I think it's debatable, his resume is very good. He beat Langford, McVey, Jeanette, Jeff Clark, Kid Norfolk and Firpo. Many argue that his wins over Langford are overrated, but I disagree. Many of those wins were around 1915-1917, when Langford was more than formidable. I'd argue a low top 10 spot, thoughts?
Not top 10. He was very good but too many better than him but he should have been given a title shot. That may well have upped his ranking for me had he beaten Dempsey or someone else really good.
It’s not his fault that he never had a chance to become heavyweight champion of the world. And nor is being champion a definite prerequisite to being top 10 in any division as I consider ezzard charles one of the best light heavyweights of all time despite never winning that title. But at heavyweight it’s very hard to rate someone in the top 10 who hasn’t given some of the members of that fraternity like Louis, Ali, Lewis, Marciano, Foreman, Holmes etc. I suppose wills could be in there depending on one’s own criteria.
I think he's a long, long way off personally. But open to hearing the argument in more depth. I'm not one hundred percent sure on the time frames without checking, but my memory is that Wills only really started to properly dominate his series against Langford after Langford had lost the sight in one eye in the Fulton fight. And although there wasn't that much between them in age, by that stage Langford had a hell of a lot more miles on the clock. Wills was a big Heavyweight for his time, so regardless of the specifics it's not a great look for a top 10 claimant to be losing to Langford in any case, given the size disparity and even allowing for Langford's remarkable pound for pound credentials. Of course Wills was also a long way past his own prime by the time guys like Sharkey and Uzcudun got hold of him, so I appreciate this comes with quite a caveat, but he looked very average on the small amount of film available (that's not my main reason for thinking he's short of a top ten discussion, though). I suspect Wills is one of those fighters whose reputation has been inflated a little because we love those bogeymen tales in boxing, but I kind of feel his standing might be a little lesser if the Dempsey fight had happened. Can't write him off - he could punch very hard and was a grizzled, tough campaigner - but Dempsey was accustomed to fighting and beating bigger men and Wills always shipped a lot of leather himself if you believe the reviews of the day.
He spent 10 years as one of the top 2 heavyweights in the world, was arguably the #1 in the world for much of that period, and was certainly the best active heavyweight of that period given the inactivity of Willard and Dempsey. He was the also the Coloured champion at a time when the official title was essentially a Whites-only title, and deserves to be seen as a World Champion in all but name for that reason. On the other hand, due to the circumstances of the time many of his wins are repeat victories over a small pool of opponents, which whilst impressive in themselves don't provide the sort of evidence of superiority over a wide variety of quality opponents that you look for in a top-10 ATG. Ring Magazine didn't start their ratings until 1923, very close to the end of his dominant period, so it's not as easy to grade his opponents as it is with more recent fighters. I'll look at this in more detail when I reach this period in my Monthly Ratings thread, but here's a quick look at his notable fights, with fighters who I think would have been ranked in the top-10 at the time indicated in bold: 1911 - Aged 22 - Debut 1912 - Aged 23 - 1913 - Aged 24 - Jeff Clark (Draw), Joe Jennette (Draw) 1914 - Aged 25 - Sam Langford x 2 (1 Draw, 1 Loss), Joe Jennette (Draw), Charley Miller, Sailor Grande, Sam McVea (Loss) 1915 - Aged 26 - Battling Jim Johnson, Sam McVea x 2 (1 Loss), Sam Langford 1916 - Aged 27 - Sam Langford x 4 (1 Loss), John Lester Johnson, Jack Thompson x 2 1917 - Aged 28 - Sam Langford x 3 (1 Draw), Battling Jim Johnson x 2 (1 Loss) 1918 - Aged 29 - Sam McVea x 2, Sam Langford x 2 1919 - Aged 30 - K O Kruvosky, Ole Anderson 1920 - Aged 31 - Fred Fulton 1921 - Aged 32 - 1922 - Aged 33 - Sam Langford, Kid Norfolk, Tut Jackson 1923 - Aged 34 - 1924 - Aged 35 - Luis Firpo 1925 - Aged 36 - Charley Weinert 1926 - Aged 37 - Jack Sharkey (Loss) 1927 - Aged 38 - Paulino Uzcudun (Loss) 1928 - Aged 39 - 1929 - Aged 40 - 1930 - Aged 41 - 1931 - Aged 42 - 1932 - Aged 43 - Retired In summary then, he had something like 16 wins over a total of 7 different top-10 opponents. Battling Jim Johnson Sam McVea x 3 Sam Langford x 8 Fred Fulton Kid Norfolk Luis Firpo Charley Weinert His Prime was something like 1915 - 1922, between the ages of 26 and 33. By the time he lost to Sharkey he was 37 years old and was no longer the fighter he had once been. Sadly, the only footage we have of him is in his later career. I think that's an impressive list of victories. Whether he makes the top 10 will probably depend on how much you discount the repeated wins over Langford and McVea.
There is a solid argument he was the best heavyweight in the world from 1915 to 1921 at least .. Wills ducked no one and began to dominate Langford, Jeanette and McVey while they were still formidable .. any discounting him as hard punching and strong but slow and grizzled is revisionist ... as far as all time great, no way to tell since Wills was denied opportunities and the film is very limited and that only of an old fighter .. maybe Dempsey beats him or maybe he exposes Dempsey as an exceptionally well promoted , managed and matched heavyweight Arturo Gatti ... to this day as much as I love Jack, based on his inactivity and opponent selection I cannot really say I know that answer ..
Nope, nowhere close. His greatest asset was his size advantage he held over opponents in his best wins. He was slow, somewhat dirty, and wrestled quite a bit, especially with smaller opponents. Ray Arcel considered him a "decent journeyman".