Is Gene Tunney underrated on P4P and LHW lists?

I dont think Tunney is underrated on LHW lists, I've seen him at number 1 on a few, and in the top 5 on many.
He's certainly a worthy candidate. Man was a great fighter.

 

Charles hardly chose to fight Marciano on the inside. In the early rounds he was using subtle movement and tied Rocky up in the clinches, which Marciano found very frustrating. As the rounds went on, Charles's legs started to go with the constant pressure and he was forced to trade punches with a relentless Marciano. By the time of the second fight, Charles's legs were shot and his only option was to brawl with Rocky. He did well to re-arrange Marciano's nose with rough tactics but eventually he had to fall against the stronger man.

Tunney wasn't perhaps as "fluid" or smooth as Tommy Loughran but I find him equally effective or even more so. The films of him are also worse than of Loughran, even though they fought around the same era. You can easily miss Tunney's triple left hands, shoulder rolls and counters with the poor quality films. For my money Tunney's display against (an admittedly old) Gibbons is as good as it gets even though the film is sped up and has to be slowed down in order to truly appreciate what was going on. The original film looks like two Charlie Chaplin's in there as Pachilles would put it.

 

Good Post GreatA

 

There's a question as to which fights should count towards Tunney's light-heavyweight ranking though.

The last Greb fight, the Gibbons win, and obviously the two Dempsey fights and Tom Heeney, Tunney had outgrown the division. And that's when he really peaked.

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXRw0XfAsmM[/ame]


Loughran was great against Braddock:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jxlDY5C9g[/ame]


I do wish that they had fought a rematch in the late 1920's with both men at their best.

 

Obviously yes they all did, I thought Charles did well early, Marciano may have broken him down even if prime to be fair, you can only beat the man in front of you

 

+1

 

Agreed..

But

I think the bottom line is that the Charles of 1949 did not have "average footwork" like Jersey Joe implies.

Watch

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9CYH5EVSY&feature=related[/ame]
:26-:33. watch how elegantly and gracefully he moves out of range...his footwork is so smooth and precise. This was something he had lost by 1954.


I can't believe the post called Charle's footwork average atsch

 

I was going to respond to Jersey Joe's post but it seems others have straightened things out.

Charles fought wonderfully. I mean how much better can you do than sweeping the first 5 rounds? A lot of people thought crowding Marciano was the answer (Not even what Charles did anyway). Anyway, maybe I'll respond to that post but for such a great poster I found quite a slant.

And yeah, The Charles footwork average comment is just befuddling. Ali made note of Charles footwork in 1954 for the rematch. Charles was broken and done after that Marciano war, that was his last stand and one of his finest ones. Ali said anyone's footwork that was relatively simple or not high motion was bad footwork. Like he said against Joe Louis as well. Charles footwork was sublime, actually technical better than Tunney's (Not neccessarily more effective). I didn't know footwork and footspeed were synonymous to each other. What makes Ali an authority anyhow?

 

Tunney did not have better footwork than Jersey Joe Walcott. Walcott and Ali were in a league of their own.

 

Gene Tunney is and always (since 1926) has been underrated in every concievable way, except by a few mavericks here in the Classic forum and elsewhere.

 

How was Norfolk "better" than Tommy Gibbons who crushed him, or Sharkey "better" than Dempsey, Heeney, or Risko who he either lost or drew against? And when did Godfrey even break the top 5 while Tunney was active?

 

Here's my light heavy list:

1. Ezzard Charles
2. Sam Langford
3. Archie Moore
4. Gene Tunney
5. Michael Spinks
6. Billy Conn
7. Bob Foster
8. Tommy Loughran
9. Roy Jones Jr
10. Harold Johnson

 

How do you measure that ?

Sometimes I wonder whether "great" just equates to "pleasing to the eye" in matters like these, with some of you here.