Old Harry Wills Reaches The End Of The Line

"Kevin Smith"

Used to post on this board.

And took the position that the Dempsey-Wills signing was a sham and that Dempsey had no intention of ever fighting Wills, and neither did Tunney.

He left with a comment about giving the historical facts on this matter was water off a duck's back and why should he bother.

I don't think Smith has posted here for years.

 

I'm sorry for being obnoxious during a time of mourning for you. My aunt will be buried tomorrow too.

That prior post was an overly aggressive drunken one. We might not agree on the subject matter but I do respect you.

Klompton does have an agenda but he also has dug out some diamonds to be fair to him, including some of which I posted.

 

Dempsey's people knew the commission would not vote for it.

If they really wanted the match why not move the fight to another location? That's on Dempsey and his manager.

Tunney offered a match with Wills, Wills declined.

 

Fair enough on Dempsey.

While Wills didn't pursue a fight with Tunney--I have my doubts Tunney would have been interested if Wills said "okay." There seems to be plenty of good evidence offered that this fight challenge was basically a publicity gimmick.

What we know for certain is that once he became champion, Tunney made it clear in the press that he had no intention of fighting Wills (who had not yet lost to Sharkey) nor Godfrey or any other black contender, drawing the color line.

And, by the way, did Tunney ever fight any big heavyweight? regardless of color? I don't think so. Heeney was 200 lbs. but short. Dempsey was the biggest decent opponent Tunney faced. Wills or Godfrey would have been something new size-wise.

 

If Wills beat Tunney it would have been an upset, definitely, so logic says I should favour Tunney.

 

Most of Tunney's big wins were against small, shopworn fighters like Greb, Gibbons and Carpentier, plus a faded Dempsey. There's nothing at all to suggest he could handle a big, strong, skilled, experienced heavyweight like Wills.

 

Just his regard at the time and how good he looks on film.

But his hw resume is flimsy.

 

You could argue the finding he posted puts Dempsey in a better light as Rickard is arguing a case for Tunney as an opponent above Wills, meaning Dempsey maybe was actually considering Wills.

But there's no way the Tunney challenge to Wills was real given the agreement with Dempsey was already in place

Klompton's vilification of Tunney is odd given Greb actually seemed to be fond of him from what I've read.

This has been rebutted. Telegrams in a court of law proved Tunney had agreed to fight Dempsey before his supposed media challenge to fight Wills.

Not in the era and time it happened he wouldn't. One of the NYSAC commissioners claimed Dempsey should use Tunney as a 'warm up' for a Wills fight to see if he's still of fighting shape.

Retrospectively off Wills performances later than perhaps.

 

Wills had changed allot as a boxer from his early wars with Langford where he looked for early KOs and fought. In his KO loss to Langford he knocked over Langford about 10 or 12 times (according to him, boxrec states 4 times) and claimed to have won every second of their bout up until Langford pulled out a KO win. But that second bout was certainly action packed and brutal fight.

Wills scored many bodypunch KOs, some of which included Langford (at least x2), Fulton and Kid Norfolk amongst others.

After that in his mid 30s he became far more conservative, throwing less and boxing more conservatively. Comparatively he evolved into a John Ruiz type.

I don't think we can call Wills prime beyond the Norfok bout.

Wills first challenge for the title, was when he went to Cuba looking to challenge the Johnson-Willard winner but he couldn't officially challenge the winner as he didn't have a promoter to aid him.

In he first 2 bouts he drew or according to one paper beat Jeanette when he was 33/34, Wills probably wasn't prime as he was less experienced