Full Timeline of Dempsey-Wills - Evidence of Dempsey-Wills Contract Photo Staged?

No argument from me, but I don't think he was specifically avoiding Wills, I think he simply "went Hollywood" Growing up riding the rails and fighting in saloons and then all of a sudden becoming the biggest name in sports, is bound to affect most people in their 20's. It's still happening today, Tyson's a good example. In fact, I think there's enough evidence posted on this thread, to show that Dempsey was more than willing to fight Wills, but he needed a promoter and he needed to get paid fair market value for his services, and neither of these conditions appear to have been met.

 

:good

 

You are talking apples and oranges. Arum and King worked in an era of exclusive contracts. Rickard had no exclusive contract with Dempsey. Dempsey was a free agent as far as promoters were concerned and could fight for anyone he wanted, and did as evidenced by him fighting for both Mike Collins and Floyd Fitzimmons as champion in two of his five successful title defenses. You can sit there and say "I haven't seen any evidence of this" but that's tantamount to closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears. Its a pure statement of fact that throughout his reign there were dozens of offers from dozens of promoters to stage the fight or a fight with Greb and Dempsey simply ignored them or walked away unless he was guaranteed to NOT have to go through with it. This was the case BOTH times he put his name to paper. That's an indisputable fact and one which is readily available to anyone willing to do the legwork. Hell, the first time Dempsey freely admits in his biography that the contract was written specifically to make it look like he was going to fight but let him out of it. Whatever, it gets old talking about an overrated protected chicken **** who somehow got this legendary reputation by beating a bunch of has beens, light heavyweights, a dying man, and big plodding punching bag. Anyone with half a brain can look at Dempsey's resume and see its underwhelming. Anyone with half a brain can read the newspapers of the time and realize the guy wasn't fighting the best challengers available to him. Anyone with less than half a brain can sit there and marvel at him beating the no-hopers and setups he beat and imagine him doing the exact same thing to talented HWs, doesn't make it so.

 

At what point does fair market value become pricing yourself out of a fight. When you are demanding three times more than the highest purse in the history of the sport to face a guy you've been ducking for years and nobody can come up with the money then that's not "fair market value." I think you need to go back and research economics.

 

It is only fair to note that Gene Tunney received more or less the sum that he was asking for his first title defence.

Don’t we have to infer from this that it was a realistic request?

 

Well I will admit to not cracking my econ books much over the last 25 years or so, but The Economist is one of my favorite magazines so I do think I have a handle on the basics.


But back to the question, which is that there was a signed contract, and promises were made that a fight would take place, if the monies agreed upon actually materialized, sadly that never happened. If anyone has a right to scream and complain one would presume it would be Wills, but my understanding of things is that Wills really doesn't dispute any of this and he himself doesn't blame Dempsey for the fight not taking place. So do you now think 80-90 years later he needs surrogates to help put forth his case?

Personally I thought the link McVey put forth was compelling enough to put the issue to rest, but apparently not.

I'm not in the "I love Dempsey" camp and he could do no wrong, but on this particular issue, there really doesn't seem to be a basis in which to criticize him so harshly. You've certainly not put forth anything compelling other than just rants.

 

It doesn't matter whether or not it was exclusive, why on earth you'd you want to **** off the guy who's made you millions and was the biggest promoter in the country?

You're certainly not going to do that just on moral grounds, and it might even be in your best financial interest to fight the fighters he wishes you to fight.

 

Again this is your opinion, funny how these no hopers, set ups made Greb the best MW in the HW division

 

You see again you show no basic knowledge of the business of boxing. Pure and simple spectulation on your part, not a fact. I didn't see any purse offer in that contract, what it said was if he believes the offer to be fair. You posted this yourself. Please post where Dempsey asked for 1.5 million or more to fight Wills or Greb.
Like Dempsey post something that is a fact not someone's opinion.

 

I also have a serious problem with the Floyd Fitzsimmons conspiracy hypothesis.

It implies that Fitzsimmons organised the fight, and then gave Dempsey a cheque that bounced, so it would look like he had double crossed Dempsey, thus leaving Dempsey blameless.

If people bought the ruse then obviously Dempsey would look good, but Fitzsimmons would look even worse than if they didn’t buy it.

Fitzsimmons reputation would be damaged whatever view people took, so what was he getting out of the deal?

The only explanation that I can see for Fitzsimmons actions is that he didn’t have the money to pay the fighters, but hoped that he could get them so heavily committed that they would be unable to pull out.

 

Bingo. I think he was hoping the proceeds for the gate would have resolved the issue after the fact and that the fighters would be so committed in terms of time, and their training costs that they would go along with this idea.


King did something very similar when Ali-Foreman fought, he had the government of Zaire fund the fight because King had no funds of his own.