Great Fighter. Had Longevity. His war with Sam Mcvea was an all time great classic. I rate him behind wills and langford, right alongside Mcvea
What a tough guy .. stamina, chin, heart off the chart .. has to be an all time top five under 200 pounds in a distance bout .. in addition a class act and a terrific representative of the sport.
Of course you do. You’ve never rated Wills highly for obvious reasons. Had Dempsey fought and knocked out Wills, you’d probably rate wills top 15 all time
No I don't work that way, I just think Jeannette's record is better, he beat prime versions of the other three, Wills never did.I rate Harry Wills as a top heavyweight of the early20's, just not as good as Jeannette. Don't project your obvious biased prejudices onto me.
You have your own mcvey. I’ve never heard you make a positive comment in Marciano Moore thread with bringing up one of your Archie Quotes “my legs were gone” I believe wills rates top 20 all time. IBRO rated him number 17 heavyweight of all time. IBRO is made up of a panel of historians and experts. Wills was rated above Jeanette. I think the fact a near prime 1913 joe Jeanette wasn’t able to defeat a very green Harry Wills speaks volumes on who was better prime for prime
I've called Marciano a great champion ,a great fighter, a man who ducked nobody, and a fine human being.The quote about Moore having no legs is a direct quote from a taped interview Moore gave to Pete Heller at his SanDiego home inOctober 1970 .NOT ONE OF MINE ! If you disagree with it take it up with Moore and Heller not me! IBRO is made up of a cross section of fans who think it worthwhile paying ex amount of $$ so they can say they are members NO QUALIFICATIONS ARE REQUIRED TO BE A MEMBER. Have you read the report of the Jeannette v Wills 1913 fight ? I have. Here is a snippet from the 1915 Jeannette v Langford fight. "Langford carried, as usual, his large supply of fat about his body, but it did not seem to inconvenience him to any great extent." You really need to raise your game because you are being badly out boxed here!
I don’t need to raise my game at all. I stated Wills is a top 20 heavyweight of all time. A lot of respected knowledgeable posters here agree with my statement. I stated wills deserves huge props for fighting on even terms or better with a prime Jeanette in 1913 despite Harry being a very inexperienced fighter. Langford was showing up out of shape to fights but that was typical of Langford. He was a party animal. Bottom line was he was still the best contender in the world in 1914 and 15 and a young Wills was fighting on even terms with him.
Wills as a very green fighter, fought on even terms or better with a prime Jeanette, and defeated only slightly past their prime versions of McVea and Langford
I'll ask again, have you read the report of the Wills v Jeannette fight? Yes or no will do. Please no more IBRO jokes!
Thanks to Moyle for this The following Harry Wills quote is an excerpt from pages 360-361 of Joe Botti's book about Joe Jennette: "Jack Johnson was the meanest of the lot. Jack was a smart fellow in many ways, but in others he showed no sense at all. He got so stuck on himself he had the idea everyone should fall down and worship him. Johnson always wanted to show off. He wanted to attract attention all the time, and he didn't care much how he did it. As long as he made people talk about him he was happy, and he never stopped to think that he was doing himself more harm than good. "If you were a young fellow trying to get along, Johnson would not show you anything. He would rather show you up instead. Take the way he treated me when we were training to fight Jim Flynn in Las Vegas. I was a young fellow then who didn't know much, but anxious to get somewhere. "Jack Curley, who was promoting the match and looking after Johnson, offered me a job as sparring partner. I was glad to take it because I needed the money and thought I might learn something from the champion. There was a big crowd looking on the day we put on the gloves. From the start, Johnson tried to make me look silly so he could laugh at me in front of the crowd. Remember, at this time, although I was broke, I had something of a reputation, earned through hard fighting , and a boxer's reputation is his only asset. "Anyone but Johnson woudl have thought of that and acted accordingly. All Johnson coudl think of was his desire to make me look foolish. "Of course I expected to be hit and hit hard. I would not have minded that, for I was strong and tough, and it is all in the game. But when Johnson stopped straight boxing and tried to make me look bad, I got kind of sore. Johnson was very proud of his strength. He thought there was no one in the ring his equal in that respect or in any other, for that matter. One of his favorite tricks was to grab your arms, waltz you around and laugh, and then suddenly let you go and uppercut you. "Well, after he tried that on me a few times, laughing and kidding with the crowd at my expense, I decided I'd see which was the stronger of the two. The next time he grabbed my arms to shove them back, I set myself and threw him across the ring. That wiped the grin off his face in a hurry, for the crowd began to laugh at him instead of with him, something that makes a big difference to these babies who like to show off. Having lost his goat, Johnson began to slug. That was playing right into my hands, for I was tougher and a harder hitter. After mixxing it for a few moments he began to get the worst of it so he clinched and held on, meanwhile trying to laugh it off. "That was the only time I boxed with Johnson. He told Curley to pay me off and let me go. He didn't want anyone in his camp he could not handle as he pleased. That incident is typical of Johnson's whole career. He never cared how he hurt other peoples' feelings as long as he could make himself look big. Showing off was the cause of all his troubles. At the same time I would like to say right here that if Johnson did not act right when he won the title he was made to pay dearly. Although he could have avoided the trouble that came his way, he was not treated fairly either. I think that all intelligent persons will agree with me that neither Johnson nor the people that undertook to run him out of boxing have any reason to be proud of the way they acted." From The Baltimore Afro-American. June 13, 1931. Page 14
I remember reading this. Here is an extract from the promotional blurb that previews the book which I have not read. "Jennette was unable to secure a title shot due to the fact that the world was fixated with finding a Caucasian boxer to defeat Jack Johnson in the "great white hope" era". H.E.Grant has read Botti's book and given a review of it.I think it fair to say the reviews have been" mixed". I wonder if it is common knowledge that Jeannette not only married a white woman,he was himself the product of a mixed race marriage.
1913-07-02 The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA) (page 10) - Only Gets Draw With Local Black Boxer Willis, ------ ------ Joe Jeanette, who ranks as one of the first of the black negro heavyweights of the world, appeared at the Northside Athletic Club last night before an overflow audience and boxed ten rounds to a draw with Harry Willis, the Darktons slasher. It was a gruelling fight from the start, with the local Senegambian leading by a pretty fair margin through the eighth round. Heavy blows were given on both sides, and the men stood bravely to the task of battering and smashing in half-clinches for the better part of the time consumed. Jeanette began to show some speed in the ninth, and put over a few rights to the jaw that had a rather depressing effect on the Willis. At the close of the tenth Jeanette was coming strong, and looked as though he would have won had he taken the aggressive early and fought at long range.
