Dempsey or Wills: who was the real champ, who beat the better guys, and who would have won?

Wills beat better guys.

Dempsey's best wins were Fulton, Gibbons, Miske, Brennan, and Fripo.

Will's best were Langford, Jeannette, Fulton, Fripo and Norfolk.

Even though Langford and Jeannette were perhaps aging a bit, i don't think anyone would argue that they were greater than Miske and Brennan. Norfolk and Gibbons essentially cancel each other out.

I have always been a big Dempsey fan and that short left hook that he knocked out Sharkey with is a great punch. But there were probably some low blows involved there. I don't know if i count it as a win.

Who would have won?

Impossible to answer. Wills was considered big and strong but slow and easy to hit. For a long time, the only footage known of Wills was from 1927 when he was old. Its not fair to judge him based on that.

I have seen Wills-Fripo recently, and Wills does look slow. For a while, i thought the writers from the day who described Wills as slow were prejudiced- it was the 1920's after all, 40 something years prior to civil rights.

However, i recently saw Wills-Fripo, and Wills looks slow indeed. Again, how fair is it to judge him based on the fact that he was 34/35 years old? Perhaps he was faster in his physical prime, perhaps he was never fast.

Based on the Fripo fight, i don't see Wills beating Dempsey. He would have a punchers chance like Fripo BUT Dempsey was a speed demon and a fully motivated Dempsey ko's the Wills of the Fripo fight.

Then again, how good was Wills from 1919-21? Maybe he was faster, and maybe Kearns and Rickard feared Dempsey would lose to him.

Wills not getting a title shot is one of the great tragedies of boxing history. And another tragedy is that unless someone finds footage of him at his physical peak, we will never know how good he was.

I used to believe that there was no way Dempsey ducked Wills. Now i am not sure. I would like to believe that Dempsey tried to make the fight but circumstances prevented it. However, i wouldn't bet my life savings on it.

Who was the real champ?

Langford reportedly favoured Dempsey to win. As did the majority of writers. Then again, none of them were immune from being biased. The general consensus was that Wills was too slow to beat Dempsey, and that it would be a relatively straight forward win for Dempsey. Most people considered Dempsey the real champ.

 

Martin was 40 years old .
Smith was having his last fight and as he said "went down for the boat ride"
Jeannette was old.
Norfolk was undersized
Firpo had been floored multiple times by Dempsey before being ko'd and was not in top shape for the bore snore with Wills ,Wills dropped him with a punch on the break,something he had a penchant for.
Fulton had already been wrecked by Dempsey in under half a minute.
Langford and McVey were aging.
Dempsey could always beat the bigger slower guys I think he stops Wills inside 8 rounds.
Langford called Dempsey the best he ever saw.

 

Wills had the overall stronger resume, but the difference gets overstated IMO.

Dempsey was the champ, but earlier or later Wills would have been the champion for Dempsey not fighting him, and Dempsey probably should have lost the title at some point.

As for who would have won, I still favour Dempsey, though it probably depends when it happened.

 

In fairness he also faced McVey and Langford when he was pretty young and they were at more reasonable ages (though both winning and losing). It wasn't an ATG resume, but a pretty solid one, and it probably is one of the worst cases of someone not getting a shot.

 

Wills was ranked #1 for years. Dempsey as the real champion could have fought him if he wanted to.

Wills isn't absolved from blame either, he avoided Godfrey, and said no thanks to Tunney.

 

Wills certainly deserved his shot.I just think Dempsey would have stopped him.

 

Dempsey would have beaten him, it's a shame that this fight didn't happen, it would have done a lot for his legacy.

 

I don't see a "slow" fighter having an easy time vs Dempsey. That said, I haven't seen enough Wills to make a decent comment.

 

1. I think that it would be hard to argue that Dempsey was not the champion. Willard's claim was absolutely rock solid.

2. In terms of who beat the better guys, you could argue it either way, but Dempsey has got it on paper.

3. If you put a gun to my head, I would say Dempsey, but we can't give him the win without stepping into the ring!

 

Dempsey's initial legitimacy as champ would hang more on what the guy before him did.

Willard won the title from a black contender, and he was inactive in large part due to the war.

I would say that Dempsey is very unequivocally the man after he beats Willard.