Willards first Retirement

Thanks for the find mate.

 

This article is an interesting take on the state of the divisio0n at the time.

Boxrec warriors lambast the champions who took long periods out of the fight game while they held the title, but the reality is that most of them had retired and nominaly left the title vacant for the two top contenders to fight for it. Some sources also suggest that Dempsey was retired during his period in Holywood.

 

Yeah, I knew about this.
Dempsey was considered a sort of "interim champion" after he beat Fulton, waiting in the wings to inherit Willard's title if pressure to get Jess back in the ring failed.

Interesting that in this article, and many others of the time, Harry Wills is not mentioned. Even when he becomes more prominent from 1920 onwards, a lot of the writers and their sources seem to perceive Wills at still something of an unknown entity. I don't think racism explains it away, because Langford and Norfolk and others are mentioned more. I think Wills' managers might have had a bad sense of public relations, they weren't selling him name nationwide at the time. Nowadays many people say Wills was Willard's top contender but I haven't found a single article that seems to know about that, or acknowledges him even having a strong claim.
Having said that, I haven't done a huge amount of research or anything. I've just noticed what seems like a genuine degree of ignorance about Wills in some of the articles of the period.

 

Willard's manager also immediately drew the color line after his defeat of Johnson, something I hadn't previously realized.

 

I certainly don't agree with those who say that Wills was Dempseys top challenger throughout his title reign. I think he became perceived as such after he beat Fred Fulton, in a fight which was meant to decide upon Dempseys next challenger.

 

Willard himself made a speech stating that he would draw the colour line after he won the title.

 

Well, he must have been endlessly pleased that Kearns and Dempsey followed his lead.

 

Kearns seems to have been more up for it than Dempsey. Dempsey was more equivocal.

He first said that he would draw the colour line in principle, then that he wouldn't. He signed to fight Wills twice, as you know.

 

Just a bit of Holiday humor.

Kearns was a vindictive weirdo and Rickard was a scumbag. Didn't ol' Tex have diddle some little girl in the old MSG?

 

I can't coment on that, but Kearns was a fairly unsavoury character and Rickard was probably more responsible than anybody for a generation of black fighters getting shafted.

 

Tex was found not guilty in court.

So I leave it at that.

 

Intruiging find ,thank you.