Willie Meehan W 4 Jack Dempaey

Some of us wouldn't find this at all surprising,

nor consider Harry Wills "pedestrian"

 

That's true.
I think his February 1918 win against Brennan is the first really impressive performance.

 

I'm referring here to their final fight, in 1918.

 

Dempsey's career is strange and mysterious. He gets knocked out in one by Fireman Flynn, then returns the favor soon after, and nearly 100 years later the first fight is questioned as a dive.. He loses a four round bout to willie Meehan, but its apparently billed as exhibition. He decks Gene Tunney in a fight that was deemed the "the long count."

 

From what I have seen of Wills :
Madden
Firpo
Uzcudun.

I feel justified in calling him pedestrian in comparison to a Young Dempsey
To save time, how about if I pm you my posts before making them? Just to ensure they are up to scratch, sort of quality control if you like.
That would cut out quite a bit of chit chat and rsvp wouldn't you say?

 

You feel justified in calling an old wills pedestrian compared to a young dempsey?? Yet you are referring to a performance wills had against meehan when he was 25 years old, just one month after Dempsey turned pro, and literally a full decade before the films you mentioned...

Btw, you havent seen film of sharkey - wills.

Thats literally like comparing the dempsey who got his ass kicked by kingfish levinsky in 1931 to a young wills. Id imagine we would all have a different opinion of dempsey if that was the only footage of him.

 

No I haven't seen Sharkey v Wills I don't know why I put that in there, I don't know if it even exists.
Lets put a 25 years old Wills and a 25 years old Dempsey up for comparison do you think Wills was as dynamic an operator as Dempsey? Which paper report describes Wills as coming out like a tiger and beating the **** out of his opponent in short order? And please not GunBoat Smith.
Wills was 35 when he fought Madden and Firpo he was a health nut who went on fasts and long hikes. .Wills was fighting regularly in his mid 30's, 2/3 times a year ,Dempsey came out of 5 years retirement to box Kingfish ,so I don't think thats a valid comparison really.

 

The bout with Willie Meehan was not an exhibition. Four rounds was the legal limit to boxing matches in California. Those matches were real matches fought on their merits with decisions rendered. Not exhibitions. The Dempsey-Meehan bout in 1918 was part of a patriotic benefit card but it was not an exhibition and not billed as such. In fact the papers went out of their way to make it know that the bout was a real fight to a decision because Benny Leonard had appeared locally there recently in an exhibition with no decision rendered. They wanted to distinguish this situation from that and make sure people knew that it was a real fight.

In some cases the 4 round limit might be used as an excuse as to why a guy like Meehan would beat a supposedly better fighter but in a way, as some have pointed out above, this argument works against Dempsey because he was the type of guy who supposedly owned the early rounds. In essence this type of fight should have been made for him so its hard to figure how he lost, except that Meehan was a fast tricky fighter, though this does Demspey no favors in an imaginary bout with Greb.

It might be that the four rounds game in California helped to develop Dempsey into the type of aggressive early round fighter he became known as. He may have realized in California that he needed to jump out to an early lead and be aggressive right from the start to win against guys and carried it into his other bouts. It could also explain some of his earlier troubling performances and why very quickly from 1917 to 1918 he seemed to develop into a much better fighter. Thats all speculation on my part.

 

The point is that health nut or not Wills was past his prime at 35. Im not arguing if Dempsey was dynamic Im arguing with the characterization of a 25 year old Wills as pedestrian based on the performances of a 35 year old Wills.

If you want to compare peformances you can. The papers said that Wills, 25, dropped Meehan and outclassed him. A 22 year old Dempsey was outclassed by Meehan, made to look like a "bum" and did the job so thoroughly there was no room left for argument. Id take the pedestrian Wills' performance over Meehan any day to the losing one.

 

Those are the only clips of Wills I've seen, but I haven't read any reports that indicate he fought any differently when he was younger. Tyson and Lewis fought into their late 30's, but their styles essentially stayed the same.I know Wills dropped Meehan and beat him the fact that Dempsey and Langford could not beat him is surprising to me given that I rate them both superior hitters to Wills .
Wills was a more measured boxer compared to Dempsey
at least I think he was and that's why I used the term pedestrian when comparing him to Jack .Obviously the fact that he beat Meehan and Dempsey did not ,means that Wills performance is the more impressive that is not up for argument.I'm talking about their style of fighting.

 

Tyson looks much much less impressive late in his career as opposed to early in his career. He was a straight forward walk in slugger, as opposed to being the dynamic force he was as a youngster. Not unlike the difference between Dempsey against Kingfish and Dempsey against Willard.

 

Certainly less impressive but essentially the same style.

 

So his style was what you were referring to when you called him pedestrian looking at age 35? Not his actual performances?

Tysons style looked pedestrian ten years past his prime. Its when you add in all the little things he did as a youth (the jab, the head movement, the angles, the speed, the switch hitting, etc) that he looks dynamic.

 

Yes I think Wills style is pretty much pedestrian ,doesn't mean it didn't work for him.