Tunney - Wills who ducked who?

Who did Wills fight instead of Tunney?

 

I believe Tunney in his auto-bio claimed he was negotiating for a bout with Dempsey as early as the end of 1925. At the time he challenged Wills in 1926 he was pretty much confident he was getting Dempsey bout very soon, without any elimination bouts. The only reason he challenged Wills was he was hoping to work something out with the commission to lift their ban of a Dempsey bout in New York. So it's irrelevant who Wills fought instead of Tunney.

 

Might be irrelevant to you, not to me.

 

The point is it didn't matter who Wills was going to fight, he wasn't getting Dempsey bout, Tunney was going to be Dempsey's next opponent, without any eliminations. The managers of both fighters agreed to that, basically. The challenge was a fake.

 

Ok I see your point. So Wills didn't fight Tunney, who did he fight instead?

 

You could reverse that, Tunney didn't fight Wills, he wasn't intending to, he ducked him because he was focused on approaching bout with Dempsey, the only question was where to stage it that there'd be a big gate and an official decision (no New Jersey, because decisions were not allowed there).

 

So when Wills turned the fight down, Tunney went on to fight Dempsey. Who did Wills go on to fight.

 

Tunney wasn't going through with the bout even if Wills agreed to meet him. He already had Dempsey bout almost finalized. It didn't matter who Wills fought instead. What was even worse, the press was demanding that he must beat Sharkey impressively if he wanted a chance for a bout with Tunney, if he was going to win the way he defeated Madden or Firpo (both bouts he won by wide margins) he'd not be given a chance for the title, just winning wasn't enough. It was simply disgusting.

 

Wills instead fought no one. Literally no one.

He didn't fight until Dempsey and Tunney fought, then he faced Sharkey and got battered.

My personal opinion is Wills didn't fight Tunney because he knew he was slipping and would likely lose. He was hoping the fight Dempsey would come off so he could cash out.

 

The Philadelphia promoters in January 1926 were offering Dempsey $500K to meet Wills and only $300K to meet Tunney. Ie they were expecting Dempsey-Wills to generate more money than Dempsey-Tunney.

 

In January 1926 when Rickard "hinted" that he was working on Dempsey-Tunney bout, because supposedly Tunney had met everyone who was offered to him, while Wills supposedly was ducking Tunney, the NYSAC commissioners pointed out that Tunney refused to meet Kid Norfolk, Paul Berlenbach and Jack Sharkey (the last bout originally planned for February 5 that year, then for March 15, but why would Tunney meet Sharkey, if he knew he was going to get Dempsey already).

 

Tunney v Sharkey would have been a great fight.

 

http://www.fultonhistory.com/highli.../hits/f3ce3faaa0a910258faf43caf636f26c#page=1
http://www.fultonhistory.com/highli.../hits/334c9a4ce41285665d187d2788d25872#page=1