Jess Willard/Jack Dempsey Reigns

I remember reading a contemporary newspaper account of Wills' loss to Sharkey which said that (at least in the writer's opinion) Dempsey's legacy would always suffer for not having fought Wills despite the obviousness that he would've won.

Not sure about any effort to credit a new champion though.

That's interesting, I didn't realize Maher had much of a career prior to "Politically Incorrect."

 

Apparently WW1 alleviated the pressure because some didn't think the title should be defended during wartime. At LHW title fights stopped from the summer of 1917 to the start of 1919. Of course Willard only defended his title once in the 2 years before this and this does not alleviate him at all and WW1 simply allowed him to go longer without defending his title than he otherwise would have.

I don't think he could have went 3 years without the war because unlike Dempsey he had 1 title defense. Dempsey had cleaned out the division except Wills. If you want to look at what it would take for a new champ to be crowned the precedent is the IBU having Langford and Jeanette fight after Jack Johnson fought twice in 4 years.

During Willards reign the top contenders were as follows. This is in chronological order.

Coffey
Frank Moran(who Willard beat)
Carl Morris
Fulton/Miske basically tied
Fulton/Dempsey basically tied


Of these Fulton is clearly the one there was the most pressure on Willard to fight. Fulton was Willards size and hit harder. If you have a champion whose bigger than everyone else and hits hard and then theres someone whose the same size thats naturally going to be the fight you want to see. But Wills was the top contender for the whole 3 years Dempsey was away and was supposed to fight Dempsey at the start of those 3 years. Fulton only emerges in 1917 and subsequently had his momentum stalled by losing to Texas Tate and drawing with Miske. As seen above he never seperated himself from Miske and Dempsey. Coffey and Carl Morris aren't as large as Fulton but they are close. So it was more of Willard ducking the group with Fulton being at the front.

Three LHW title fights during Willards reign were fought well over the 175 pound limit and involved Dillon v Weinart in November 1915, Carl Morris v Battling Levinsky in November 1916 and Battling Levinsky v Miske in Feburary 1917. So they weren't HW title fights but they were title fights at HW. Dillon and Levinsky were campaigning at both weight classes.

Weinart won the New Jersey HW belt the fight against Jack Savage in August 1915 before fighting Dillon(it is mentioned in an article on Savage on nj.com). Boxing rec doesn't show a NJ state title fight until 1929 and the sport isn't legal in the state at the time the fight took place. And said New Jersey fight took place in New York at MSG. So maybe that was a paper belt if so it is never mentioned again at least not that I'm aware of. Weinart would lose to not just Dillon but to Fulton and Miske twice.

If you're wondering which guys would have held alphabelt belts if they were around at the time that list above is pretty sound. And of course Texas Tate cause he beat Fulton.

 

Interesting post but I'd add Wills was far more active and dominant in the 1916 - 1919 period , no to mention his on physical prime while Wilard was champ.

 

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that none of those pre-Dempsey "white hopes" really captured the public's imagination. A lot of their fights are described as having been boring snoozefests &/or ugly foulfests. They were hyped up for a specific purpose, & once that purpose was gone (w/ Johnson's loss to Willard) they'd outstayed their usefulness.

 

Fulton seemed to have some hype around him, as he was a large dude who could punch, and wiped away many of the guys Dempsey was beating on his rise, and one more that Dempsey wouldn't face, Langford.

But then Jack put all that hype to rest with a KO1.

Still, it would have been interesting to see a confident Fulton go at Willard.

 

Yes Fulton was legit. I did see a poster claim once that his fight with Dempsey “may have been fixed” it was first and only time I had heard of that. I do believe their fight was filmed but lost.

 

One might overplay Fulton as a "large" heavyweight along the line of Willard.

Fulton appears to have been about 6' 4" the best I can tell. Occasionally credited as being an inch taller.

For the Dempsey fight in 1918, Fulton's listed weight is 208.

So Fulton was fairly big, but much smaller than Willard.

 

Reading Adam Pollack's, I do get the impression that Dempsey wanted to defend in 1922 but was unable to overcome state pressures due to continued 'slacker' unpopularity. When Pollack's third book comes out it will be interesting to see whether sorting out business with Kearn

 

The title was absolutely vacant, when Jack Dempsey announced his retirement, when negotiations with Harry Wills fell through, after the Firpo fight.

The world has a way of not letting the most exciting champions retire.

 

Tyson Fury brought the practice into the 21st century.