Is it feasible to rank Wills over Dempsey in an ATG list?

How about when you lose a title defence as Wills did to Tate?
Who is then the champion?

Both Tate and Wills claimed the title ,who was considered the better is irrelevant.

 

I'm not in any way arguing that Wills was not the standout challenger for Dempsey's title ,or that he deserved his shot.
I'm saying his status as Coloured Champion is unclear after he lost to Tate ,and then subsequently drew with him.

 

Exactly I've looked into this time quite a lot and wills was not seen as losing his status at all. I'm not sure how legit the dq was but it certainly didn't stop him being the top HW.

Now it's seen more as a hiccup, like Huck v arslan I scored a draw but I wouldn't call arslan the next best cw after Huck.

 

Oh come on, the Tate DQ was a fluke and effectively a NC after Wills had beat him how many times? Not to mention DQs/retirements didn't tend to see a passing of a title in these days and hence the rematch, it is pretty much a ND. Tate was a decent fighter too, probably with an incomplete record and a win over Langford

Whether the 'Afro Amercian' is biased or not has to be weighted against racial perceptions and biases from the white press. It doesn't change the facts that Wills successfully took the New York Commission and Dempsey to the Supreme Court

Anyway as requested and as posted earlier


200k offer

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...+dempsey&hl=en

More on the 200k offer

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...D9405B828EF1D3

I believe this is for a bout in London, so no need to worry about race riots, yet it still didn't happen for some reason....

 

Interesting discussion.

One thing--yes, some are not accepting the point of view of the 1920's in 2012.

nothing wrong with that--each generation asks different questions of the past. The opinions of the 1920's are not frozen in marble as Truth for all time. We are not like the Bourbons "who learned nothing and forgot nothing"

White sportswriters of the 1920's were certain Dempsey would defeat Wills. Perhaps, but then Tommy Burns was a 6 to 4 pick in 1908 over Jack Johnson and that fight was not even close.

Sam Langford picks Dempsey--okay, but if I were Wills I would have paid Langford to pick Dempsey in order to minimize my potential threat to the champion. It was not wise for a black fighter in those days to be "too good"--many thought Wills carried Bartley Madden and Firpo for exactly that reason. Perhaps, and perhaps Wills was just aging.

Dempsey was the champion and champions can only lose the title in the ring--Dempsey was the official champion, but he could hardly lose the title in the ring if he didn't get into the ring.

From the point of view of 2012, it is certainly a valid issue whether Dempsey gave his top challenger a shot and if he avoided that fight and how this failure affects his legacy.

 

He did not avoid the fight...he signed to fight Wills twice.

Both Langford and Johnson picked Dempey to beat Wills. Johnson stated Dempsey would win within 3 rounds.

Ray Arcel, one of boxings great all time trainers picked Dempsey to beat Wills as did the premier boxing Historian Nat Fleischer. Many others.

Known history can't be rewritten. Past events can't be looked upon by todays standards. Dempsey was rated by all those that saw him as one of the greatest hwts ever. Who are you to think for a second that you know more than the great trainers, writers and historians from that time period that saw him live not via silent film quality footage.

It was common for champions to take the title on the road making money via exhibitions or via public appearances. Corbett went on stage as an actor, Dempsey appeared in movies ....again you can't look back at that time period and judge by todays standards.

Wills was offered a fight with Tunney...the winner getting a shot at Dempsey....this is well documented by Fleischer and Tunney in his book... A man must fight. Tunney then challenged Wills to fight but Wills again declined. Tunney then was matched with Gibbons with the winner to fight Dempsey for the title. Tunney won and went on to beat Dempsey in 1926.

 

Rickard controlled who Dempsey would fight. There could have been a million $ offer and if Rickard did not want the fight there would not be a fight. Rickard as well as Kearns were the stumbling blocks. This is WELL documented by Fleischer............................. "50 years at ringside"

Once again there is no idea back in those days that by beating Wills the title would be "unified" You are again mixing up todays unification of titles and the worlds hwt championship/colored hwt championship. These were separate and distinct titles that would never be unified and that WAS the thought of the day. If Dempsey KOed Wills in round 1 Wills would still have been the colored hwt champion the next day.

