Willard vs. Wills. 1916 25 rounds

I think the footage does back up Wills power.

He seems to really hurt Firpo with some shots, including a jab.

 

I don't have names, but I've seen people post top 10 heavyweight lists on chat forums before where Wills name has appeared, and certainly quite a few top 20 lists as well.

 

He didn't have a huge size advantage over Firpo or Fulton and he dominated them easily

Some of them were wars if you read the reports, including his Langford wins.

More fights than you'd know are fixed, some in the know would argue the majority of fights are fixed.

The Firpo and Madden footage isn't exciting but it does show him to be able to shift his body weight in punches better than most of his era, he was quick, defensively sound and had very short powerful punches inside, that most men don't have

This was in his mid to late 30s though Wills was a much more dynamic boxer in his earlier career when he would brawl far more. For instance in his KO loss to Langford he had Sam down many times. He himself talked about being more conservative as he got older

 

Well you should of sited those fights instead of the Langford bout. As for the footage of Wills I disagree, I don't find him impressive on any of the available footage. However I do agree he was older and could conceivably look much different than a prime version of himself.

 

That's because you need a trained eye to see it

 

My eye is very astute
I think it's reaching a little to say there are many positives from the footage of Wills. At best I can cite his age for how unimpressive the footage is.

 

"Dempsey who mopped the floor with Firpo"

Depends on interpretation. Dempsey was knocked out of the ring, and was down three times off the film. It was a kill or be killed fight, which Dempsey pulled out, but Wills simply dominated Firpo and was never in trouble.