Who beat better opposition Dempsey or Wills?

Okay.

But my major point here would be that Wills beat Langford several times before the Fulton fight.

 

Wills seems to have been a "dirty" fighter or at the very least chippy. You can see clearly on film that he knocks down Firpo with a cheap shot disengaging from a break as the referee steps in for the break. He was disqualified against Bill Tate and Jack Sharkey for the same maneuver. Seems like this was a tactic of his to take a free shot at an opponent on the break.

 

Wills never stopped Langford until after the Fulton fight.

Langford kod Wills twice before that.Two of their fights ,one a win for Wills and another a draw were fixes.

 

That's a concern with me regarding Wills. How many fights if his were not on the level?

 

"Fixes"

Proof?

Or evidence?

Claims of fixes were common back then, but I would take most with a grain of salt.

Here is a quote from the Minnesota Historical Society's biography of Fred Fulton--

"Meanwhile, the New York and Minnesota boxing commissions had both suspended Fulton while they investigated his reckless statement that he had thrown the Dempsey match."

*My take is we don't have convincing evidence that any of these supposed fixed fights were in fact fixed.

 

According to the fight reports on boxrec Wills engaged in many fights that are suspicious. Jack Thompson had his purse withheld in one bout for lack of effort. The aforementioned pair of fights with Langford. A bout with a customer named ray Bennett. A bout with Sam Mcvey where both were barred from fighting in the city or state again. It does draw concern.

 

"Jack Thompson had his purse withheld"

Yes, these black fighters often didn't get paid. I wonder if the promoters refunded the ticket cost to the fans.

*To get blunt, I think there might be racism here and a naked move to shaft black fighters if they didn't put on a brutal enough show.

**At the least, I think they were probably more willing to pull the trigger for not trying hard enough on black fighters.

 

That very well could be the cause but without verification the reasons are unknown. Floyd Johnson who was caucasian, was barred from fighting again in Will's last bout before facing Sharkey, for taking a dive.

 

I think he was banned for a poor performance,

not because there was evidence of a dive.

Poor performances (going out in the first) are not unusual for this sort of fading trial horse. Might make one wonder about how Johnson managed to be a top contender a couple of years earlier.

did Johnson give a worse performance than, let's say, Charlie Powell did against Mike DeJohn, or Melio Bettina against Gus Lesnevich.

 

Technically he was barred for poor performance but many in attendance felt the fight was a fix.

https://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/1925/11/wills-fishy-bout-floyd-johnson

Also the Brooklyn Eagle paper of the day described the fight as "*****" from the start. "Q u e e r"

Just seems there is a lot of smoke surrounding some of Wills's matches for whatever reason.

 

And people want to believe Dempsey took part in a dive against Flynn. Fulton said he was paid to take a dive against Dempsey. Levinsky was dragged out of the shipyards without any training to face Dempsey. Carpentier was carried for the motion pictures in an obvious mismatch. Billy Miske was dying and had no chance of winning. Where are we going with this?

Part of the problem with claims of guys like Wills, Langford, McVea etc taking part in fixed fights or glorified exhibitions is that these guys were forced to fight each other many many many times because chicken ****s like Dempsey wouldnt have anything to do with them. You fight a guy a dozen times and you tend to get to know what hes going to do in the ring making it almost inevitable that the odd fight is going to turn out less than aesthically pleasing.

 

Its funny but people can lay the blame for Dempsey ducking Wills for 7 years squarely at the feet of the New York power structure but those same people are awfully quick to ignore the possibility that maybe those people who didnt like that Wills was camping on Dempsey's front door wrote negative things about him in the press... just food for thought.

 

Interesting perspective and quite plausible that Dempsey backers in the media would put a negative spin on Will's bouts to bog down his attempt to secure a title shot. Not provable but I wouldn't dismiss the theory.

 

Well the difference in what you are speculating on and what I was quoting is the in the ring performances. Dempsey doesn't have as nearly as many matches that fall under suspicion as does Wills. Regardless of what fighters have claimed or here say leading up to the fight. Wills's bout whether viewed by the public or the actions of the ref or state athletic commission had more action taken against them as the result of dubious performances than Dempsey fights.