Maybe Jess Willard was tougher than we thought

No. He was poor and his chin is overrated, because Dempsey is overrated.

 

What?

Methinks it's simply the difference between Heavyweights and non Heavyweights. But of course LaMottas p4p chin > Willard's

Also LaMotta dominated the early rounds vs Robi. Robinson was tired when he unloaded, Dempsey was fresh.

 

Yeah Robinson’s power at middleweight was overblown due almost entirely to one admittedly great, one punch KO of Fullmer.

 

Hes as tough as anyone considering the beating he took and the broken bones he had but still continued. Not many would have fought on like he did IMO

 

He was tough enough to drive back to Kansas on primitive roads with primitive suspension only a few days later. Oh, but those shattered cheekbones.

He was tough enough to quit against Joe Cox, claiming for the first time in his career a shattered cheekbone that he wouldn't allow doctors to verify.

 

Willard's talent and story are lost to history between his few very big fights. The man started his pro career very late , approx very late 20's of age, with very little formal training or management to guild him, etc .. In four or five years he was heavyweight champion of the world. That in it's own right is astonishing ..

Willard was an exceptional athlete. He was a real cowboy, a bronco buster, naturally exceptionally strong and tough. He was also very fast having been timed in a hundred yard day at a very respectable speed for his size.

Most giants tend to look clumsy and awkward on film even today .. look at Lewis vs Grant or most any Vitali fight .. that said for a raw giant I personally think Willard became much better than given credit for .. here's what we do know .. against Johnson Willard proved to be to be extremely tough, well conditioned, brave and had the ability to thrown straight, sharp punches to the head and body .. for the first fifteenth twenty rounds Johnson fought the best offensive fight we have of him on film, pounding away in combinations time and again and Willard took them and help his own till the eventual end.

Toledo and Dempey are another animal .. but that time Willard was 37, highly inactive, over confident and undertrained .. the difference in the photos of his body from Cuba are striking .. in Cuba he was a beast, in Toledo he looked like a fit middle aged man. Then there was Dempsey and the rules .. I personally see it may have been a very different fight had Dempsey not been allowed to mug Willard .. if Jack was not able to blow him out early he may have just beat him up over the distance or he may have punched himself out .. if you carefully watch the films of the third round despite being beaten to a pulp Willard was still dangerous .. who knows ..

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My point is that Willard was a bit all over the place and in addition a bit of an arrogant buffoon out of the ring as well and turned many folks off .. all that said I feel he was another legitimate guy that never maximized what he might have been but was no bum by any means.

 

Idk, he took a beating from Jack, kept getting up. He could have just said Fck it, I'm stopping down. Must have had some pride in there.

 

Robinson KO'd Randy Turpin, Rocky Graziano, Artie Levine, Bobo Olson 3x along with Iron Chinned Gene Fuller. Not to mention the only Middeweight to stop LaMotta legitimately. I don't think Robinson's power was overated.

 

I don’t think Dempsey is over rated. Think most people have him where he belongs just outside the top ten.

 

You can question some things about Dempsey but power isn't one of them. He had it. He hurt everyone he hit. I don't doubt Jess was a tough guy. His sheer size may have helped him absorb some of the punishment. He had pride and wanted to fight back.
In retrospect its amazing he lived through it.

 

I meant H2H

 

the stories about broken jaws, cheekbones, eye sockets, noses, etc are exaggerated. He didnt suffer anywhere near that much damage. He had a badly swollen cheek which was his worst injury. I would love to know how Dempsey would do in that fight if Ollie Pecord had actually forced him to observe the rules.

 

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