Gene Tunney vs Joe Frazier

Nope.

Frazier cuts the ring better than Dempsey. Frazier is the ultimate catch and hurt fighter. Unless you have unusual toughness, you are not going to take his body shots.

Frazier cuts the ring off Tunney, traps him in the corner and mauls him with endless left hooks.

Frazier tko 11.

 

Tunney takes the first few rounds, but Frazier gets to him gradually and stops him, too big, too relentless and wouldn’t respect Tunney’s power, Tuney can’t keep Frazier off and when you can’t keep Frazier off, you’re in for a rough night, Tunney would be forced to work the whole fight in some way.

 

Really intriguing fight for a while. Tunney is often incorrectly portrayed as a dancer, but he was, in reality, a versatile & fast-thinking fighter. & he improved considerably from the lesson Greb taught him.

Dempsey is somewhat similar to Frazier, but not enough, I don’t think, to directly compare. It will be much harder on Tunney here. Tunney was an accurate & rapid jabber, but Frazier was exceptional at slipping the jab. Tunney had an excellent (& undersold) straight right to the chest, but Frazier’s crouch doesn’t make him susceptible to it.

Tunney has the endurance, will, adaptability & whiskers to make a good go of it. Over ten rounds, he might win, too. Over twelve I’d favour Frazier slightly but clearly, & fifteen is an 80-20 proposition in Frazier’s favour for mine.

 

If it were ten rounds again, Tunney might win it.

 

possibly. But i am not sure about Tunney's ability to take a body shot. Dempsey didn't land many body shots on him and that version of Dempsey had lost his footspeed.

Frazier will land body shots from round 4-5 onwards. Could Tunney withstand so many body shots without slowing down? Did he ever face that kind of 200 lb + power?

 

No, & good point. That is why I could only even consider making Tunney favourite over ten rounds.

 

Dempsey landed enough body blows to bruise Tunney's mid section. Frazier would land more but whether or not Tunney could take a body punch is not up to question.

 

Who picked Tunney by stoppage? Mods cast a light on this heathen

 

No.

Frazier was bigger and better than Jack.

 

Bigger, yes. Better? Than the ageing Dempsey Tunney faced, at least. But don’t forget Tunney did it extraordinarily easy, like Holmes-Shavers easy.

 

Hypothetically, Gene might be able to swell Frazier blind like Ali did in Manila. His jab was hard enough to deck Heeney. I don't see it though.

Tunney was the smartest of the heavyweight champions, and he'd analyze Frazier to death. Joe was predictable, but that predictability also meant focus. He did one thing, but did it better than anybody else. Ali's lean was really geared for slipping the left hook, yet Frazier succeeded in using his hook to the body to set up the hook to the head. He won't stop Gene, but he won't stop scoring with hooks to the body either. This one's going to the final bell.

After Jimmy Ellis came in at a career high weight for Frazier in 1970, but later scaled a Tunney like 189 for Ali. A 34 year old Eddie Machen at the end of the line came in at 192 for Frazier in 1966 and produced a left hook knockdown in round eight which was not called as such by referee Tommy Hart, but it showed Gene wouldn't have been too small to hurt Joe.

I think Joe Frazier is a top five ATG HW, and would have beaten more of history's other HW Champions than two time conqueror Foreman, but Gene was faster moving backwards than Joe was advancing (Tunney ran backwards for miles and miles on sand), and unlike Ali was equally comfortable circling right as he was circling left. Frazier would be eating jabs constantly as he moved in.

Both were conditioning fanatics.

Dempsey was hopelessly past it, but the Long Count sequence was started by a leftward slip of Gene's jab and counter from outside that jab by a long right that stunned Tunney. That knockdown came from a two fisted attack. Frazier did not have that sort of hurting right in his arsenal. He'd have to do it with his left hook alone. Gene proved twice with the Mauler that he could manage Jack's bob and weave, so he could manage Frazier's as well. (I don't like Joe's chances with Dempsey, who was a much faster starter, had a deadly right uppercut, and could swell Joe's face into a mess quickly. Looking at Foreman-Frazier I, Dempsey-Willard and Dempsey-Firpo, Jack's footspeed and the legs he displayed through the Championship Distance with Tommy Gibbons, I think Frazier would be just to beaten up to rally after the first couple rounds, although one literally had to kill him to make him quit.)

34 year old Machen was vastly inferior to peak Tunney when he took on Frazier, yet nearly went the limit with Frazier despite trying to slug with the younger man, who won nine rounds and kept Eddie pinned on the ropes. Joe was coming off his near loss to Bonavena, so at 22, he wasn't wholly inexperienced.

Right as of now, I haven't picked a winner. I'm pretty confident it goes to the final bell. That would seem to favor Tunney, who went the distan

 

@greynotsoold id be interested to hear your input on this bout.

 

Frazier was heavier and better then THAT Jack, but not the Toledo version of Dempsey or the one on the march to the belt… he was a defanged Viper by the Tunney match.

 

Regarding that all important matter of hunger, Jack was listed for decades in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest overall money earner in boxing history at $10,000,000 NOT adjusted for inflation, a record not broken until Ali finally surpassed it after Manila. Dempsey's fortune would be around $189,000,000 in 2024 dollars, which would place him fifth all time today, behind PBF, Big George, Pac and DLH, but well ahead of Lennox. That old hunger was gone. He even made over $250,000 for the 1927 nontitle tilt with Sharkey, over four and a half million today.

Toledo Jack was still literally hungry, as he fasted once a week during training for Willard to give his digestive system a rest. (He said it seemed strange out of choice not that long after simply he had nothing available to eat.) Yet unlike Tunney, he remained trim in retirement. Frazier on the other hand took up boxing to lose weight, as he was having trouble fitting his legs into his pants. He easily could have wound up morbidly obese and died prematurely like the over 500 pound Buster Mathis did at just 53, yet he was able to perform an exhibition at age 62 shirtless where guys like Zale and Graziano did it wearing tee shirts. Dying of liver cancer at 67 is pretty reasonable considering his genetic issues with high blood pressure, arthritis and diabetes.