Harry Wills fought 43 fights from 1919 to 1925 who really had a chance

Considering that many people here call Firpo a "bum" and an "amateur" and a "stiff" among other things, Willard was just a "farmhand" and an "oaf", and Dempsey's labelled a "fraud" ........ it's strange if they would protest Harry Wills being termed a "journeyman".

 

"NY commission rules"

Wasn't Wills-Firpo in New Jersey?

 

This is a good point,

but I don't use terms like that for champions and top contenders myself,

or at least I hope I never have, and if I ever have, I was totally in error to do so.

 

I lived through the Machen, Folley, and Lyle careers from beginning to end and read the American boxing mags-The Ring, The Police Gazette, Boxing Illustrated, and the True Magazine Yearly Almanacs,

and don't remember any of those men being referred to as journeymen.


Just on Wills, The Ring magazine staff rated him the 16th all time best heavyweight in 1999.

If he is a journeyman, almost everyone is, and the term becomes meaningless.


*there were/is a certain group of snarky, smart-aleck columnists whose bag is stirring the pot by slamming top athletes. I could buy one of those guys using a term like journeyman for Machen or Folley. But a serious, main-stream writer? No.

I recall a columnist up in the Twin Cities whose three favorite descriptions for the baseball player Harmon Killebrew was "bald" and "fat" and "stinks"--poor old Harm could never do anything good for this guy, even while he was leading the league in homers.

Well, he had a job and I guess it sold papers.

 

You're right.
The rules may have been different there.

Either way, whether the blow was legal or illegal, the fact that it was a punch on the break should have been noted in reports.

For the reporters to miss that or simply fail to report it as such makes their description of events serious inadequate.

 

Vreeland did report it.

It is just that he approved of it.

One thing I noticed is that while the referee was moving in and breaking them, Wills pulled himself free and kept punching. It might have fallen into some sort of gray area under the standards of the time.

 

I don't think journeyman is a disparaging term. Even in Thomas Hauser's Muhammad Ali Life and Times book, Zora Folley is described as a journeyman.
There's no way Hauser was trying to degrade Folley in any way.

If Harry Wills is the 16th greatest heavyweight of all time he's very probably better than any good journeyman. I agree.
Whether he deserves such a high rating is debatable.

 

It's all fair it you get away with it. :good

 

The same issue of The Ring which rated Wills #16 all time rated Folley #38 all time,

just ahead of Johansson.

If you are in the top fifty of all time and rated ahead of champions

and if it is correct to call you a "journeyman" the term has lost any useful meaning at all in my judgment.

As a lot of one-time top contenders aren't rated this high on all-time lists, "journeyman" seems to imply something better than a top contender.

"There's no way Hauser was trying to degrade Folley in any way."

Whatever his intentions, this is a putdown for a boxer of Folley's status. The definition I quoted on an earlier post isn't mine. It is what generally the term journeyman refers to, and it is not top boxers over a decade or more.

 

I suppose journeyman could describe a solid contender with solid skills, and that historical ratings are largely based on CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENT.

Therefore, a journeyman contender could end up rated highly historically if he had a long career, stayed at the top of his game for years, and gathered a lot of career accomplishments over time.

In contrast, perhaps a more "brilliant" or "phenomenal" performer would end up without a historical rating because he shined bright too briefly and just didn't achieve much.

 

Unforgiven

This does remind me of the essay on language by George Orwell and how terms are drained of any real meaning. He was talking about politics and words like "left" and "right" which are tossed around as substitutes for thought.

I wouldn't say anyone using journeyman like this doesn't know boxing, but they are misusing the language. Orwell put it that imprecise language is like falling snow covering the landscape and obscuring everything that is there under a blanket of endless whiteness and sameness.

 

Yes, I agree, but there seems to be debate over what the precise meaning of journeyman is.

I tend to believe that the term has been misused so much that the status of "journeyman" has been downgraded.

If we look at the original meaning of the word, a journeyman is someone who has served the apprenticeship, acquired all the skills of a professional craftsman, is a GOOD craftsman, but is not quite at the level of a master craftsman.

Transferred to boxing, I think that could include many contenders.
And I think a journeyman in any profession could have a formidable resume and career if they keep working and get the right jobs.

I'm attempting to put the meaning back into the word, rather than drain it.
I think it has suffered as a result of misuse.
And wikipedia should not be the standard to which we defer. :good

 

Hype Igoe

Davis J. Walsh (International News Service)

Henry L. Farrell (United Press)

John Romano (as Fair Play)

Jack Kearns (for Christy Walsh Syndicate)

William A. Rafter (sporting editor of Brooklyn Standard Union)

Benny Leonard

Only Robert Edgren showed either his lack of understanding of boxing rules or a preference of British rules regarding the clinch:

 

Thanks, Senya. :good
Nice to see several of the reports do acknowledge the break.

I tend to think Edgren's description is fairly accurate, at least from what I can see on the film.
Wills doesn't quite "brush the referee aside", but he is throwing his punch while the referee is still somewhat between him and Firpo and with his arms outstretched.
Wills hit on the break.