Where does Gene Tunney rank ?

At light heavyw he is top 5 for sure with a good claim to the No1 spot.

At heavyweight he ranks higher head to head than he dose on resume.

Jack Sharkey for example has a far deeper resume but looking at their fights against common oponents you get the idea that Tunney was a level above.

 

Tunney easily outclassed andstopped Tom Heeney in 11 rounds ,SHarkey fought Heeney earlier and should have done the same to set up a meeting with Gene ,but he only scraped a draw,Jack was inconsistant,Tunney wasnt,he was a cool calculating boxer with good skills ,but his resume is pretty thin at Heavy so he is difficult to evaluate,top 15probably ,at LH easily top 5 imo.

 

He was Heavyweight Champion so where do we rate him there, well his career was short but he did well vs a not too shot but rusty Dempsey, so based on those wins I say he holds his own vs anyone in the top 10 and IMO is close to the top 10 somewhere

 

I put Tunney up there on any list.
He was a well prepaired master boxer.

 

It wouldn't be a stretch to put him at top 30 p4p...your rankings seem pretty much right for him. For holding a winning record against Greb and Dempsey, Tunney's a guy who doesn't get mentioned enough.

 

Tunney is top 5 at LHW for sure, Possibly top 2 or 3 and arguably a #1 Master Boxer and former Marine, so you know you was probably tough to start with, and 2 fights with Dempsey and winning both no matter what they say about either fight, he beat Jack twice, he beat Harry Greb.
At HW right around the #16 spot, I reserve the top 15 for the best HW's ever, he just misses due to his short career at HW.

 

Top 3 LHW imo. Probably top 30 pfp. I have him at 27

 

That's about where I think he is, a solid ranking

 

#2 at light Heavyweight, #13 p4p. Great fighter. Didn't achieve much at heavyweight but his combination of speed, toughness and ring generalship would be a tough fight for many

 

Last time I reckoned up the 175 pounders I had him at #4, behind Charles, Moore and Spinks, but ahead of Foster. As a Heavyweight he'd be something like #17, although I haven't properly considered the Heavies for a while.

Pound for pound it's difficult to say, because there are about 50 names who you could argue all deserve or are worth a top 20 spot on any given day. But he'd probably be on the cusp of my 20, I guess anywhere between #18 and #22, give or take. That's where I've tended to rate him for a few years now.

Amazing fighter and, along with Benny Leonard and Young Corbett III, in my eyes one of the key stylists who really helped bring the sport on and make a clear break from the aesthetics left over from the London Prize Ring Rules era in the 1910s and 1920s to what we're more accustomed to seeing now. Ahead of his time.

 

Top 5 Lightheavies.

I would prefer not to rank him as a heavy but given what he actually did at that weight, somewhere in the latter top 100.