If Jess Willard had faced Joe Frazier in Kingston.?

Dempsey barely toppled Willard before the tides were beginning to turn.

Frazier, in a bad state, all of a sudden tramples that performance? Sorry, but highly unlikely. Dempsey fought the fight of his life, because he was afraid for his life.

 

Dempsey was a 180 pound threshing machine whose hook started the mountain to crumble. Joe was a 200+ pounds dynamic hook machine who still packed plenty of damage. And tho everyone wants to bury this version, his Thrilla performance was still before him, a performance good enough to topple many a heavyweight better than Willard. Frankly I see a similar outcome as Toledo, maybe a couple rounds further due to the rule differences.

 

It’s true that he had the Manila performance still ahead of him. But i think the stylistic matchup there, as opposed to the one with Willard, was more forgiving.

 

Apart from Dempsey and Firpo when Willard was 40 ,Jess was very durable and he did have a big uppercut, he might surprise a lot of people here.Frazier was bullied by Foreman, Jess might be able to replicate that.

 

1915-04-05 : Jack Johnson 225 lbs lost to Jess Willard 238½ lbs by KO at 1:26 in round 26 of 45. Can you imagine Ali purposely (as Champ Jack Johnson must have done), scheduling Willard for a 45 round fight....or Dundee yelling at Sugar Ray Leonard at the start of the 44th round, "You are blowing son, you are blowing it".

 

Barney Curley scheduled the rounds for the Johnson Willard fight.Johnson had nothing to do with the distance.

 

Good info....per McVey, who probably saw the fight "live".