Willard's worth as a champion?

Pretty debatable, you're discounting Wills 3 newspaper decisions after that fight

There was allot of talk of Willard-Fulton, even before the Langford fight. 14months after he beat Langford he lost to Dempsey. Willard then fought Dempsey 12 months later

Willard was making quite allot of money from exhibitions during this time, we're talking 150k contracts being reported. The Fulton fight they suggested the money goto the Red Cross, to help the war effort

 

I'll be honest, in my opinion it doesn't matter if you hold the championship, IF YOU HAVEN'T FOUGHT FOR TWO OR THREE YEARS YOU DON'T HAVE A CLAIM TO BE BEST FIGHTER IN THE WORLD.
I'm not sure you can even lay claim to be among the first ten.
But of course, back in those days the championship was what really mattered.

 

Willard knew a bout with Fulton was high-risk.

The fact it never went ahead came down to Jess continually finding fault with location and purse suggestions. This he continued until Jack earned himself an elimination contest against big Fred. When Dempsey came through this had Willard licking his chops; he simply didn't think he could be hurt by the smaller man.

Filtering through the print of the day will show Willard bad-mouthed, even ridiculed for sitting on his throne, but few were in doubt that he was a dangerous man; tough, powerful and gutsy.

The man who out-hustled Jack Johnson, 6, 6 and a lean 230lbs, was no joke.

 

If the general forum had existed in Willard's time, there would have been a lot of dissatisfaction with him as champion, but the vast majority would have conceded that he was probably still the best heavyweight in the world.

Fred Fulton would have built up a legion of delusional fans called "Fultards".

 

Dempsey beating Fulton was widely seen as an 'interim championship' to borrow a term from the alphabet boys.
It drew calls for Willard to either announce his retirement or agree to defend it against Dempsey.
I don't know if that's helpful to the question.

 

It suggests that Willard would always have been favoured over Fulton or any other contender.

 

What, are you saying Michalzewski wouldn't have been a massive underdog against Jones ?

Or that Wills would have been favourite against Dempsey ?

 

The longest was a 10 rounder, there was an 8 and a 6, the 6rounder may have been staged, ie both fighters pulling punching. Wills dominated the first 2 bouts though

Willard was clearly beaten by a LHW just a year before beating Johnson, which was somewhat of a lucky win. His form isn't hot, Wills, Dempsey and Fulton all had better form.

Willard wasn't considered the best by many, I've posted a report of the commisioner stating Mcvea and Langford would probably beat him

Today the bookies would make Dempsey favourite over Willard, the only reason he wasn't was probably because the majority of the public bet on the much bigger man, so the bookies had to adjust the odds.

Based on his form he wouldn't, he was easily by a LHW gatekeeper

 

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You don't even need to look at boxrec to judge this issue, you only need to look at contemporary accounts.

 

I've posted evidence of opinions of a commisioner of the time that McVea/Langford would likely beat Willard. These 2 men ofcourse lost to Wills

If you have evidence to suggest that Willard was considered a level above his peers at the time then post it, otherwise pipe down

 

I can asure you that the vast majority of reports of the period suggest that people thought that Langford and McVea were damaged goods, and that Wills was given relativley little credit for beating them repeatedly.

I have found newspaper articles calling for Willard to fight Fulton, Morris, Dillon, Levinsky and even Langford, but not one to date calling on him to fight Wills.

Rightly or wrongly, Wills simply wasn't very highly regarded at this stage of his career.