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Name: Harry Wills Career Record: click Alias: Black Panther Nationality: US American Birthplace: New Orleans, LA Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Born: 1889-05-15 Died: 1958-12-21 Age at Death: 69 Stance: Orthodox Height: 6′ 2″ Manager: Paddy Mullins Harry Wills was a Heavyweight contender during the late 1910s and 1920s. He was widely seen as Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey's top contender for much of Dempsey's title reign. Wills was unable to secure a title shot due to the color barrier in boxing, which prevented African-American boxers from fighting for the Heavyweight title, following the controversial reign of Jack Johnson. Harry Wills served as a sparring partner for heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in preparation for Johnson's July 4 1912 title defense against Fireman Jim Flynn. The Kansas City Star reported that in a June 9 sparring session between the two Wills 'did his best, but his best was not much and Johnson called for Marty Cutler after Wills had been on duty for three rounds.' Wills died December 21, 1958 in New York City, NY, USA. Aug. 30, 1922 NY Times article called him the Brown Panther Photo 2; Photo 3 CBZ page Sunday State Journal Lincoln, Nebraska 24 Aug 1924 Methods of Negro Boxer Are Totally Opposite From Wild Bull's Ideas—He Weighs 224. At Harry Wills' camp at Rose Point, a beautiful spot on Peconic Bay, Southampton, L. I., we learned that Wills' training methods are almost totally opposite from Luis Firpo's. Whereas Luis takes his steak and meat daily, Harry's special training dish is cream cheese of his own making. Harry eats little meat and no steaks or beef until the day of a fight. Firpo is taking his training fairly easy just now, working gradually more and more up to the fight, he says. Wills has done thirty-three days of hard work until he has got himself in shape to enter a ring today, so has let up in order not to go stale. Wills eats only two meals a day. Firpo the regulation three. Wills jogs eight miles a day thru heavy sand along the beach. Firpo does but five miles of road work and not much running to it. Instead of punching a heavy bag Wills pulls on a rowing machine. Can You Answer This? And while Firpo is losing weight Wills finds the harder he works the more he gains! Luis has lost eight pounds, Harry has gained fourteen, now weighing 224, one pound more than Firpo says he weighs. In one respect only does Wills training idea agree with Firpo's. Harry thinks that every man should train himself according to "his own individual requirements. (This is the idea which the Finnish athletes who proved so redoubtable in the Olympics have given to our own Olympic athletes.) Therefore, both Wills and Firpo are their own trainers. "Of course these big professional trainers know their business and more about training athletes than I do," Wills admitted. "But I figure I've been in the game long enough now to know just what it takes to get me In condition. I don't think they could help me any. While a trainer can tell a man's condition on the outside by looking at him, he don't know how the man feels on the inside. Some days that eight miles along the beach doesn't bother me at all and I can box five or six rounds and work all afternoon and never feel It. But other times I know that I'm just wearing out my energy inside, and nobody but me knows it." Wills' boxing arena is indoors, on the former dance floor of Jones casino, a hotel restaurant owned and operated by a well known Southampton character, William H. Jones. Wills lives in a cottage furnished by Jones, a few feet down the beach from the Casino, with his wife, two sparring partners and a cook. Harry says he chose this place to train in order to avoid big crowds of spectators. He says he can't train playing to the gallery. And yet from twenty to thirty persons a day, many of them fashionable and wealthy people from the Southampton summer resort, visit him daily. When we dropped in at Wills cottage we found him and two negro sparring partners, Jeff Clark, the "Joplin ghost," and "Battling" Owens, sitting idle at a time of the afternoon when we expected they' be working in the ring. "First afternoon off in thirty-three days.'" Wills explained with a contented look. "I'm trained down now to the point where I'm liable to go stale. So I'm giving myself a vacation for a few days. I mean, I'm trained up so fine, for I weigh more now than I did when I started." Wills looked in better condition than we ever saw him, much better than before the Madden fight. He said he gets up at six every morning for his road work, and doesn't eat till ten. Then it's fruit, hominy or cereal of some kind, ham and eggs and whole wheat bread without butter most of the time, accompanied by his favorite dish, cream cheese with sugar and sweets cream over it. His work in the ring comes from three to four, shadow boxing, rope jumping, five or six rounds with his two sparring partners, and gymnastic exercises afterward on the mat. At 5:30 p. tn. he eats his big meal, lamb or pork with plenty of vegetables and whole wheat bread. We asked him about the cream cheese dish. "It's the best training stuff in the world. I learned that from my mother in New Orleans. She sends me the cheese mold and I make my own. I get the best cream from Mr. Jones; let it stand until it gets thick, then pour It in the perforated mold so that the whey runs off and leave the cheese. Let me show you," and Harry got up to get the mold. At this point his wife came in and nothing would do but she should prepare a dish of it to prove its merits. And it was good! But we made a mistake by saying so, for in their good natured hospitality we almost had to fight Wills and the whole camp to keep from eating three or four more platefuls. There is an air of good natured jollity about Wills' camp that we missed in the Argentine outfit. When "Battling" Owens—he insisted on the "Battling"— gave his weight as two hundred and forty, Wills and Clark laughed him down. "Two hundred and sixty, you mean." To settle the argument they insisted on taking the barrel-chested giant to the scales, though he didn't want to go. Behind his back Harry put his foot on the scales, so that the weight went up to 294. "Battling" let out a roar, declaring that the scales were wrong or else he'd never eat again. The rafters shook for ten minutes as they laughed at "Battling's" bewildered expression, but they never told him what was the matter. San Antonio Express 11 September 1924 Will Firpo’s Right beat Wills Left To The Punch NEW YORK, Sept 10.—Within the next 24 hours the huge, untutored right fist of Luis Angel Firpo, all studded with knuckly knobs like a prehistoric cave gentleman's walking stick, will cut furrows in the ripe atmosphere of New Jersey, speeding on an errand of commerce and conquest. If Luis Angel docs not fracture his wrist on the thick glue-factory odors and other fragrant elements, in the Jersey oxone, which is extremely strong at times, he should knock Harry Wills, the slat-shaped colored man, into a position parallel to the horizon. Of course, he may ruin his fist on some wandering zephyr from the glue refineries. Babe Ruth played a game or ball in Jersey one autumn In the course of a barnstorming tour, and broke a bat in a healthy swing that missed the hall by a yard. The Babe said the air of the place was so strong that he couldn't risk his very personal bludgeon any further and so he confined himself to hunting the rest of the afternoon. Firpo’s Right His Only Weapon. However — Luis Angel Firpo, at the time he quit the training compound at Saratoga Lake, was a better athlete than he had ever been before. He was in far better condition than he was the day he bounced Jack Dempsey through the ropes a year ago and his right walloper was hitting harder and faster. It was almost incredible to see such an awkward fist lash out with much speed and still carry the drive of his clumsy body behind it. Firpo's right hand remains the only hand. His left is no better than it was when he first strayed into the fight business and it couldn't possibly be any worse, he hasn't learned to box, but somehow, as he drilled himself into the best physical condition of his career, he seemed to speed the right smash. He can now toss three punches from one plunge whereas, under his old plan of brawling, he had to reorganize himself and left fly all over again, each time he pitched that mauler Wills' Left His Hope. Harry Wills has been confiding to the universe that he will poke Luis Angelo in the face with straight lefts until Luis Angelo is fatigued and dazzled and then will chop him on the chin with a right cross.
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