Dempsey vs Wills article

Yes but Wills surely would have got a Dempsey fight if he had fought and beaten Tunney.. Rickard would have thrown the fight cause no way to avoid it
Dempsey was getting old no one brought the fans in like Jack if Wills would have beat Gene If Dempsey beat Gene fight may have happened When Tunney won it changed everything...Then he retires

 

But Tunney probably beats Wills, so that's not a good plan for Dempsey. Wills was #1 contender. Tunney was #2.
Wills was a long-standing issue. Tunney could wait on the back burner.

At the time, and more so in retrospect, Dempsey had far more to gain by facing Wills. And he probably wins, because Wills was probably more washed-up he was. Instead of losing to the #2 contender.

Dempsey could have left Tunney on the shelf a couple of years, lose to him in 1928 or 1929 instead.

 

And after waiting around for years for Dempsey to get off his ass and fight a real challenger, why should Wills have had to go through Tunney? He knew he had only so much tread left on the tires. He had more than earned a shot.

 

Interestingly Rickard was happy to put his name to the RING magazine ratings that had Harry Wills #1 contender at the end of 1924 and at the end of 1925, even though he planned to match Dempsey with Tunney.

 

And there we have it. Rickard & Co. (whom I really blame, not Dempsey) railroaded Wills while Jack went off and fukked his way thru Hollywood. Disgraceful.

 

And from the old and educated we get "layed"?

 

If we're lucky !

 

Because to get the title shot you often need to do whatever it takes..now any of the great black heavies could beat Burns in 1907 why was it Johnson? Cause he did what know one else had an inkling They all waited for a lady luck to get them a title shot Johnson figured out how to do that..If Johnson and Dempsey were same age Johnson would figured out a way to get his shot In terms of intelligence razor sharp keen mind Johnson was smarter then his contemporaries