Harry Wills In Place of Jersey Joe?

In Roger Khan’s excellent biography of Jack Dempsey, he observes that while the skills of Georges Carpentier have dimmed over the decades, the skills of Harry Wills have grown.

He also quotes Trainer Ray Arcel in describing Wills as “a very good journeyman.” Arcel, who had apprenticed with Wills’ trainer Dai Dollings, also told referee Arthur Mercante, “Wills was big and none too fast. It was a terrible injustice that Wills never got a title shot, but those big, slower guys were made to order for Dempsey.” So you see there is a strong link between Wills and Arcel. He was not some outsider as you try to make him to be. He knew the players here as well as their strengths and Weaknesses. He gave Wills little chance. Don’t ignore expert testimony from that time frame nonetheless!

The sportswriter James P. Dawson, who wrote for The New York Times, testified, “Dempsey would have annihilated Wills four years ago, three years ago, or a year ago.”

 

You didn't answer the question.

Do you have your own opinion?

 

Dempsey, Wills, and their managers did not create the racial problems of that time which were beyond today’s imagination. The players here were caught up in it.

They were hopelessly wrapped up in the aftermath of Jack Johnson. Johnson’s win over Burns caused a racist campaign to drive Johnson out of boxing. First via trying to beatJohnson in the ring which was unsuccessful and then by prosecuting Johnson in the courts. But Johnson actions outside the ring did not help spurring further hatred towards the champion.

Rickard has been singled out as the culprit for blocking the Dempsey-Wills fight. There is no question that he did not want a black man to fight for the heavyweight championship again but one needs to put themselves in his place during THAT time period. Rickard the evidence strongly suggests simply didn’t want to be involved in another controversial title fight for legit reasons. The motivation for this stemmed from his experience promoting the Johnson-Jeffries fight in 1910. He had had pulled every string to make this fight happen. He even moved the fight from California to Nevada when California’s governor barred it. His reward? He witnessed race riots following the event and HE was one of those blamed. He abandoned boxing for six years after this bout.

It’s easy for us to look 90 years into past and cast judgment. Unfair judgement by the way via revisionism as this history is very well understood. Big as boxing had become in the 20’s, Rickard and the promoters were still at the mercy of politics. Even if the fight ended fair and square for either boxer race relations were bad enough so that no one knew what the public reaction might be. There was so much at stake, a huge amount of money to lose, social and political impact and possibly jail! Race riots were not going to be an option.

So one needs to understand not only the history surrounding the failure of this bout to occur BUT ALSO American history from this time. They are, as typical with historical events, closely linked.

 

We get that you cut and paste 101 crap but refuse to make a definitive statement to a direct, pertinent question to personalize your regurgitation. I repeat, what performance of Dempsey's do you base his all time top greatness on and why ? Talk or walk ..

 

Totally predictable . Is this the best you have ? .. the Kahn book, not only the worst Dempsey bio but up there with Arcel as a lovefest .. try some objective reading .. it's embarrassing ..

 

Everyone should be embarrassed for YOU by ignoring history and instead interjecting opinion. History speaks you just need to be willing to do the work.

 

I honestly don't even think he understands the question. He's like someone reading 101 versions of fifty year old grade school text books and parroting the positions as indisputable facts, astonished they can be challenged. .. I don't mean to cut the guy up but it is in response to his personalized attach on my subjective position on Dempsey who I said I clearly like.

 

OK, so you have nothing .. no surprise. This is done.

 

No you have nothing and it’s clear from your responses you want to ignore history because it does not conform to your preconceived opinions. Ignorant opinions BTW.

Let me give you a lesson on YOUR history. For years you had such an ignorant opinion concerning Dempsey anytime Dempsey Sharkey was discussed your would state many time in bold letters that the three body blows Dempsey landed prior to the KO blow landed in Sharkeys balls. Then one day someone posted the film of the KO sequence and challenged you to show everyone those punches to Sharkeys balls. Of course you could not as there is absolutely no evidence that those blows struck Sharkey in that area. So my question to you is the following:

Did you never watch the film of the fight or did you just not know where your balls are?

Your credibility on the subject of Dempsey is non existent. Expert opinion from that time is very clear as to his greatness.

 

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Wills was 29 when he fought Smith.

 

Fighters age differently, since some fighters are done at even younger than 29 years of age. Boxrec has about 40-50 of his fights missing and by the age of 29 Wills already had well over 500 rounds and almost 100 fights under his belt. It also didn't help that he was pretty much fighting tough competition regularly and fighting a lot of rematches, which is even tougher. To give a comparison Wlad at the same age only had around 50 fights at the same age and ended his career at 41 years old with less than 400 rounds under his belt.

Plenty of excellent fighters were done as fighters at 29 years and were pretty much just clinging on to the sport such as Jerry Quarry, Joe Frazier, Ernie Terrell, and Roland LaStarza and many many others.

 

Wills fought Smith in1921 in1924 and 25 he was the number one contender! How is that a "pretty much used up fighter "?
Where do you get this idea he had 40/50 fights that are not recorded? Where did you read that?

 

By this time period Wills had a strong name and was matched much easier, which allowed him to keep winning in spite of him being a used up fighter. Pacquiao is pretty much a used up fighter, but through careful matchmaking has been able to still have some success. My Grandfather's promoter Mickey Davies was a master at taking fighters with good names, but well past their physical primes and keeping them good as a credible opponent through careful matchmaking until feeding them to a young top contender or champion, which is what was done with Wills.

Also, from an old obituary from the Chicago Defender it listed about 140 fights for Wills and said that the fight record was incomplete. About 20 of them were no decision bouts. Also, around 1924 in an old paper Wills himself mentioned having around 100 fights bouts and he still fought on for years. Boxrec has a weird criteria on what they count and don't count for fights, since Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey also had well over 100 fights, but have such incomplete fight records on boxrec.

 

AdamPollack wrote two intensively researched biographies of Jack Johnson ,he failed to turn up these fights you mention. Fighters say all kinds of things and papers print what they say , Bob Fitzsimmons claimed he had over 300 bouts.That isnt proof or evidence of any kind.
I would agree Wills was carefully matched during Dempsey's title reign.