If Harry Wills had been an age wise chronological contemporary of the famous black trio of Langford,McVey and Jeannette, would his win loss ratio against them have been drastically different? He would have had more experience , but they would have been more equal in age,and Langford in particular would not have been handicapped with failing eyesight. Your opinions please ?
The draw a hopelessly inexperienced Wills managed against Langford early in their series gives me hope. Wills had less experience than Dempsey did when Dempsey turned down the chance to fight Langford, and he got the draw. He would have been in the mix, I think. He had advantages that Langford found difficult to overcome in lesser fighters.
Sam's vision was impacted in 1917, by Fulton. It wasn't vision but wear, and Wills gathering experience that defined their series IMO.
No. Wills had the marbals to fight Langford in 1914 while Dempsey was so scared of taking on black fighters after john Lester Johnson that he turned down a fight with Langford in 1917 and ran out of the ring against 39 year old joe Jeanette in 1919 We will never know how good Dempsey is because he never fought the best of his era we don't know if he was the best of his ever
As is, Wills went 17-4-4 with 1 NC against these three. one can certainly argue he wouldn't have done as well if they were younger, but how well was he exactly supposed to do? Sweep these men? He ended up winning the series with all three. I think a valid question to ask is if Dempsey or any of Dempsey's opponents could have done as well as Wills fighting these men when Wills did? That certainly is an iffy proposition. *It is also possible that if Wills were more experienced and the other men less experienced, he might have done better in the early fights.
