Tunney's resume at LHW: does it validate such a high ranking?

He never rematched loughran, never fought sharkey, godfrey, schmeling, wills, norfolk, younger gibbons. Retired in 1929 with all 3 top rated contenders Hall of Fame heavyweights in there prime. Tunney never took on one black fighter, and never took on a heavyweight above 202lb. I hate to be critical, but this is alot of holes in a great one's resume. You think Ezzard Charles or Sam Langford never took on a black fighter?

Exactley, he was just a teenager developing...and many still believe loughran won the fight.

Yes he was a good young prospect, but had not reached his peak yet. not at 20.

Well, I think its foolish to make an arguement Loughran was better than Archie Moore. Remember, in essence Loughran was a one armed fighter. Archie Moore is on another level. Also, I do strongly feel Harold Johnson's style on film is alot more developed than loughrans..I think johnson would have won a clear cut decision over loughran. Loughrans best weapon left jab, was nowhere near as good as johnsons jab. Im being realistic, boxing developed alot more technique wise by the 1950s than in the 1920s.

Yes impressive, but Greb was outweighed by 12lb, and still took 2 defeats. This is one prime great fighter Tunney fought, but once again Greb was much smaller.

 

I think Tunney's resume at p4p or lightheavy is quite strong.

He defeated arguably the best middleweight of his time (Greb), the best lightheavy (Gibbons) and the best heavy (Dempsey). How many fighters can claim to have done that. The only ones I can think of are Fitz (Dempsey, Corbett, Gardner) and Charles (Burley, Moore, Louis, Walcott). Nor were any of these men clearly washed up. Greb was still good enough to beat Loughran and Walker. Gibbons was coming off a win over Norfolk. Dempsey still had enough left to ko Sharkey. Even at the end of the century, I am certain Dempsey and Greb make most top ten lists at their weights, and even Gibbons still makes the top twenty at lightheavy. Moreover, I think it fair to say that Tunney gave all three of these men the worst defeats of their careers, certainly after they became top fighters.
And besides these three and the aging champs, Carpentier and Levinsky, there were a decent amount of wins over contenders--Weinert, Risko, Spalla, and Heeney at heavy. Fay Kaiser, Marty Burke, and Jimmy Delaney at the lighter weights.
He was generally seen as getting the best of Leo Houck and Jeff Smith in newspaper decisions, and got at least a wash with Loughran.

Certainly a much better resume than Bob Foster's and at least as good as that of Michael Spinks.

I think Tunney's resume is more than substantial enough to get him into the top five at lightheavy.

 

I dont think Moore was as good a pure boxer as Loughran.
I dont think Johnson's jab was as good as Loughran's.
The best jabber Johnson ever fought beat him Pastrano, and he was NOT in Loughran's class.
One of Greb's defeats to Tunney saw Gene with only 3 1/2lbs advantage,another a draw was 9lbs.
I dont accept that boxing in the 50's had advanced in technique from the 20's.KId Chocolate,Sammy Mandell,Benny Leonard,Fidel Labarba,Jack Delaney,are some that attest to this.
Loughran beat 3 men who held the heavyweight title,4 men who held the LH title,5 men who held the middle crown,add contenders like
Hamas
Uzcudun
Schaaf
Griffiths
Risko
Smith,
There are very few resumes better.

 

Not only were they the best of their time, they are generally considered among the best of all time at their respective weights.

That says it all for me right there.

 

Greb, yes impressive win. However Tunney did not weigh in at 160lb, he outweighed greb by at least 12-15lb each time

Gibbons was 35 and already had his foot in the door of retirement home. Not that impressive of a win. Especially when you consider Tunney admitted avoiding Gibbons when Gibbons was younger.



Dempsey of 26-27 was far past his prime coming off 3 year ring rust of booze, parties, and whores. When you also take into account the controversial win where tunney was knocked out for 14 seconds, it bring things back down to earth.




How many All time Great fighters never faced a black fighter? that takes away like 50% of your competition. Tunney also never faced a genuine heavyweight over 202lb, and his management avoided throwing him in vs punchers.....at both light-H and heavyweight.

 

I don't think that's accurate saying Gibbons was "washed up" just because it happened to be his last fight. He was the #2 ranking heavyweight in the world (second only to Harry Wills) at the time Tunney beat him, and had been rated there for about 2 straight years. Also, he was coming off a string of impressive wins, including a stoppage of Kid Norfolk and a lopsided whupping of Carpentier, and he hadn't been beaten or even struggled since his loss to Dempsey two years earlier. He was a very respected fighter at both LHW and HW right up until Tunney's shocking KO win.

A natural middleweight perhaps, but he was renown as a great LHW well before he decided to drop down and go after the middleweight title. Tunney was not even expected to win one fight against him, let alone a whole series.

I can easily see him being rated in the all time top 10 at the weight, and have seen him in other people's lists as well.

He retired.

 

50% of what opposition exactly?

How many black fighters were rated in The Ring's top 10, either at LHW or HW, between 1924 and Tunney's retirement in mid 1928?

In the span of six years, Tunney fought:
1. The most highly regarded LHW, five times.
2. The #2 rated HW.
3. The heavyweight champion.
4. The ex-champion, now top contender.
5. The leading challenger.

Along the way, he did pursue a fight with Harry Wills, the #1 contender at HW, but was turned down. That eliminated one of only two black HWs that were contenders at the time. The other had been rated well below Gibbons and Wills - and Tunney went on to fight the reigning champion not long after that anyway.

What fighters who happened to be black would you say deserved a fight with Tunney in place of the guys above?

 

I question how he got that ranking. Here are the # 3- #10 rated heavyweights by ring magazine during that year

Charley Weinert
Quintin Romero Rojas
Jack Renault
Luis Angel Firpo
George Godfrey
Jim Maloney
Erminio Spalla


Gibbons did not record one win over those following men.

Not at Heavyweight. He did not beat one top 10 rated heavyweight contender in 1924 or 1923

Kid Norfolk was blind. Norfolk was so washed up he shouldnt have even been granted a boxing liscense. Its doubtful whether or not Gibbons could beat a prime norfolk.

Carpentier was not only considerable over the hill, but he was a supermiddleweight. This win has little to do with Gibbons effect on the heavyweight picture.

 

Tom Heeney was not the leading challenger. Jack Sharkey was always rated over tom heeney in ring magazine ratings. check for yourself. not to mention the much better fighter. Heeney looks like a joke on film.

 

You exaggerate the weight disparity between Tunney and Greb ,in one of Tunney's wins ,he was only 3 1/2 lbs the heavier man.