Wills Firpo Report States Wills Has No Chance With Dempsey

Read it and weep (you know who you) hahaha

 

It's just an opinion.

You can go watch Buster Douglas v Oliver McCall and listen to the commentators scoffing at Douglas's chances of being much of challenge for Tyson.
But Douglas was given his chance to prove them wrong.

 

Mc, I had read that Dempsey would have been a prohibitive favorite over Wills had they ever met...As photos show they did sign for an out of town bout,as New York Boxing Commission wouldn't sanction the Title bout for fear of a repetition of the riots following the Johnson victory over Jeffries in Reno , Nevada...Interestingly I saw the tall distinguished looking Harry Wills watching the sparring at Stillmans gym ,when I was a youngster. Wills did alright after he retired, he own property in Harlem, NY...:good

 

Careful McVey, we've already had one hater sulking - clinging to their last hope that Wills would've beaten Dempsey :-(. There'll be more along I'm sure haha

 

A few points

This was a past prime Wills, the fight made the most sense as Dempsey's first defence

Someone posted on another thread about Dempsey's manager buying newspaper reporters

As mentioned it's only an opinion, critics usually favour punchers over pure boxers/spoilers

Anyone trying to pick a winner in this fight is working purely on guess work as we've never seen Wills and have no idea how good he was

Wills record is far better than anyone Dempsey ever beat

 

I'm not contradicting that, just re-stating what I think is the most important point regarding the Wils-Dempsey saga, ie. Wills never got his chance.

I have an opinion too (whether it is worth anything I dont know) :

I suspect Wills was even more washed up then Dempsey 1924 - '26, and would probably had been a far easier fight for Jack than Tunney was (because he was washed-up, and stylistically anyway) ... and Jack was therefore foolish to fight Tunney instead of Wills, in hindsight.
Ironically, he probably wouldn't have suffered much historically from NOT fighting Tunney, and he has in some quarters from not fighting Wills.
But then again, Tunney was supposed to be a "no hoper" too.

 

It's a huge shame the fight never came off.

I think it's clear that dempsey wanted the fight but unfortunately the times prevented it from happening.

I've no doubt that dempsey would have murdered him but it'd have been his best victory by some way.

 

But they were racist.

The People's Revolutionary Record Book records Wills as champion during this era.

 

Hi Luf...I agree with you... This thread will never go away. Reason, photos, archives, will not appease Dempsey's haters. Not at all.
I don't mind when some posters debate "who would win were Dempsey and Wills to have met" ? Though Dempsey would have been a BIG favorite
over the tall slower Wills...
But to DENY the fact that the New York State Boxing Commission banned this heavyweight title bout is to deny reality...After the terrible race riots of 1910 following the Jeffries/Johnson bout in Reno in which scores of citizens were killed, Tex Rickard could not have promoted this bout EVEN if he wanted to...So a Floyd Fitzpatrick, of Michigan signed Dempsey and Wills to an out of NEW York State bout, which many photos exist of that signing...However Fitzpatrick couldn't come up with the agreed funds, so the match was abandoned and Harry Wills pocketed the $25,000 deposit.
So, please let us put this myth to rest that Dempsey never signed to fight Wills..HE DID... Cheers L...

 

...