Jess Willard

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Jess Willard

Jess Willard (December 29, 1881 – December 15, 1968) was a World Heavyweight

Heavyweight

Heavyweight is a division, or boxing weight classes, in boxing. Fighters who weigh over 200 pounds are considered heavyweights by the major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Organization, the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council, and the World Boxing Organization....
Boxing

Boxing

Boxing is a combat sport where two participants, generally of similar human weight, fight each other with their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee and is typically engaged in during a series of one to three-minute intervals called rounds....
Champion.

A working cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks....
, he did not begin boxing until he was almost 30 years old. Despite his late start, Jess Willard proved successful as a boxer, defeating top-ranked opponents to earn a chance to fight for the championship. On April 5, 1915 in front of a huge crowd at the Vedado Racetrack in Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city is one of the 14 Provinces of Cuba. The city/province has 2.1 million inhabitants, and the urban area over 3.5 million, making Havana the largest city in both Cuba and the Caribbean....
, Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is a country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba , the island of Isla de la Juventud, and several adjacent small islands....
, in the 26th round he knocked out champion Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson (boxer)

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Jess Willard (December 29, 1881 – December 15, 1968) was a World Heavyweight

Heavyweight

Boxing

Cowboy

Havana

Cuba

Jack Johnson (boxer)

John Arthur Johnson , better known as Jack Johnson and nicknamed the ?Galveston Giant?, was an United States boxing and arguably the best heavyweight of his generation....
to win the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship.

Johnson spread rumors that he intentionally lost the fight, but Willard is widely regarded as winning fairly. Willard said, "If he was going to throw the fight, I wish he'd done it sooner. It was hotter than hell out there."

Johnson found that he could not knock out the giant Willard, who fought as a counterpuncher, making Johnson do all the leading. Johnson began to tire after the 20th round, and was visibly hurt by heavy body punches from Willard in rounds preceding the 26th round knockout. Following the fight, Willard was heralded as "The Great White Hope".

At 6 ft 6½ in (2.00 m) and 245 lb (111 kg), Jess Willard was the tallest and the largest heavyweight champion in boxing history, until the 270 lb (122 kg) Primo Carnera

Primo Carnera

Primo Carnera was an Italian people Boxing who became the List of Heavyweight Champions....
won the title on June 29, 1933, and the 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) Vitali Klitschko

Vitali Klitschko

Dr. Vitali Vladimirovich Klitschko born 19 July 1971 in Belovodsk, Kyrgyzstan). Klitschko is a Ukrainian professional heavyweight boxing and the current World Boxing Council heavyweight champion....
won on June 23, 1999. At age 37, Willard lost his title to Jack Dempsey

Jack Dempsey

Jack "Manassa Mauler" Dempsey was an United States boxing who held the List of heavyweight boxing champions from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey's aggressive style and punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history....
on July 4, 1919, in Toledo

Toledo, Ohio

Toledo is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio. Named after Toledo, Spain, it is located on the western end of Lake Erie, on the Michigan border....
, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America....
. Dempsey knocked Willard down for the first time in his career with a left hook in the first round. Dempsey knocked Willard down seven times in the first round, winning the title when Willard was unable to continue after the third round. In the fight Willard suffered a broken jaw, cheekbone, and ribs, as well as losing several teeth. Rumors spread that Dempsey had plaster

Plaster

The term plaster can refer to plaster of Paris, lime plaster, or cement plaster. This article deals mainly with plaster of Paris.Plaster of Paris is a type of building material based on calcium sulfate Hydrate, nominally CaSO4?0.5H2O....
ed his hands to make them harder, but Dempsey swore he did not.

Willard parlayed his boxing fame into an acting career of a sort. He acted in a vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a genre of a variety show prevalent on the theatre in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. It developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrel show, freak shows, dime museums, and literary burlesque....
show, had a role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and starred in a 1919 feature film The Challenge of Chance. In 1933, he appeared in a bit part in a boxing movie, The Prizefighter and the Lady
The Prizefighter and the Lady

The Prizefighter and the Lady is a 1933 in film black-and-white Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer crime film romance film comedy film starring Myrna Loy, Max Baer , Primo Carnera, Jack Dempsey, and Walter Huston....
, with Max Baer and Myrna Loy

Myrna Loy

Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, but after a few minor roles in silent films, she devoted herself fully to an acting career, and from 1925 gradually established herself as a film actress....
.

On his passing in 1968, Jess Willard was interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery

Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)

Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery is part of the Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries chain of Southern California cemeteries. It is located at 6300 Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, which is on the lower north slope at the far east end of the Santa Monica Mountains range that overlooks North Hol...
in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
, California

California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
.

In 2003, he was inducted posthumously into the International Boxing Hall of Fame

International Boxing Hall of Fame

The modern International Boxing Hall of Fame is located in Canastota, New York, New York, United States, within driving distance from the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown and the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, New York....
.

External links

(2008)

Jess Willard

See also

External links