Harry Wills record between 1916 and 1926

Yes. Wills has been grossly underrated. Good post.

 

Wills is much overlooked, probably for a long time to keep the Dempsey Legend alive. Jack Johnson was hated and as a result, Langford is much better known for being cheated out of a title shot, while Wills deserved one for a longer period of time. Wills has a good case for a place in the top10 in my opinion.

 

Good post. Yeah, there seem to be a strong case for putting him in the top 10. For those of you who have Dempsey ahead of him - why?

 

Wills is heavyweight historys best kept secret.

The invisible man of boxing history.

He had an ugly if effective style that did not fire the public imagination. In his own time he was never really regarded as a legend in the same way that Sam Langford and Peter Jackson were.

His acomplishments on paper are huge. If rankings had existed when he turned pro, I am sure that he would have beaten as many ranked fighters as Louis or Ali over the course of his career.

Not all that is gold glitters and Harry Wills is perhaps the best example of this.

 

I personaly think that he should be in or around the top 10.

While you might rank him bellow fighters like Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano etc, he should certainly be above guys like Schmeling, Charles, Norton etc.

Its a good question.

The answer is, for the same reasons that you might rank Mike Tyson above Larry Holmes.

 

Well, I don't see any compelling reasons to tank Tyson ahead of Holmes. I certainly wouldn't have if Holmes was the outstanding contender during Tyson's reign, and Tyson ducked him.

 

They fought many of the same fighters.

Dempsey anihilated them while Wills beat them in a comprehensive but ugly manner.

Dempsey loomed large at the time while Wills is great in retrospect.

 

I don't think Dempsey, though, actually did better against common foes, as far as I can see. I ran through their records, and unless I missed someone, they had 8 common foes.

1. John Lester Johnson---Dempsey draw 10--Wills W 20, W 10, W 8

2. Willie Meehan---Dempsey L 4, W 4, D 4, D 4, L 4--Wills W 4

3. Charley Miller---Dempsey ko 1--Wills ko 1

4. Fred Fulton---Dempsey ko 1--Wills ko 3

5. Gunboat Smith---Dempsey W 4, ko 2--Wills ko 1

6. Homer Smith---Dempsey ko 1--Wills W 10

7. Luis Angel Firpo---Dempsey ko 2--Wills W 12

8. Jack Sharkey---Dempsey ko 7--Wills lost on foul 13

totals Dempsey 8-2-3 with 6 knockouts

Wills 9-1 with 3 knockouts.

I would rate this about even. Wills had the advantage against opponents he fought in the teens and the early twenties--Dempsey has the advantage against opponents Wills fought after 1924. Wills did better against John Lester Johnson and Willie Meehan. Dempsey did better against Homer Smith and Jack Sharkey. Firpo would be hard to judge. Dempsey ko'd him in 2 but was badly hurt and knocked from the ring. Wills beat him in a one-sided, but dull fight that was considered unimpressive by some. Wills lone loss came when he was very old--37. Dempsey's came in 4 round fights.

 

Wills floored firpo twice in their fight, nearly knocked firpo out in the 2nd. Wills was not knocked down twice and knocked out of the ring.

Pretty simple, tysons 1980s title reign was far more impressive, dominating, fullfilling than holmes reign

 

But he didn't knock Firpo out in the second round, Dempsey did, and knocked him down 10 times throughout the fight. Firpo was winning for maybe 10 seconds out of the whole fight. The Wills-Firpo fight was supposed to have been a dull, wrestling match.

 

That's like saying "Jackson was winning maybe 10 seconds of the Terry Norris fight!". Who cares? It's not about winning seconds, if you score a knockout you win, period. And Firpo was a lot closer to that against Dempsey than against Wills.

 

Top 15 all-time, but outside of Top 10.

 

Firpo knocked Dempsey down once in the whole fight, Dempsey wasn't even in that much trouble (And hitting his head against a type writer probably contributed to the trouble he was in), he had the sense to hold on for a while, and after a few seconds he was fighting back, in the next round he went back to dominating Firpo as much as he did at the start of the first round. Dempsey claims he was out on his feet, whether that's true or not it's not evident on film, and if he was it's even more impressive that he could continue to fight at that level in such a state. Firpo had his one moment, the rest of the fight was total domination on par with Dempsey-Willard or Foreman-Frazier. Firpo took Wills the distance, Wills apparently outclassed Firpo and won a wide decision but couldn't finish the job. Dempsey's performance against Firpo was extremly impressive and dominate, the same can probably be said of Wills' performance as well. I still think that 10 knockdowns and a 2nd round KO is more impressive than winning a 12 round lopsided decision.