare touch.

There were plenty of fights outside of the US and A. Let's not forget that Fitzsimmons was from New Zealand and fought plenty of times in Australia. Johnson had bouts in Europe, although that may have had a thing or two to do with him being exiled from America.

All i'm saying is: if he wanted those fights, he could've gotten them. Fact is he never did, just like Bowe never fought Lewis.

 

I will start by saying that there is a lot more basis in the acusations that Jack Dempsey and his camp avoided Harry Greb than that they avoided Harry Wills.

Some of the people most vocaly criticising Dempsey for not fighting Harry Wills almost seem to be asking him to pursue the fight as if he were himself the callenger to fulfil a point of principle.

The fact is that contracts were signed and contracts fell through due to external factors. I have to wonder how many champions would have continued to pursue a fight against a title challenger under these circumstances.

Now if I personaly had been Dempseys manager I would have matched him with Wills late in his career in order to sidestep Gene Tunney. Somtimes in swerving round one obstacle you can hit a bigger one.

For whatevewr it is worth I think that Kearns at least wanted to avoid Tommy Gibbons but he was forced to let Dempsey fight him so Dempsey could go against the wishes of his backers when he chose.

 

People talk a lot of crap on this issue, and it's all guess work when they try getting into people's motivations and reasons.
So, I'll only talk about about LIKELIHOODS.

1.
It is likely Wills and Dempsey were both confident of beating each other if they ever had to fight each other.
Dempsey was an "invincible man-killer" according to the press, and "the greatest fighter ever" according to some, and I'm certain that sort of reverence boosts the confidence of any man. Coupled with the ease in which he beat Fred Fulton and Jess Willard (and others), and the fact that he IS the world's champion, Dempsey was likely confident of beating any man.
Harry Wills beat Sam Langford several times. That alone would make it LIKELY that he was confident he could beat any man.

2. It's intelligent for the guy with the heavyweight championship ("the richest prize in sports") to take the easiest fights possible for the biggest money possible. It's intelligent for promoters to keep the championship safely in the hands of a box-office magnet.
There's a risk of losing the title every time you defend it, so it's only intelligent to fight the men most capable of actualizing that risk IF the money to be made is increased by the same factor as the risk itself. Considering the fact that Dempsey was generating previously unimaginable figures (most of which went to Rickard, with Kearns taking a 50% of Dempsey's cut) with fights against the likes of Carpentier and Firpo, it is likely that he and his advisers did not see the potential purses of fights with high-risk challengers as suitably attractive to make the risk worth taking.

3. It is likely that Tex Rickard in particular saw little sense in risking Dempsey against Wills, who wasn't only the man most capable of unseating the box-office magnet, but was probably the fighter who, as champion, would present the greatest risk of turning the new-found popularity, legality and respectability of boxing in the opposite direction. Because of America's racism and the spirit of the times. There was good reason to project that America's tolerance of watching a black champion beating up white hopes was close to zero, and that Wills at champion would attract a whole load of unwanted attention from quarters that had no interest in the sport. The long-term risks were considered real. Why take a risk with a black champion ?
As things turned out, even "clean marine Gene" turned out to be a box-office dud without Dempsey.

 

What? Kearns was the one who pressed for a Dempsey-Gibbons match even after Gibbons had lost the eliminator to Greb. Where did you come up with this fairytale? Kearns wanted the match bad enough that he went out of his way to cut Rickard out of the deal and signed with Mike Collins to promote the fight...

 

I am basing this on the testimony of Teddy Hayes who was training Jack Dempsey around that time:

"Why Kearns and I would never have thought of matching Dempsey with a boxer. We kept putting him in there with those big, slow bums and Dempsey made us all look good. We didn't want any part of that Tommy Gibbons fight, but gave Jack his way."

New York Amsterdam News, Jan 18, 1936

You might have other sources to contradict this of course but it does suggest that Kearns saw Gibbons as a risky prospect to steer clear of.

 

I wonder if Jim Johnson was any worse a challenger than recent challengers like Ibragimov,Chagaev, Gomez ,or Williams proved to be?
Or old time challengers like Finnegan and Munroe?

 

Jim Johnson was actualy a bit of a spoiler if you look at his record.

Not one of the elite of the era but an interesting career none the less.

 

Like I said, Kearns was the one pushing for the Gibbons match. Teddy Hayes is full of **** anyway. His book has so many ridiculous, untrue stories in it you can consider it a work of fiction...

 

"Kearns saw Gibbons as a risky prospect to steer clear of"

Well, why didn't he just steer clear of him then? Gibbons was NOT regarded that highly, as the preview of the fight in the New York Times on July 1, 1923, indicates:

"GIBBONS' RECORD IS NOT IMPRESSIVE"

"Knockout String scored over second-raters---Meehan best-known victim"

"While Gibbons' string of consecutive knockouts looks impressive on paper, it has failed to make the majority of big boxing men take him seriously. Most of his knockout triumphs were scored over second-raters and others very little known. He has never stopped an opponent claimed as a top notcher. His best effort was in knocking out Willie Meehan, but when Meehan fought Gibbons he was considered through as a high-class ring performer by virtually all the critics."

Later and more positively:

"He has never been knocked out. Boxing men assert that is evidence he possesses real boxing skill. The few who are backing Gibbons maintain that this skill will keep him out of the way of Dempsey's punches and enable him to win the decision."

And in conclusion:

"He has faced Billy Miske, Bill Brennan*, Bob Roper, Battling Levinsky, Harry Greb, and George Chip. In fact these are the only men who stand out in the list of men he has met. It is quite a contrast with the celebrities that Dempsey has waded through in order to reach the top."

*As far as I can tell, there is no record of Gibbons having fought Brennan.

This hardly seems the writeup of an awesome challenger.

1. He is not "taken seriously" by most big boxing men.

2. His list of opponents is very shy of top men, and even more shy of top heavyweights. Levinsky, Greb, and Chip were lightheavies or middles. It should also be noted that Gibbons was 32 and these wins years earlier. Greb had beaten him badly in 1922.

3. Gibbons only major win in recent years was over Miske, certainly a good fighter at his best, but how much stamina did a man have who was terminally ill? It might not have been that difficult to outlast him.

4. Bottom line--off this article, Gibbons was NOT taken that seriously as a challenger, whatever spin Kearns put on it then or later.

5. Although it appears a minority thought Gibbons might have a chance to outbox Dempsey, there certainly was no groundswell of support for him to get a championship match. There was a public poll printed on this blog not too long ago. I believe Wills, Brennan, and Greb were ahead of Gibbons as men the public wanted to see matched with Dempsey.

 

It says volumes that I have a newsreel of Gibbons in a crowd shaking everyones hand and smiling. The caption is: Tommy Gibbons who pulled off the big upset by lasting 15 rounds with Jack Dempsey! Kearns was pushing for that fight because they didnt think there was any conceivable way Dempsey could lose after Gibbons had lost nearly every rounds to Greb in a title eliminator a year and half before. Reminds me a few years ago of a fight between two contenders just before the start of the fight a prospect entered the ring and challenged... the loser. Only this is worse because it was champion choosing to defend against the loser.