Some people who saw him fight said Wills was too slow to beat Dempsey. I wonder if some of these people were biased against Wills due to him being African American. Does anyone have good sources on how good prime Wills (probably from 1916-21) was? Was he really slow? I wonder why Nat Fleischer did not have Wills in his all time top 10. I would be curious to see how good he thought Wills was.
We have footage of 3 Harry Wills fights, all a bit past his prime. The last fight is a loss, when he was 37 years old and when he knew he'd never be given his world title shot This content is protected He had a fast left jab and looked to hold roughhouse inside with bodyshots, short obverhand rights and uppercuts. His ability to infight distinguishes him from the slow unskilled Jess Willard. Wills broke 3 of Fred Fultons ribs with bodyshots. Jack Dempsey himself had his ribs broken by John Lester Johnson. [url]https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EsUeOG9n1fYC&pg=PA80&dq=&redir_esc=y&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false[/url] Wills beat and outboxed everyone he faced in his prime. Even when he was KO'd Langford he claimed he was winning every round prior. We'll never know if he would of beat Dempsey. But he was good enough for Dempsey and his manager to not fancy the task.
Wills was something like 19-2 against Langford. Granted Langford was past his best for many of those but I think a seasoned Wills probably always outboxes Langford.
