Was Wills better than McVea, Jeannette or Langford?

Without footage it's hard to tell who was better but wills was certainly more consistent, however he fought in a slightly weaker era.

Results seem to suggest he hit his prime as they left theirs so it's a very debatable subject and certainly not an open and shut case.

I do think wills is greater though but better is very hard to say.

 

Nice to see you back.
I put Wills behind Langford and about the same as the other two ,difficult to gauge.
Some of their contests appear to have been glorified sparring sessions,and Langford was often out of shape.
1. Langford
After that I am less confident.

 

In terms of greatness, Wills is going to be above all 3, 9 times out of 10 on an ATG list.
However I'll have to reiterate what has already been said in terms of H2H that it's simply to hard to tell. I'd have Langford and Wills at 1/2 then Jeannette and McVea at 3/4. It would certainly have been great to have a round robin tournament between the 4.

 

So far as Langford was concerned I don't believe that Wills himself thought he was in Langford's class. Here's an excerpt from page 295 of my book about him:

"Wills always maintained that Sam was the best fighter he ever fought.

'He was a real professional, the kind of fighter you'd like to be but know that no matter how hard you try you'll never make it. Sam never made a mistake, he always held command and when he knocked me out in New Orleans in 1916, I thought I had been killed." (The News Sentinel, 2 September 1922)

Wills thought Langford was without equal when it came to punching power.

'Talk about hitting! Well, I've met some hard punchers in my time and all I can say is that the hardest blows any of them ever landed one me were like a slap in the face from a woman compared with those bone-crushing wallops of Langford. They seemed to go right through you.

When Sam hit you in the body you'd kind of look around half expecting to see his glove sticking out of your back. When he hit you on the chin, well, when that happened you didn't that at all until they brought you back to life again."

 

Hard to say but I think he probably was, I mean he beat everyone who'd fight him from 1912-1926, must say something? I think he probably suffers from been effectively while not being exciting. Even in the fights he lost to Langford though he was outboxing him

 

Yeah whilst their h2h series are a bit hard to gauge regarding relative primes, their respective achievements aren't that difficult to compare.

Wills spent about 7 years in the top two of the division albeit a slightly weaker division .

 

1 thing Wills does seem to get criticised for unfairly as I see it is splitting his early series with Langford/Jeanette/Mcvey, while been fairly green and unexperienced only 3 years into his career going into the deep end against 3 top contenders who were slightly past prime with far more experience.

Looking at it more closely:

The Langford Series - (1914) probably edges the first (SD win), gets knocked out in the rematch:

These are in 1914, Langford is 31, Wills 25.

1915 - Wills wins easily, this seems like either a big improvement in Wills performance or a fast decline in the 32yo Langford

1916 - Wills wins 3 decisions seemingly wide decision, while Langford KO's Wills once in a fight Wills was by all accounts dominating.

1917 onwards Wills wins every decision

The Jeanette Series

1913-1914 (34-35yo version) draws the first, probably edging the second (SD win), a close edge in the beggining of their meetings

1919 (39) - Wills dominates

The McVey Series

1914-1915 (30-31yo at the time) loses the first 2 and was dominated in the second but bounces back later in '15 to beat McVey

1918 (34yo) - a 3 year gap, Wills wins twice, although Mcvey still KDs him in 1 bout

1920 (36yo) - probably mutually staged for cash

I think the criticism for his early losses/draws/close fights is very harsh, Langford doesn't get anything like the criticism for his losses much nearer to his prime.

The idea that Langford/Jeanette/McVey were a all shot when Wills started beating them doesn't bare out with their performances against other contenders, in Wills himself, Battling Jim Johnson, Kid Norfolk, Jeff Clark, George Godfrey, Bill Tate, John Lester Johnson.

They did all drop in ranking and ability after 1917 though, with Wills and Fulton beating Langford and Langford no longer being competitive against the best but still good enough to knock out many pretenders after that.

I'm sure someone will make an argument that he didn't prove decisive over Jeanette/Mcvey, but at this stage Langford was typically beating those 2 time and again so that was the real fight

I do think these are disingenuous criticisms to denigrate Wills, typically from Dempsey apologists who want to marginalise Wills

 

You would have fought so, but this forum is mad crazy on Holmes, who consiststantley avoided the top contenders of his time throughout his reign as champ, yet ESB assumes he wins these fights against Pinklon Thomas, Greg Page and Michael Dokes so he gets some kind of free pass for it.

 

My take is that he was superior to McVea and Jeanette, but inferior to Langford.

 

I would say Langford was greater than Wills, and Langford got the better of Wills before he aged.

I do think Wills was better than McVey. Jeanette vs Wills is a close one.