In the United States, and possibly some other countries. But can you say for certain that a Dempsey-Wills fight could not have been staged in Paris? for example. Johnson and Moran fought there. Carpentier and Siki fought there.
So am I to a degree. Who exactly is taking the position that Wills is Dempsey's kryptonite and would have been the easy winner? McGrain? Seamus? even working down to the bottom of the list, me? I don't recall posts claiming Wills a certain winner over Dempsey. What I do recall is a ton of posts that Wills was the outstanding contender, and the color line prevented the fight, with Dempsey and his managers not willing to go around the color line to make the fight happen. Like staging this fight in another country. Admittedly, they would have had to go out of their way to make this fight a reality, but I wonder if it would have been any more out of the way to go to Paris than it was to a nowhere venue like Shelby, Montana.
I believe the pay scales of those previous fight left a lot to be desired for a possible Dempsey fight or maybe it was cos he just didn't want to fight in Europe, he was offered decent to fight in France vs Carp and in the UK vs slected Brit's.
He turned down easy money by not fighting Carp 2 or the brits. In the Shelby fight they were offered 300k, cos of Kearns' stipulating that the money was paid up front, that's why they took it. Kearns I believe was getting 50% of what Dempsey made, so it would've been hard to turn down 50k up front. If you have more on Dempsey's European trip I would love to read more about it. From the little I read on it they seemed to be having fun.
So what you are saying is that Dempsey knows, (or should have known) that the fight probably could not be staged in the USA--perhaps a dubious position by the mid-twenties in the state of New York, but let's accept it as unquestionably true--not being willing to fight in Europe (or perhaps out of the US at all) rules out the fight. Some might say that Hank Williams summed up Dempsey's actions in a song, "the moon is going behind a cloud to hide her face and cry" The cloud being racism and the color line. Dempsey himself might not be racist, but he in effect is using the color line to avoid a dangerous contender.
It's just the vibe I've been getting from the entire time I've been on the forum whenever Dempsey and Wills are being discussed.
The argument seems to be that there is more money in Shelby, Montana than in Paris, France. Somehow, this seems weird on the face of it. But there is a bottom line. If money is your goal, you can make money, perhaps more by not fighting at all and appearing in movies and the like. But if legacy is at least one of your goals, fighting the top contenders out there matters. If Dempsey chose money, and not fighting for 3 full years indicates he did, and this negatively impacts his historical ranking, well, tough.
Ed, you are a reasonable poster and I look forward to rational arguments whether I agree or not. I don't think it was as simple as that he was avoiding a dangerous contender. If you can read the fight reports, and watch the youtube fights. You will find that Wills tended to clinch, grab and hold, hit on the break, he also dogged in some fights when the going got rough. He was mediocre at best, he was slow and hittable. He was far from dangerous for Dempsey.
"greatest p4p fighter ever to live" The term was invented for Sugar Ray Robinson. We really don't know how, or even if, Langford ever thought in p4p terms. If he felt Dempsey was the best heavyweight he had seen, it might well be natural for Sam to also consider him the best fighter as it is pretty obvious that big men beat little men. Joe Gans wasn't likely to beat Dempsey (or for that matter Jeffries or Johnson) in the real world, and in that sense Dempsey was definitely a better fighter than Gans.
"read the fight reports" Wills was impressive in some fights. "you tube fights" In all of which he is at least 35 or older. "He was mediocre at best" Except for Sharkey, whom he fought at 37, I think he has a better record against common opponents than Dempsey. "mediocre" is a relative term. If you want to call him that, a critic might ask what does that make Dempsey?
That's not true. I've seen it in old newspapers regarding Bob Fitzsimmons and Sam Langford, Joe Gans and even Jack Blackburn, before it was applied to Robinson. Grantland Rice certainly used the term in his columns, before Robinson was deemed that status.
I've seen it too. I don't know if they use the exact term "Pound for Pound," but they allude to the concept. Perhaps the expression they used was "Regardless of size"
Okay, You seem to know more about this than me, so I'm certain you are right. I was frankly going by the modern writers consistently saying the term was invented for Robinson, but they might just be wrong. But I think my point is still valid. Is there evidence Langford thought in those terms? If there is no evidence, you can't interpret his remarks as reflecting p4p thinking. *bottom line, though, is that you have to know the guy is thinking in a p4p way to use that interpretation. If someone is asked in 1903 who the greatest active fighter is, and says Jeffries, it doesn't automatically that he considers Jeffries a more skilled fighter, or better p4p, than Joe Gans.
Yes, they used all those kinds of terms, but "pound for pound" as well as "pound against pound" were used before Robinson was around. Here's something from 1938 quoting Grantland Rice's column after the Armstrong - Ross fight : [url]https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2211&dat=19380611&id=zwQnAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SAMGAAAAIBAJ&pg=2345,3455920&hl=en[/url] "Pound for pound, I have never seen his equal."
Thanks for this. Shows the term goes back at least to Armstrong and before Robinson came along. One good thing about this board is that you learn things.
