Dempsey, Liston, Holyfield, Frazier.

HW was being mentioned by some newspapers as being amongst the only viable challengers and the most dangerous, right after Dempsey-Willard.

He was firmly in the title picture when Dempsey lost his title.

He wasn't anything like as affected by the Tate debacles, according the papers i've read as you suggest on the forum Janitor.

If he wasn't literally #1 for an unbroken seven years, he was close to it, and whatever the details it's the longest duck of a top man in the history of the division, and probably boxing.

 

He was one of the most dangerous challengers when Demspey picked up his title. He was one of the most dangerous challengers when Dempsey finally got off his ass and took a beating. In between, he was the outstanding challenger in a general sense.

I don't think the specific details matter all that much.

Well i've produced newspaper reports that describe Wills as the only natural challenger mere weeks after each Tate fight. Briefly:

The New York Times in June of 22:
"Boxing Is Assured for Polo Grounds:Offers Made For Dempsey-Wills Bout" is the headline. The article describes Wills's share to be around 12% meaning he would recieve a good deal less than half of the 300k minimum Dempsey would be guaranteed from the million dollar gate which was "virtually assured."

The Desert News, early July:
"Kearns and Rickard already [have] begun calculations on a Wills-Dempsey extravaganza..." the article admittedly says that "whether Dempsey fights Wills or Willard...there will be a certain crowd packed..." it adds that "the great and vast fighting public is roasting and toasting the proposed matches with Willard and Wills" but that "Willard looks easy meat."

Furthermore, Dempsey agree that he would indeed meet Willard but added that it would only happen "if he were to be paid as much as for fighting Wills." In other words, this article, in The Miami News, suggests strongly that more money was available, or seemed to be, for a Wills fight, than a Willard one.

On July the 20th of '22 The Morning Leader writes: "As to Wills, the champion says that he realises that he would be up against a tough proposition but added, "if Wills is the best of the contenders, I will meet him."

Tex Rickard's statement to The New York Times at around the same time: "I believe Willard could beat any of the heavyweights excepting Dempsey and Wills. If anyone will show me a man who has a better chance with Dempsey than Willard then I will try to make the match...[but] it would be a physical impossibility to stage [Dempsey-Wills] this year."

The Times also described Willls as "the most formidable contender of Jack Dempsey's title."


I think he was probably impacted for a couple of weeks, but nothing like to the degree you've hinted.

Not really, at least not in my opinion.

I think saying that he was #1 contender for Dempsey's entire reign" is not strictly speaking correct, but he was #1 for months than any other fighter, and was amongst the top 2 or 3 for the entire reign...if Wills had been a white man, there would never, ever have been any question of this being anything other than a disgusting duck. As it is, Dempsey does indeed have an alibi, but all saying "close to #1" rather than "#1" does to the sentence is making it less reprehensible overall by a very small degree. It is still fact that Dempsey didn't meet the best HW of his time, the greatest HW of his time, the best contender of his time, arguably until he met Tunney who thrashed him.

Which is all any of us are trying to say anyway.

I welcome your rebuttal - but hopefully it will contain actual evidence of Wills's slippage rather than presumptions, because it just doesn't look like he had to raise a fist to recover his standing as #1.