Chasing the Champion - By Harry Wills

[QueensburyRules]

- - Harry don't like Dempsey, U don't like Dempsey, two peas in a pod. Glad to see U got at least one Buddy!!!

[Willow The Wisp]

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Great thread, great find from the N.Q. Register to post up travestyny! Salient points for balance Bronson66.
Decades spent in newspaper archives, the article seems familiar to me. Could it have been reprinted in a contemporary 1920's issue of Boxing World and Mirror of Life?
Wills certainly seems more at ease speaking his mind down under than typical of the more cultivated civility he conveyed in the U.S.
Needless to say we have a soft spot for this highly qualified man navigating the world in his time.
It is comforting to acknowledge that Boxing did the Panther well and that he was set for life due to it.
On behalf of the multitudes who failed to deliver a championship opportunity for him by denouncement real or cloaked, the revival of the KKK in the 1920s was demonstrative of a society coping with the effects of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration; and the experience of Jack Johnson truly played no small roll in this; like it or not. Racism was never more active since the days of reconstruction.

As if on queue, Wills' 21 year campaign (1911 - 1932) entered a new phase in October 1926, of course; when Jack Sharkey stopped the train cold, and "Wills was battered about the ring from the start."
And that was was that. (Pictured).

It always seemed to me that hours of sparring with big Bill Tate, as familiar with Wills as anyone; might have served Dempsey greatly had the two ever come head to head.

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His love for pummeling taller, heavier men and his refined expertise in doing so seemed also to nudge me towards Dempsey in my prognostications. Be that as it may.

[Bronson66]

Boxrec has one of those fights listed as a KO for Wills. Says McVey claimed it was a foul but the referee didn't buy it.

McVey refused to continue that is not a ko.

Wills never fought in Australia and,as far as I know ,never visited the country,perhaps another point to consider when evaluating the veracity of his claims?

Joe Jeannette made up similar tales concerning his series with Jack Johnson ,it's called promoting.

[Willow The Wisp]

McVey refused to continue that is not a ko.

Wills never fought in Australia and,as far as I know ,never visited the country,perhaps another point to consider when evaluating the veracity of his claims?

Joe Jeannette made up similar tales concerning his series with Jack Johnson ,it's called promoting.

Many did, and scribes always available to print those tales. Harry Wills stating that he would finish Tunney that quickly brought to my mind the equivalence of Muhammad Ali's claim that he'd rasstled with an alligator, tussled with a whale.

[travestyny]

McVey refused to continue that is not a ko.

Wills never fought in Australia and,as far as I know ,never visited the country,perhaps another point to consider when evaluating the veracity of his claims?

Joe Jeannette made up similar tales concerning his series with Jack Johnson ,it's called promoting.

Did he refuse to continue while lying on the canvas? If so, I'd call that a K.O.




Says there he took the count. So either you and Wills are both half mistaken, or both half lying (Don't take that too personally. I'm just ribbing you a little).


Not sure what Australia had to do with anything. The article appears in "The Townsend Daily Bulletin" in 1926 but the story seems to end circa 1922 I think. I get the feeling that though it may be a "special to the North Queensland Register," that it originated somewhere else.

[travestyny]

Many did, and scribes always available to print those tales. Harry Wills stating that he would finish Tunney that quickly brought to my mind the equivalence of Muhammad Ali's claim that he'd rasstled with an alligator, tussled with a whale.

Well he did make sure he stated "toe to toe." I doubt Tunney would have lasted that long standing toe to toe with him either, but I wouldn't expect Tunney to fight him that way.

[travestyny]

- - Harry don't like Dempsey, U don't like Dempsey, two peas in a pod. Glad to see U got at least one Buddy!!!

I don't dislike Dempsey and I doubt Wills did either. Though I admit that some of his fans are super annoying with their refusal to face reality.

You're more annoying than even they are, so there's that.

[Marchegiano]

McVey refused to continue that is not a ko.

TF is it then a DNF?!