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

Wait did Jack Dempsey ducking his number 1 contender for 8 long years just get compared to Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity?

 

Without labeling anybody as racist, I find it fascinating the way that debates such as Jeffries Johnson and Dempsey Wills, fall along the same lines as back in the day.

 

I think it was the case back in the day.

 

Berating Jack Dempsey over and over as a racist because he did not ultimately hook up with Harry wills is not a boxing issue as you state...It is a "social issue " that has been mainly on ESB only in the 2 or so years I have been posting...In all the prior years i have been enmeshed in boxing
I never read a fraction of the vitriol targeting Jack Dempsey as I have on ESB by some posters beyond reality. Why is that ? Why is Dempsey a source of such angst whilst other great fighters i could name have done
far worse things in boxing and escape the wrath of some ESB posters ?
Every human being deserves a second chance in life short of murder and Jack Dempsey befriended many black fighters, helped them financially
when he could. This is on record, so when I read this decent and beloved
ex fighter so berated out of proportion to his misgivings 90 years after the fact, I defend his memory as I would any other fighter, who today years later is getting his ass kicked on a daily basis by some posters today...
Judge him today on his abilities in the ring against other fighters is fair game, but whatever mistake Dempsey ,Kearns, Rickard made 90 years
ago should not overshadow his greatness as a fighter and as a decent gentleman for the next 55 years of his life...Cheers.

 

P.S. Dempsey was a product of his less enlightened times as all of us are.
Things that we do today would be frowned upon by society 100 years from now...

 

The entire Tunney wills proposed fight and tunney direct challenge to wills to fight is documented to Tunney book "A man must fight.". Tunney challenge was in all the newspapers of the day so it's very well documented as is wills turning down the fight.

There is no doubt that Wills was deserving of a title shot. You are distorting boxing history by cherry picking events. Rickard did not want the fight to happen and neither did Kearns. By all accounts and both Dempsey and Wills own statements Dempsey did all he could within reason to make the fight happen. Wills stated specifically that he lays no blame on Dempsey regarding the fight not coming off. let's me write that again.....Wills did NOT blame Dempsey. Now tell everyone why Wills himself not blaming Dempsey still means Dempsey is to blame. Also find me one boxing historian or trainer of that time that blamed Dempsey for the fight not coming off. Further find me one boxing historian or trainer from that day that picked Wills to beat Dempsey.

 

I don't believe anyone called Dempsey a racist on this thread or questioning his character, it has merely been questioned if Wills was as good/better and if Wills achieved more. So yes we are judging his ability in the ring and judging the competition he fought objectively

But yes Burt, to an extent it is/was a social issue, and an injustice

 

There was an element of that, but it also boiled down to the same sort of technical arguments and arguments over interpretation.

For example the pro Johnson crowd said that Jeffries fought older and smaller oponents while Johnson was fighting the up and coming contenders. The Jeffries crowd argued that Jeffries was beating legends of the ring, while Johnson was fighting the latest hype jobs.

There were exactly the same agruments around the motives and reasons for Jeffries and Dempsey not fighting the top balck challengers.

Whatever peoples motives, the issue of race could not be extracted from the equation.

 

"You can't look back at that time period and judge by today's standard"

And why not exactly? What standard is supposed to be used? Are you saying we can't condemn witch burning as a bizarre and superstitious atrocity because, after all, ignorant folks of past centuries believed it the right thing to do?

But the issue of Dempsey ducking Wills was in fact an issue back in the 1920's and a major one in boxing.

TIME MAGAZINE 8-17-1925

"Jack Dempsey was introduced from the ring at the opening of the Olympic Stadium in Los Angeles. Booing thundered from the topmost rim of the amphitheatre, mixed with a chant of "Bring on Wills." Dempsey turned the color of an embarressed orchid and crept back to his seat."

TIME MAGAZINE 7-30-1923 In coverage of the Leonard-Tendler match at Yankee Stadium

"Noteworthy was the arrival of Harry Wills, logical candidate for a chance at Dempsey. He was cheered every step of the way from the entrance in centre field to his seat near the ring."

I think the "revisionism" was sweeping the Dempsey-Wills controversy under the rug after Dempsey retired. Modern critics are simply going back to the original controversy from the original sources.

 

I don't think Dempsey avoided Wills because he was racist. In fact, I think Dempsey was rather evolved in those matters, especially considering his origins.

Rather, I think he was more concerned with the greatest reward for the lowest risk. It's called Capitalism.