Who beat better opposition Dempsey or Wills?

Here is a thought.

You have an unhealthy boy love for Marciano, and in trying to justify it to yourself you are intent on vilifying Jack Dempsey, or any other Heavyweight champion since, and making yourself look extremely foolish in the process.

 

Dempsey over the period where they were both active concurrently, but you can make the case for Wills, if you factor in fights before Dempsey's time.

 

Foxy has shown your obvious agenda here, but I'll play .
Wills has the better names but of the 5 best men he beat 3 were past prime,[ one was going blind,one was 40years old, the other, McVey won their 1st 2 fights then lost the others as he aged,he was34 when he lost the last one and losing more than he was winning,] and the other two were previous Dempsey ko victims who lasted less than 5 minutes together .
If Wills had been an exact chronological contemporary of Jeannette,McVey and Langford ,I think his win loss ratio against them would have been reversed .

Keep Trying:good

 

Common Opponents

Fulton
Firpo
Meehan
John Lester Johnson (Dempsey was 21, Wills fought him numerous times in his prime)
Sharkey (Wills was 37, Dempsey 32)
Gunboat Smith

Notable Specific Wills Opponents

Langford 17-2 (Langford was 31 in their first fight). Note that Wills was beating Langford in the fights he lost. Their initial fights were absolute wars, Langford being down several times in the first few rounds. Wills is clearly a very different fighter here to the cautious fighter who we see on film in his late 30s.
Kid Norfolk
Jeanette (33 in their first fight)
Mcvea (30 in their first fight)
Jeff Clark
Bill Tate
Denver Ed Martin (40)

Notable Specific Dempsey Wins

Gibbons (32)
Willard (37)
Sharkey
Morris
Brennan
Miske (draw in their first fight, suffering from Bright's Disease in the rematch)
Carpentier
Levinski
Flynn

It should be noted that most of the white contenders also drew the colour line.

 

Sam Langford was perhaps the greatest fighter ever.
Harry Wills beat him 309 times.

Harry Wills' resume > Everyone else's put together

 

Wills beat better men over the course of his career.

I don't see any justification for ranking wills above Dempsey when for their entire careers Dempsey was ranked above Wills and was a favourite for any potential matchup.

Not much in it imo but the victories over the black hw greats (Langford, McVea, Jeannette) tips the favour.

 

"Wills arguably was the best of the Dempsey era including Dempsey himself. Do you agree with this?"

I do.

And so does the boxrec ratings. Their yearly ratings have Wills the #1 heavyweight from 1915 to 1922, and again in 1925. Dempsey is the top man only in 1923. Tunney is the highest rated in 1924 and again from 1926 to 1928.

I think these boxrec yearly ratings are based on what the fighter did that specific year.

 

"for their entire careers Dempsey was ranked above Wills"

In the first place, I don't think he was at all prior to 1918 at the earliest,

Secondly, he was the white champion,

and the opinions that he was better are drawn from the white press for the most part, if not exclusively. A white press by the way that was being paid under the table by Tex Rickard.

Also, according to the 1976 Ring Record Book, Burns was 3 to 2 over Johnson, and Jeffries was 10 to 7 over Johnson. These fights actually happened so we can judge what these opinions were worth.

Also, it is clear from much of the press coverage that there were many who thought Wills stood a solid chance of winning.

 

No McVey will state categorically that Wills was :

NOT THE NUMBER ONE CONTENDER FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT YEARS

.Which is precisely what you stated twice.