Is Harry Wills Overated?

AGREED, for the first time this week I believe

You can make a case Wills was no1 HEavyweight on the planet from 1914-1926. He cleared out the blk fighters from his era and beat the white 1s. Sure some would be past prime, but thats the same of any era of fighters. He also beat the young up and comers like Firpo, Fred Fulton, Kid Norfolk, Meehan

 

Overrated? Hell no, not even close.

I read somewhere that he ws the best heavyweight of his day, and that Dempsey's management did everything it could to duck him.

 

Everyone makes mistakes.

 

I think i would agree with this rating. He is possibly a top 3 fighter of his decade which roughly equates to a top 40 or so fighter. I would rate him below Langford, in particularly and probably McVey and Jeanette also, based on the matches that were closest to their primes. I also would favour Tunney and Dempsey quite strongly against him.

Quite interestingly, i think that freezing him out of the title picture actually has done quite a lot for his legacy. I think that both Dempsey and Tunney would have beaten him convincingly which would have harmed his legacy, but as it is now, it is a big unknown and many people use the ducking as a reason to put up towards the top 10, with the obvious theory being that he could have beaten both.

 

I dont know alot about him.
I do rememder Ray Arcel saying in a book that Dempsey would have taken him no prob.

 

Not to mention many of these fighters weren't that great to begin with, i.e. Jeanette, Firpo, Tate, Martin. A middlin' bunch if there ever were one.

 

Wills actually beat the best black and white heavyweights of the era, dempsey wouldnt fight black guys, he struggled against the white guys more than wills did, and tunney never fought a world class heavyweight besides old rusted dempsey.

 

Wills legacy would be better if he had beaten Billy Miske, Tommy Gibbons and Harry Greb. Even if he could not get a fight with Dempsey, fights with these three could have greatly helped to establish that he was the best heavyweight of his era.

 

Tunney did not fight for the title until Wills was well past his glory days so I don't think Tunney would effect Wills legacy much unless they fought long before Tunney faced Dempsey.

 

I think the fight was very near to getting signed. There was just no stomach for a taking a chance on there being a black heavyweight champion so soon after Johnson.