[Cap]

July 26, 1920 Harry Wills took apart Fred Fulton knocking him out in the third round. Fulton had gone 18-0 after his KO loss to Dempsey, beating a number of established names: Willie Meehan, Sam Langford, Frank Moran, Tom Cowler, Porky Flynn, Bartley Madden, John Lester Johnson, etc. He also stopped Jack Thompson in six after Thompson had gone 15 with Wills. The kayo of Fulton should've earned a match with Dempsey.

After beating Willard, Jack Dempsey didn't fight again until he stopped Billy Miske in September of 1920 in what many considered a gift to a "fading" Miske who much later died of Bright's Disease, an inflammation of the kidneys. That same month Wills had two fights that barely made the papers and he and his manager Paddy Mullins began to doubt Dempsey and his people would ever agree to meet Wills in the ring.

Interestingly, Dempsey's next fight December 14 of that same year was against Bill Brennan, and for 11 or 12 rounds it looked like Brennan would outbox Dempsey. Now Brennan was a pretty fair fighter but he was no where near as good a boxer as Harry Wills.

So the question remains, would Harry Wills, after polishing off Fred Fulton, have been good enough to outbox Jack Dempsey over 10 or 15 rounds? Jack whipped some big men like Willard, Carl Morris, Fred Fulton, etc but none of them had the ring skills of Harry Wills. So sadly, we'll never know.

Cap