Gene Tunney's heavyweight resume

Hi buddy, strange you should use the term " fighter " when referring to Tunney, because for a long time I thought he was more a boxer/ fancy dan type of boxer, it wasn't until I read the reports on the his 1st fight with Greb , that I realised it was time to re-evaluate my preconceived ideas on his fighting prowess, judging on that criteria, a fighter he most certainly was.
As to his standing and top ten talk, I would say from the beginning ie: Sullivan to Paterson he would rank fairly high, after them the HWs start to get very big, very strong, and prob out weigh him by anywhere from 2st to maybe 5st !! , so he would struggle and not be in that groups top ten. keep well.

 

At least he could afford it.

 

Hi Mike. Ray Arcel cornered Tunney as a young guy. After the hiding Greb put on him in their first fight, Gene was blazing and was prepared to go to war again. Arcel had the idea of pairing him in training with Benny Leonard. Tunney absorbed what he saw Leonard doing in training and sparring and humbled Greb in the rematch.
Gene Tunney, like Jim Corbett, wanted to be rich. That's all Boxing meant to them.
All the best mate.

 

Hi buddy.
On the money with the advice from Leonard, apparently Benny taught Gene to counter Grebs rushes with a straight right under the heart, have read that Harry did indeed not savour that punch, and gave him pause to repeat his famous onslaught.
Always good to trade with you amigo. keep well.

 

Always great to hear back from you Mike. Keep your left up.

 

Hes kind of like Rocky Marciano and Riddick Bowe I guess

 

This is kind of ironic considering how many ‘what would so-and-so’s legacy be if he had retired after …’ threads.

Those, of course, revolve around the fact that we know so-and-so lost after that point. But with Tunney, for all we know he’d have lost 3 of his next four if he had kept fighting and this thread would have been about what if he had retired earlier.

 

Likely the most massively overrated heavyweight in the history of the division, and that is saying something. A couple advantageously arranged 10 round decisions over a washed up, soft-living playboy who used to be a puncher, and then a whole lot of nothing fights, beating up shopworn lightheavies on their final fights and various non-entities.

The two dumbest types of commentators are 1) those who say he was smart because he bought some copies of Shaw tomes and carried them around a la Lebron James and 2) he was fast because he never faced a fast twitch fighter on film who wasn't old and rusty.

 

So what's the consensus on Top 10s beaten by Tunney?