I am Joshua Mbngo Dmbungo TONGUE-CLICK Jnr. Jnr.
1924, that would've been Jack about a year after he'd KO'd Firpo in that insane 2 round slug fest which he made hard for himself. A quick boxrec check confirms Wills also beat the big Argentine in 1924 by decision.

I've got to say in terms of a matchup between the two, I can never quite get around the sight of Wills being flattened quite so definitively by the Paulino Uczduen (or howeve the heck you spell it.) Dempsey woulld have been troubled more by smaller movers in my opinion. Looking at the limited footage of Wills he's quite primitive. He fences with the left with his right covering his stomach. Wide open to a left hook, what was Dempsey's hook like? It was ok, right?

I'd pick Dempsey by KO within 6 and it wouldn't be pretty. I read an article written by an older Dempsey reflecting on the fight that didn't happen, and he really seemed to empathise with Wills and feels bad that it didn't happen, but also explains very well why it couldn't happen. I feel for with Tex Rickard though, the first heavyweight title bout he promoted was Johnson v Jeffries, which resulted in nationwide riots and deaths. After that he vowed never to stage a mixed race heavyweight title bout. It's hard to really blame him, he didn't want that on his shoulders again.

TONGUE-CLICK!