H&G All-Time Index public fighter card
Harry Wills
Heavyweight · United States
Harry Wills ranks #120 in the H&G All-Time Index at Heavyweight, with a 82.75 All-Time Index score and a 70-9-3 professional record. His career span on this page is 1912-1932.
- All-time rank
- #120
- H&G All-Time Index
- 82.750-100 ranking index. This is the number that orders the list.
- Career record
- 70-9-3Professional wins, losses and draws.
- Active years
- 1912-1932
- Data Confidence
- HighDeep career evidence and a tighter peak-rating band in this release. Close ranks still need boxing judgement.
Career story
How Harry Wills's rating rose and fell year by year, with his peak marked.
Yearly peak-form Elo rating points. This curve is separate from the 0-100 ranking index.
Show the year-by-year numbers
| Year | Peak-form Elo rating |
|---|---|
| 1912 | 1,613 |
| 1913 | 1,697 |
| 1914 | 1,744 |
| 1915 | 1,803 |
| 1916 | 1,833 |
| 1917 | 1,861 |
| 1918 | 1,877 |
| 1919 | 1,892 |
| 1920 | 1,890 |
| 1921 | 1,871 |
| 1922 | 1,838 |
| 1923 | 1,802 |
| 1924 | 1,786 |
| 1925 | 1,749 |
| 1926 | 1,685 |
| 1927 | 1,655 |
| 1929 | 1,607 |
Why this ranking
Harry Wills ranks #120 with a 82.75 score on the 60-100 H&G All-Time Index. His standout win in our data is over Joe Jennette in 1919, who reached a 1,822 Peak-form Elo, one of the stronger opponents on his record. In 3 cases a result was later reversed, including Battling Jim Johnson, whom he beat once but lost to in a later fight. Our fight-by-fight records do not add up to his full public win-loss-draw total, so the head-to-head details here are a partial picture. Peak-form Elo is 1,892 (±168), separate from the 60-100 career Index.
What lifts or lowers this ranking
Bars show each weighted signal's relative size. Gold lifts the placement; grey holds it back.
How much repeat elite-year presence supports the all-time case.
How much the record is helped by wins over contemporaneous title-level opponents.
Same-era separation left after the shared peak and sustained rating signal is removed.
Collapsed signal from peak rating, sustained rating and same-era separation.
A narrow signal for lineal, explicit undisputed or major multi-belt class control in this release data; it is not a full title history.
How much major title evidence supports the rating.
Recognition
Ranked on the record, not the colour line
Harry Wills, the 'Black Panther', was the leading heavyweight contender of the early 1920s and a three-time World Colored Heavyweight Champion. He was denied a shot at the world title held by Jack Dempsey, who publicly drew the colour line even as the New York commission pressed for the fight. He is ranked here on his results alone, with no credit for the segregated title and no bonus for the championship he was refused. His honest placement understates a man kept from the title by exclusion rather than by any result in the ring.
Compare and explore
Put Harry Wills next to any other ranked fighter, or open the tools built on the same rating data.
Top fights
The highest-ranked fighters Harry Wills actually faced, biggest names first. Each one opens the head-to-head tool with the pair filled in.
- Sam Langford#146 · Index 82 · 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1922
- Joe Jennette#173 · Index 81 · 1913, 1914, 1919
- Jack Sharkey#408 · Index 76 · 1926
- Fred Fulton#772 · Index 73 · 1920
- Sam McVea#808 · Index 72 · 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920
Ranked-vs-ranked bouts from the pinned fight archive, ordered by opponent ranking. An objective record of who they shared a ring with.
Great rivals he never fought
Ranked fighters who shared a recognised division and whose competitive careers overlapped, with no bout between them on record. Each name opens the head-to-head tool with the pair filled in.
- Jack Dempsey#33 · Heavyweight · 14 overlapping years (1914-1927)
- Gene Tunney#44 · Heavyweight · 14 overlapping years (1915-1928)
- Jack Johnson#57 · Heavyweight · 19 overlapping years (1913-1931)
- Tommy Loughran#58 · Heavyweight · 8 overlapping years (1925-1932)
- Tommy Gibbons#94 · Heavyweight · 13 overlapping years (1913-1925)
- Jack Dillon#101 · Heavyweight · 9 overlapping years (1915-1923)
Show 3 more
- Billy Miske#229 · Heavyweight · 11 overlapping years (1913-1923)
- Max Schmeling#299 · Heavyweight · 9 overlapping years (1924-1932)
- Georges Carpentier#507 · Heavyweight · 14 overlapping years (1913-1926)
Shared recognised division, overlapping competitive years, no recorded bout between them. A measured pattern only.
About this rating
Rankings: H&G All-Time Index v2.0.0. Reflects fights up to , the most recent on record. The ratings are fixed to that point, so fights after it are not yet included.
The rating itself is built from the 83 bouts we hold full data for from 1913 to 1932, which is why this count differs from the professional record above.
For the data-minded
Peak-form Elo rating: 1,892 (peak dated 1919-10-01). This best-point rating sits on its own scale and is not directly comparable with the 0-100 index.
The peak estimate carries an uncertainty band of about ±168 Elo, so read close comparisons with care.