 

it's not like dempsey could have won the coloured heavyweight title...could he? :huh

 

H, I agree with you that ESB has become by some posters a forum to
flog caucasian fighters especially Jack Dempsey...I have gone through the mill since i started on ESB innocently thinking that it was a site to discuss the great history of boxing, mano against mano, but was I wrong...It has become a forum by some to inject their white guilt on primarily Jack Dempsey who was a product of his time to make themselves feel somewhat nobler than you or I...Speaking for myself only ,and to you
out there regurgitating your damn hatred of Dempsey, I will not back down ever til my health prevents me from posting what I believe from the heart,
that i love justice, hate bigotry, love the underdog, but abhor bleeding heart misguided posters who have a clinical hatred for Jack Dempsey
bordering on the absurd....Reading and watching ringside fights from the 1940s on, they have crusaded to eviscerate the memory of a great fighter and decent man Jack Dempsey on ESB since my time here 2 years or so ago that
I HAVE NEVER READ OR HEARD the previous 60 years since I have followed the sport I loved....They ,[a handfull] don't know squat compared to the
great writers, fighters, trainers who had seen Dempsey and his times who
thought of him as a great heavyweight and a fine and humble gentleman til the day he died... Only on ESB, yes only on ESB....Cheers Houdini.:good:good

 

Jesus Christ. Grow up the pair of you.

It is not hatred to think wills has a shot of victory. It is not hatred to say whilst jack was the white champ, wills was the black champ.

 

Thinking or believing Wills should have had his shot IS boxing history. Implying that Dempsey could have walked away from Rickard and Kearns and in reality his entire management/ promotion team and run over to Europe to fight Wills is revisionism. The idea that Wills was a greater hwt than Dempsey is just plain ignorance. Very few believed Wills had a chance including Johnson and Langford. Like Burt in all my years of studying boxing history I have never come across so many who are unaware of boxing history and are so quick to try and change boxing history. The poster who wrote about unification of the worlds hwt championship and colored hwt championship gets the prize for most uninformed thought of the day!

 

You're making a fool of yourself. Wills had already beaten Fulton and Firpo for his shot at title that he was legally entitled too as declared by the Supreme Court. Kearns and co said they were final eliminators, so why would he fight Tunney and was the Tunney match ever really on the table, where's the evidence Wills turned it down?

Again stop twisting history, if you're saying history is being distorted, which of the following sourced facts do you dispute?

The facts:

1. Dempsey turned down 200k to fight Wills, the offers were coming from London making the American commision irrelevant
2. Wills had to take the NY Commisson and Dempsey to the Supreme Court to force his status as mandatory challenger after Dempsey wouldn't agree to a fixed fight contract
3. Wills looked to force a fight by having an injunction against the Firpo fight.
4. Because of this Dempsey says he'll never fight Wills
5. Rickard says Dempsey will fight Wills the following October, nothing happens, Dempsey doesn't fight that year
6. The NYC Commission demands Dempsey to sign a contract after Wills successfully sues them
7. Kearns says Dempsey will only fight Wills if the commission financed the fight
8. Dempsey signs to fight Wills with his friend Floyd Fitzsimmons but renegades on it, it turns out the whole fight contract is a sham and there is evidence Dempsey. Dempsey instead fights Tunney who was the second opponent the commission would accept, yet Rickard was planning this fight before Wills-Dempsey fell through
9. No other attempt by Dempsey or his management is made to make the fight

Let's guess you avoid the actual historic facts of the time to blabber on about revisionism, yet again with none of your points sourced

 

Mc, I HAVE as much right to my beliefs as you have,and speaking for myself I will defend what I think is right, and until I am kicked off the ESB forum my honest opinion spoken from the heart will be heard...I am not a writer nor a crusader ,merely a lover of boxing history who feels that Jack Dempsey,coming from an evolving time in history has been a whipping boy
by some posters to assuage white "guilt"...By today's standards an Albert Einstein would be a run of the mill physicist compared to the top cosmologists of today who know so much more today than Einstein and his contemporaries...Life and knowledge is an evolving process and Jack Dempsey was not Atilla the Hun as some posters flaglate him unmercifully
day in and day out make him out to be....You state that "this is ridiculous banter", and i agree, but not from I who try to be fair to a great fighter who was no worse or no better than myriads of fighters of his time and after...Dempsey did sign to fight Wills, photos show that, Wills DID deserve a shot, sure did, Rickard who was the guru of that time refused to match them so a Michigan promoter tried to by signing up Dempsey and Wills to a bout but he couldn't come up with the rest of the money ans
the bout was canceled...So on this fact should a decent chap as Dempsey was, be today villified by some posters on a daily basis though Jack befriended many black fighters of his time / Is this not OVERKILL ?
I think so, and if political correctness today wishes me out of ESB for
expressing my sincere thoughts, so be it....