Top Ten Uncrowned Champions - 6 - Harry Wills

Sixth on the countdown of the best fighters never to win a world title comes former heavyweight great Harry Wills. Born in 1889 in New Orleans Harry somewhat unbelievably started his early working career as a jockey. Whilst his size was soon to make this an impractical career choice in the frequent fights the stable lads had to pass the time Harry did discover he could look after himself with his fists. Returning to New Orleans as a 16 year old Harry found work on the notoriously tough docks as a stevedore Harry continued to fight and improve his skills beating all comers including at one point the experienced pro the Congo Kid over 15 rounds.

Deciding to give the pro game a try Harry began working at O’Connells gym in Chicago and turned pro out of there in 1911, after going pretty much unbeaten for the first two years as a pro 1913 was to represent something of a break out year for Harry when he fought back to back fights against the great black fighters Joe Jeannette and Jeff Clark, whilst Harry was considered fortunate to get the draw against Clark who outboxed him all the way he was equally as unlucky not to get the decision against Joe and irrespective of that that a two year pro could hold his own in such company spoke highly of his ability and potential.

This potential was confirmed in the following year when Harry took a 10 round decision off the legendary Sam Langford, whilst it would be fair to say Sam perhaps took his lesser known foe a little lightly any win over a near prime Sam Langford is one hell of a result. After some more wins against lesser foes Harry was rematched with Langford and for many a round he looked on the way to repeating his victory only to run into a Langford howitzer in the 14th round which knocked Harry cold. So hard did Sam hit him Harry would maintain to his dying day that no fighter alive hit harder than Sam.

Whilst first Johnson and then Willard showed little inclination to defend their title against excellent black fighters such as Jeannette, Langford McVea and Wills these fighters were reduced to virtual round robins between themselves and for the next four years Wills found himself matched against these guys at the near exclusion of any others, but importantly Harry was winning more than he was losing to the point that by 1918 Harry was the clear and accepted number one contender for heavyweight champion Jess Willard’s title. Despite this and chiding in the press to give Harry his shot as we all know that opportunity went to Jack Dempsey who wrenched the title from Willard’s grasp in brutal fashion. If Wills thought this may improve his title chances he was quickly disabused of this theory when the day after his title win Dempsey’s manager Doc Kearns announced Dempsey would defend his title against any worthy challenger – as long as they were white!

Despite this Harry did the only thing he could do which was keep winning and his victims in this period included the ageing Langford, Dempsey’s main sparring partner Big Bill Tate and the decent white challenger Fred Fulton, who Harry dispatched in three rounds. Despite the fact Wills was clearly the most qualified challenger to Demspsey’s title Jack’s promoter Tex Rickard had little to no interest in staging the bout having promoted the incendiary Johnson vs Jeffries bout several years earlier. A rival promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons did try to stage the bout and even got both fighters name on a contract but the finances fell through and with them so did the bout.

In 1924 Wills was matched with former Dempsey victim Luis Firpo with the winner promised a shot at Dempsey. Despite winning at a canter the Dempsey fight was not forthcoming and Wills was out of the ring for nearly a year waiting for the elusive and deserve3d shot. On his return he flattened Charlie Weinert. Harry was largely inactive around this time, unwilling to risk his number one ranking against too dangerous an opponent. However when Gene Tunney was selected as Dempsey’s next opponent Harry got back in action against the dangerous Jack Sharkey in an attempt to underline his claims for a title shot.

However by fight time the frustration at missing out on a title shot and father time (Harry was nearly 40) found Wills a shell of himself and after 13 foul filled rounds Harry was disqualified and his chances of a world title shot were gone forever. Harry fought on for a little while but a knockout against fringe contender Paulino Uzcudun confirmed what the Sharkey fight had suggested, that Harry was finished.

In an era of great black heavyweights Wills stood out as perhaps the finest, he would almost certainly have beaten the big but lumbering Willard had he been given the chance and many an expert considers him a genuine threat to the great Jack Dempsey even at Jack’s peak.

10 Jim Driscoll
9 Kid Norfolk
8 Peter Jacksom
7 Lew Tendler
6 Harry Wills

Why not get no1 Charley Burley out the way...

Would be surprised if Langford doesn't pip Burley to top spot.

P.S. great article, jeff. Not much to add but I have seen claims that Tunney ducked Wills but that defeat to Sharkey scuppered any chances he had of a title shot against anyone.

You're probably right Super........

But I'd be even more surprised If anyone who fought in color gets a nod...on the list..

Jackson drew with Corbett.............who is repeatedly derided on here..

http://v2journal.com/-top-ten-uncrowned-champions-6-harry-wills.html

Nice one Jeff, intriguing one Wills looking from the outside its quite feasible he could rank above Dempsey! It could be argued, and indeed you could make a similar case for having Sam Langford over Jack Johnson.

As far as resumes go, it depends how credit Harry Wills should be given for fighting the same old fighters over and over.
I know the common explanation is that 'no one wanted to fight the black fighters' but you've got to consider that guys like Wills were taking advantage of that too, in some quarters.

Hope you're not going to do anything silly mind Jeff and put Burley ahead of Langford.

Cracking series mate

Cheers Rodders

Cheers Rodders, if there is a caveat with Wills it should be that many of the other great black fighters he was reguarly fighting such as Langford and Clark were certainly getting on a bit towards the end of their series of fights so they are fights Wills should have been winning. Is difficult for him though, from pretty much 1919 through to the loss to Sharkey he was number one conetnder, if you have earned that status and proven beyond any reasonable point to be the most deserving contender can you blame the guy not taking fights that would risk that status, particularly if you know that winning those fights is unlikely to move you any closer to the title.

Suppose it becomes hard to include anyone after a certain point as its hard not to get a title shot these days and its been that way for some time. Will be interesting to see who the most recent fighter is.

Spot on superfly, the more recent you get there is no mob involvement stopping you getting title shots and no colour line and with every passing years you get seemingly more title belts, so you can't help but get the feeling if a guy ain't winning a title in recent years its maybe because he ain't much cop.

Bomber Graham is commonly upheld as an avoided guy by modern standards and whilst I would not argue with this claim, throughout his career he received more title fights than Burley, Wills and Norfolk did between them in theirs.

Another superior read

Boxing back in those days was more like street fighting. Boxers had to be tougher back then because the rules were different and gloves were smaller. Some boxers did not even have mouthpieces or foul protectors so the sport was alot tougher. But it was fighters like Sugar Ray Robinson and Ali that perfected boxing skills many years later. If Wills was around now he would be the heavyweight champion because the stadard of heavyweights is so bad now but he would not beat great heavyweights like Ali, Lewis, Tyson, Frazier or Foreman because these guys were able to bring boxing to a new skill level.

Finally the graft pays off.

It's another one on the post count jeff.