Tunney vs Marciano

Tunney was hasty in his announcement to retire. A few months later, schmeling knocked out Risko in 9 rounds and Sharkey knocked out Loughran. Two massive fights for Tunney in 29…Schmeling & Sharkey. Would have told us a lot about Tunneys true status at heavyweight. Not to mention Larry Gains and George Godfrey were out there, Tunney had been turning down fights with Godfrey since 1925.

 

His record wasn't "24-1" vs opponents 200 lbs and above. Check again.

Moore's 64-4 record at heavyweight sounds ATG until one breaks it down and adds context. He's got myriads of fights just over 175 and he's got an incredible amount of scrubs in those 64 wins, myriads of them just to keep busy......e.g. when he fought 4 times in one month against guys with records of 76-7-3, 3-1-2, 1-1-1 and 4-22-3. The last two fights were 2 days apart. Don't get excited about the 76-7-3 guy context takes that record apart, not to mention he fought Moore in his last fight.

I agree Moore was an extremely good win for Marciano and would pose an enormous problem for even Greb.

 

Not according to Don Dunphy.

 

I'd favor Marciano to wear him down. Tunney would lead early but Marciano's body investment pays dividends the longer the fight goes on. Maybe a late round stoppage.

 

Oh is it? Give us something fresh to read like how a fantasy fight would play out according to a woke purity filter test, you simpleton. Then feed it to us about the same guy in every thread he’s mentioned ad nauseum.

 

I’m not surprised. Wouldn’t you get a lot more excited by that fight than Louis’ bouts with Walcott? It was a great performance with an exciting KO, which bore a new & beloved champion. You won’t find better ingredients for rose-tinted glasses.

 

It's definitely a huge question mark, and I think that it's a shame that men like these did these things when the color line was starting to fade.

Tunney was a very questionable 'intellectual'- Especially considering all the thoughts he had on race, and I'm no big fan of his personally. I do think the picking on him is fair, I guess I was just tired of seeing it when there was other points to make, but I made myself clear already on both ends. You're right, I just don't like seeing stuff like this over and over.

Greb was right.

 

I want you two to imagine an openly racist society a hundred years from now. They’re looking back at you two in history, who were famous for whatever jobs you do. Then someone says you two treated Black men like equals. Then there’s a pile on.

Do you consider this a fair character appraisal of yourselves? I assume you both have no objections.

 

If people are talking about me a hundred years from now, they can have it.

 

That wasn’t the question.

 

Fair is a term relative to the world you live in. Just as it is fair for us to criticize a man at the time for drawing the color line when other champions didn't, it would be fair for the opposite in a proposed racist future. We know of these things as they are, now, and no more. Any predictions can and will be wrong, and we can only live with what we know.

 

I don’t accept it is a fair criticism as it was still very much a mainstream view of society. I don’t think it would be reasonable for racist to attack your character a hundred years from now using retrospective standards.

But all that aside, surely we can agree Tunney’s political views really shouldn’t factor into how a fight with a Black man would go?

 

Why was Tunney hasty to retire? Tunney retired because he had married Polly Lauder, heir to the Carnegie steel fortune and one of the wealthiest women in the world. Tunney achieved his dream of becoming heavyweight champion and moved on to the next stage of life. Tunney craved high society. Tunney stated that had he remained in the sport his intention was defend the title frequently. Tunney said he would not do long periods of inactivity like Dempsey had done, as he believed to rest was to rust. His two title defenses bear that out, as he faced Dempsey in their rematch just under a year after their first match, and then made his second and final defense of the title 10 months later against Heeney.
When Tunney retired, there was no credible threat to the title he held. Sharkey was given the opportunity to be Tunney’s second defense but to put it simply he blew it. He let Heeney out work him down the stretch of their fight and had to settle for a draw. Then in his follow up showcase he dropped a decision to Johnny Risko.
So Sharkey was never going to be the next defense after Heeney, As these fights took several months to set up.
The most likely by far, candidate was Risko, a fighter that Tunney had already defeated easily, and was not going to set the public imagination on fire. Risko was on the best run of his career and defeated in succession, Uzcudon, Sharkey, Phil Scott and Godfrey. Then after suffering a DQ loss to another contender, he reeled off two more wins against Bear cat wright and Tut Jackson.
Risko would have been the opponent.
If not for Risko the opponent would have been Uzcudon - while less consistent he had the big and still visible on film today - KO of Harry Wills. While almost all realized Wills was now shot, it was still a marketable win. However Uzcudon was viewed as an inferior Dempsey clone. And he was.
Gains was not on the radar.
I don’t see Risko or Uzcudon posing any threat to Gene in what would have been a 3rd title defense. Not by what is available on film and the results Gene was achieving.
Any fight with Schmeling was at least 2 years off from the date of Gene retiring. Much of this information is covered in Adam Pollack’s latest Dempsey book.

 

I was having this exact same conversation with SuzieQ but pages ago, lol. Neither of us think that it should factor into the matter of a fantasy fight, Suzie simply brought it up because Marciano's record was getting questioned when Tunney had these big of outliers in his career.

 

Personally i think a lot more highly of Dunphy than that. Unfortunately i didn't see a truckload of his fights from ringside either.