Athletes - Jess Willard

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	Athletes - Jess Willard

Jess Willard, born December 29, 1881 in St. Clere, Kansas in rural Pottawatomie County - died December 15, 1968 in Los Angeles, California, was a world Heavyweight boxing champion.

A working cowboy, he did not begin boxing until he was almost thirty years old. In an era when racism was part of the American vernacular, Willard was dubbed as The Great White Hope, a reference to the desire to see the then African-American champion defeated.

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, Cuba, in the 26th round he knocked out the black champion Jack Johnson to win the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship.

Many boxing commentators now regard Willard as one of the weakest champions who defeated one of the strongest. And Johnson spread rumors that he took a dive. But Willard is widely regarded as winning fairly and squarely, when the aging Johnson realised that he could not knock out the less skillful giant, so knew that the younger man would wear him down in the searing heat (105 in the ring) over a 45-round bout.

At 6' 7" (2.01 m), Jess Willard was the tallest heavyweight champion in boxing history, until the recent Vitali Klitschko and Nikolay Valuev. However, age caught up with him and the 37-year-old champion lost his title to Jack Dempsey on July 4, 1919 in Toledo, Ohio. He was so badly mauled that for the rest of his life he thought that Dempsey had something hard in his glove, even though Dempsey helped him financially later. Later boxing experts thought that the referee's failure to stop the bout during round 1 (several knock-downs, broken ribs, face, teeth knocked out) was an unconscionable failure of duty. It was also the first bout that Willard's wife had the misfortune to watch.

Willard parlayed his boxing fame into an acting career of a sort. He acted in a vaudeville 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, with Max Baer and Myrna Loy.

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

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

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Athletes - Jess Willard

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