Standing 6-feet 6-inches tall, Jess Willard from Pottawatomie County, Kan., earned his nicknames as the “Great White Hope” and the “Pottawatomie Giant.”
Before his first professional fight at the age of 29 and eventual heavyweight championship reign, Willard worked as a cowpuncher and a horse and mule handler.
After an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Jack Dempsey in 1919, Willard allegedly told reporters, “I have $100,000 and a farm in Kansas.”