jesswillard

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Willard

Boxing champ. Could he have beat Ali or Frazier? Nope.

A giant at 6'6, 240 pounds, Jess Willard faced charges of second-degree murder stemming from the death of his youthful opponent, John "Bull" Young, from a blow to the head in the ninth round of a boxing match on August 22, 1913. Willard's powerful right uppercut had driven Young's jaw up into his brain. On January 13, 1914, a jury found Willard not guilty. In 1915, after defeating Jack Johnson in Havana, Willard became heavyweight champion of the world -- but after that he avoided fights as champ, because Buffalo Bill was paying him a minimum of a thousand dollars a day to appear as an attraction in the fabled Wild West Show -- easy money that Willard would have lost, had he lost the title. (He finally did lose -- in 1919, to Jack Dempsey, in Toledo, Ohio.)

Yes, they are still buzzing about that boxing match in Toledo.

Ah, yes -- I hear that buzzing whenever I get near Maumee -- I used to think it came from motorboats on the river. Here is a Bain/LOC full-view photo of Willard, taken on the same occasion, and posted on Flickr on June 4, 2010:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Willard

Jess Willard (1881-1968) was a heavyweight boxer whose career lasted from 1911 to 1923. In 1915 he won the heavyweight championship, defeating Jack Johnson in a 23 round fight in Havana on April 5, 1915. Though Willard held the title for four years, he defended it only once during that time. He lost the championship to Jack Dempsey in one of the most brutal fights in boxing history (though it lasted only three rounds), on July 4, 1919, at Toledo, Ohio. BoxRec has a fairly detailed biographical sketch.

Jess Willard was a first cousin to my G,G, grandmother.