Who would have won between Dempsey and Greb? Who would have won between Dempsey and Wills? We will never know, Dempsey did not beat the best of his era Marciano DID
I guess we can never know if Rocky Marciano would have beaten Cesar Brion, because they never fought.
You do realize tha Tunney challenged Wills openly and this made headlines in all the newspapers. The winner to fight Dempsey. Wills refused. Instead Tunney fought Gibbons for the right to fight for the championship. The powers that be would probably never allow Wills to fight for the title but certainly Wills did himself no good by refusing the title eliminator vs Tunney. Dempsey signed to fight Wills twice perhaps three times earlier only to have the fight fall through
I am actually going to defend Wills here. He had already won three title eliminators, and he might have suspected, that the powers that be were just going to match him against the top white contenders, until they got the result they wanted. The New York State Athletic Commission were highly disingenuous, in that they demanded that Dempsey fight Wills, then refused to sanction the bout.
Did Cesar brion easily defeat Archie Moore Ezzard Charles Joe Louis Jersey Joe Walcott and establish himself the overwhelming best contender the way Wills did? The way Greb did There were two outstanding contenders in dempseys era and NO ONE was a close third. Gibbons Miske firpo Brennan were far behind wills and Greb
Wills was in a no win situation. The point however is that Dempsey had nothing to do with any of this.
Let me play devils advocate here. Wills split a series with one of Dempsey's sparring partners during this period, and he would go on to loose to Jack Sharkey, who Dempsey of course beat. In any event, he built is standing as leading contender, on Dempsey's victims. Greb went 2-2 with Gibbons, and arguably lost one against Miske. My point is, that there is always more to an era, than two contenders.
1- Dempsey would murder the straight up slower Harry Wills.. Though they signed for this bout they never fought as the Michigan promoter Fitzsimmons could not come up with the promised funds...Dempsey would have been a prohibitive favorite over Wills who was flattened later on by Paolino Uzcudin the Spanish Basque in case you care... 2- My favourite fighter of alltime was Harry Greb. Hands down... But I cannot envision even the great MW Harry Greb lasting the full distance against the Dempsey of his prime...Greb would have been 25 pounds lighter than the powerful and swift Dempsey pre 1923 and many years ago in an old Ring Mag in a column written by a famous boxing writer whose name escapes me now, Harry Greb in an interview probably conducted after Greb retired, Harry said " after 5 or 6 rounds Dempsey would kill me " ... Read this I did...If you get over your paranoid bias against Dempsey and watch some herky jerky clips of the pre 1923 Dempsey you will see a lihe, powerful tiger in the ring that captivated the boxing world of the roaring twenties as no other fighter before or after... Rough and tough was he who gave no quarters and asked for no quarters in return. After he a hobo hooked up with Jack Kearns Dempsey became the fighter who Damon Runyon nicknamed the Manassa Mauler for a good reason...
Langford who fought Wills so many times stated his money would be on Dempsey if they were to fight. Arcel felt Dempsey would beat Wills also. In a short bout or sparring session Greb could make many look foolish. In a long bout I don't believe anyone envisioned any middleweight could beat Dempsey. He could KO hwts with one blow. What would those same blows do to a 165 pounder?
Wills fought Langford all those times and Dempsey never even fought him once :-(. JAck didn't want to fight a black fighter again after john Lester Johnson broke his ribs in 1916. Langford offered a fight with dempsey in 1917, Dempsey turned it down.
Knock off the "Murican" comments, you sc*mbag chav. Same nonsense from you in every thread. It never ends. But then again, not surprising coming from council estate garbage like you.
So you think Dempsey was afraid of black fighters? Wonder why he had so many as sparring partners including one,George Godfrey that Wills refused to fight.:think
Where would you put your money Suze? I would bet that Dempsey ko's both. Greb would maybe make Jack look silly for a few rounds but when Dempsey finds the range he stops him . Wills I see going out early, too slow for the tiger.
When did this happen?? By the time Dempsey was with Kearns in 1917, he would have fought whoever Kearns put in front of him..I don't ever remember Dempsey referring to Lester as black..if thats the case how can you be sure Dempsey even noticed his skin color..All the times Dempsey talked about JLJ Never once mentioning his skin color, while you always mention JLJ's skin color. You know who else always are mentioning peoples skin color and never fail to notice skin color?? Racist notice skin color..I read George Foremans autobiography he never referred to anyone by the color of their skin.....But racism like prejudice is usually caused by ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity It is just a lack of knowledge or a presumption of knowing something because a person never took the time to do the research to correct an opinion, no matter how wrong it is ..Like Wilt Chamberlin saying he had *** with all these women.. Wilt probably assumed he would be first on everyone's greatest NBA player of all time once he said that.. Never thinking someone might do the math and realize the impossibility of the statement..But even if it was only 9999 women not 10000 women i think thats way cool
