Harry Wills the Black Panther.

Harry Wills fought as a Heavyweight from 1907 till 1932 and in my opinion, was the best of his era in his prime after Langford (1917-1922-23) passed his prime, even with names like Dempsey around. Gonna share why I believe that he topped Dempsey among others.

Professional record: 90-10-7 (including newspaper decisions)

Some of his achievements are:

36 fights for the World Colored Heavyweight title won 30 of those
3 time World Colored Heavyweight Champion
Made 25 defenses for the World Colored Heavyweight title
Colored Heavyweight Champion for nearly 14 years
Had 33 fights against Champions
Beat 5 Champions
27 fights against Hall Of Famers


Apart from his amazing achievements he was an amazing KOmachine in his prime scoring over 50 KO's in his 90 wins. Was a very strong, tall Heavyweight standing at 190 cm (6'3). Like other greats of his time, he had an amazing resume with multiple fights against the other top rated opponents, for example, he fought Sam Langford 17 times beating him 13 of those after Langford passed his prime, SamMcvea 6 times beat him 3 times, Bill Tate 6 times beat him 4 times, Jeff Clark 9 times beat him 8 times.

Harry Wills was always trying to get a fight with Jack Dempsey but that's sadly where Dempsey drew the color line and refused to fight Wills, he was doing that with a lot of great fighters refusing to fight them if they were colored (Langford, McVea and more). Once Dempsey was talking about a match with Wills but in the end, it never happened.

Final thoughts: Harry Wills is definitely one of the finest Heavyweights to ever live and is forgotten too often, I believe in his prime he was nearly unbeatable. He was knocked out by Sam Langford a few times but in the end, a great long career stacked with great victories.

He also became the first black boxing referee after his retirement making history.

1892-1958