Should Harry Wills be rated above Jack Dempsey?

Dempsey's name should be stricken from all records or kept merely in the lineage of White Hope Also-Ran Champions.

The People's Committee has spoken.

 

Yes Comrade Stalin !

 

Power to the People!

 

It could be easily argued, I think. They're close.

 

It could be argued, and indeed you could make a similar case for having Sam Langford over Jack Johnson.

 

How much of Fred Fulton, Harry Wills and Carl Morris have you seen on film to make comparisons and offer your assessment/descriptions ?

Are you in fact just talking out of your ass ?

 

Certainly, Langford deserves more credit in general.

It's absolutely mind blowing to think that someone who started as big as Adrian Broner was knocking out LHWs and heavies of that day.

 

As far as resumes go, it depends how credit Harry Wills should be given for fighting the same old fighters over and over.

I know the common explanation is that 'no one wanted to fight the black fighters' but you've got to consider that guys like Wills were taking advantage of tha too. I don't see any excuse for him fighting old Jack Thompson so many times, some of which received horrible reviews, purses witheld etc.. And some of the later Langford fights were horrible as well as pointless.

If Wills was scrutinized even half as much as Dempsey is people here would know what I'm talking about. If you scratch the surface a bit the Harry Wills resume has a lot of rot in it.

Having said that, if you want to rate him above Dempsey, go ahead. It's not an outrageous suggestion.

 

Well, one of those clumsy, uncoordinated, unskilled guys KO'd Johnson, and another put Langford in the hospital and had 70 of his 79 wins by knockout.

Not bad for a bunch of stiff oafs.

 

No he should not be rated above Dempsey.
But the 'colour bar' prevented greats like Wills fighting for the title, so these discussions/debates have occurred through the years.

 

Dempsey was a notch below the best of his era losing brutally to Fitzsimmons and getting knocked out by Tommy Ryan as well. Otherwise he was nearly unstoppable (the lots to LeBlanche being illegal really). He held Professor.Mike Donovan to a draw and bested him and had beaten LaBlanche before hand. An excellent record but i'm not sure the era itself is deep enough to warrant Dempsey, even with his middleweight title over Wills. But its close...

 

If you look at their resumes Wills was the better of the 2, who was the better boxer we'll never know

 

I tend to think Dempsey was better but his record is a lot thinner than Willis'. I think I have Dempsey a spot ahead currently.

 

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Below, the Wills Firpo fight.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...3.1&srpos=45&e=-------10--41----0Harry++wills--

Below, the Wills Madden fight.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg....14&srpos=27&e=-------10--21----0Harry++wills--

Wills talking.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...9.4&srpos=22&e=-------10--21----0Harry++wills--
Views on a Dempsey /Wills fight.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...2.1&srpos=21&e=-------10--21----0Harry++wills--
The Wills /Fulton fight below.
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...3.4&srpos=11&e=-------10--11----0Harry++wills--

Wills / Norfolk.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg....46.2&srpos=6&e=-------10--1----0Harry++wills--

Not a good result below.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg....16.2&srpos=5&e=-------10--1----0Harry++wills--

Wills/ Madden

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg....46&srpos=20&e=-------10--11----0Harry++wills--
Some mixed reviews there imo.