World Champion Boxer Dead

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31864, 17 December 1968, Page 23

World Champion Boxer Dead

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LOS ANGELES. The former world heavy-weight boxing champion, Jess Willard, who won the title from Jack Johnson and lost it to Jack Dempsey in two of the sport’s most - controversial fights, died yesterday of cerebral haemorrhage, the Associated Press reported. He was aged 86. He died at Paeoima Memorial Lutheran Hospital after being admitted suffering from a heart attack. Willard’s remarkable career in boxing did not start until he was 28 in 1911, and he was 43 when he fought his last match in 1923. The tragedy of Willard’s life and ring career was that proof of his true skill as a

fighter did not emerge until some 45 years after he won the most wanted title in boxing. This came with the discovery of a print of the film of his fight with Johnson, and later the assembly of other old films of his ring appearances—with Dempsey, Frank Moran and others. Viewers of these films, most of them experts on boxing, agreed on two major factors: Willard was quite possibly the most under-rated heavy-weight champion of all time; and that he was an excellent boxer who could also punch, not the big awkward giant he had for so long been pictured. Willard had 36 fights, but the two that remain indelibly imprinted in boxing annals are the championship encounters with Johnson and Dempsey. EVEN CONTEST The film of the Johnson fight at the Havana, Cuba, racecourse on April 5, 1915, showed it was an even contest for 20 rounds, with Willard amazing his critics with

his footwork, long straightleft jab—he had a reach of 84 inches—and ability to take Johnson’s best punches. It ended with Willard knocking Johnson out in the twenty-sixth of the scheduled 45 rounds. The fight lasted one hour and 44 minutes in heat of more than 100 degrees. It was not until five years later—and Willard always emphasised this point—that Johnson, broke and old, and living in Paris, sold a magazine article in which he claimed he took a “dive” In Havana. Johnson was in trouble with the United States Government, forcing him to flee the country, and a law was passed prohibiting inter-state shipment of the prize fight films. Thus, as the years passed and the film remained outlawed, the public was unable to see to determine for itself what happened at Havana. The Dempsey fight was held on a hot afternoon at Toledo, Ohio, on July 4, 1919. Willard came in at 245 pounds and his 6ft 7in frame towered

over the shorter, tigerish, 1871 b Dempsey. Willard had never been knocked off his feet. Dempsey knocked him down seven times in the first round. In moments the right side of Willard’s face was battered. His cheek and jaw bones were fractured. His right eye was shut and he floundered round the ring, gamely getting up after each knockdown. Films show that Dempsey stood over Willard and hit him before he could get to his feet. Curiously, Dempsey was unable to flatten Willard again in either the second or third rounds. Willard was unable to get off his. stool for the fourth. Willard contended that Dempsey’s gloves—or at least the left one, which did all the damage—contained something more than the usual padding. His last two fights were in New York in 1923 when he was 43. He stopped a rising young heavy-weight, Floyd Johnson, in 11 rounds, and was knocked out in the eighth round by Luis Firpo, of Argentina.