Shouldn't Gene Tunney be rated higher pound-for-pound?

Hello! No little guys. No Wilde or Jofre or anybody below 118 (except Dixon).

 

Tunney avoided the best blacks. So no. Manassa, how far off was Burley in your top 20? He did conclusively beat your #7.

 

:admin

 

Absolutely and SHOULD be in the case of Tunney. As you can see, Tunney was good at picking on past-prime MWs like Houck and Smith. Carpentier, Gibbons and Dempsey were all at or nearing the end. I posted this awhile back regarding Tunney. I still stand by it:

People speak of Gene's discipline inside the ring but forget that he was equally disciplined outside of it in avoiding black fighters and other potential hazards (things Conn and his camp dove headfirst into). If you look at and compare his record to those of his contemporaries you will see how carefully constructed it is, replete with muggings of fading middleweight and light-heavyweight contenders and former champs. Just about all were on their last legs when Tunney fought them (why not fight Loughran a few more times?). Klompton wrote this to me once:

Billy Gibson, Tunney's manager, demanded the fight with Jeff Smith be a no-decision bout because they couldn't select a pro-Tunney referee. The more one reads about Tunney's back room dealings the less respect one has for him. The guy was undeniably talented but he sure seemed to have the deck stacked in his favor whenever he could. Its even worse when you consider that Smith was several inches shorter, had a shorter reach, weighed in at 12 pounds less (despite coming in at about 11 pounds OVER his best weight), 6 years older, and turned pro more than five years before Tunney, and had a lot more mileage on the odometer. Basically Tunney had every conceivable advantage and STILL wanted to have friendly officiating

 

He should definitely be in the top 20, even if he didn't fight any black fighters.

 

With the exception of Armstrong, SRR fought and beat most of the greats on his resume in their primes. Can't say the same about Tunney. We don't know if Gene could have beaten prime versions of those guys.

 

Just outside top 20 for me.

 

You shouldn't be rated P4P unless you beat good fighters who are bigger than you, or unless you completely outclass everyone who is about your size or smaller. Tunney didn't do either of those things.

 

Let's not start comparing Tunney's resume with SRR's. They aren't even in the same universe.