Gene Tunney: Is he a top 10 ATG heavyweight?

He wouldn't need to match him with power, i would take Tunney to knock-out Lewis within 6rds. if Rahman & McCall can put Lewis lights-out then Tunney would certainly level him..... we could have this mythical match-up at either end of the scale. 1920s or 1990s.. Lewis could not fight 15rds if his life depended on it, his footwork & balance was worse than Primo Carnera's or Jess Willards. Lewis physique during the late 90s was obviously enhanced by steroids and his jab was never a weapon but a distraction. Tunney would hold the advantages in boxing skills, movement, balance, Jab, in-fighting, generalship etc and would win fairly easily. Lewis was excellent when fighting guys who was over 6ft 4ins but struggled repeatedly against guys under 6ft 2ins. the one thing there is no doubt about in this fight is that Tunney is going to hit Lewis on the chin repeatedly. Lewis would not last 6rds.

 

Tunney showed enough in those fights as well as his fights with Dempsey for me to make a judgement of his true standing in history... here is an article by historians and where they feel Tunney should be ranked alongside the likes of Lewis & Holmes... are they all wrong in your opinion?

http://cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/casey/MC_HolmesLewis.htm

 

Tunney would have started slowly, but would have dissected Chagaev and stopped him by 12.

 

Tunney was a near flawless fighter who would have surely stopped Jack Dempsey twice had their fights been scheduled for a normal championship distance of 15 rounds...something like the job Sanchez did to Lopez twice..two late rounds tkos for Gene...the first one tko13 the Long Count fight tko14.

 

Fair enough.

But Geoege Foreman, who fought at heavyweight his whole 80 fights or more, didn't really fight many top quality ranked HWs either.
Tunney fought a few more than is being stated here though I think. Weinert, Madden, Spalla, for example, were considered decent contenders. Jack Renault was a good prospect - I think Tunneyu fought him too.

 

Dead on post ...

 

:good

 

your comments and posts get more ridiculous by the day Gene Tunney has one of the best resumes in history and his fights are still talked about nearly 100yrs on yet because he did not weigh 250lbs like today's Heavyweights you try to deprive him of his rightful place in history .. you claim every historian in history is wrong yet you are right ..Historians like Jim Jacobs & Bill Cayton claim Cassius Clay to be the greatest Heavyweight of all times. yet as Clay he never weighed more than 205lb and in most of his fights he was no heavier than Gene Tunney... but every historian is wrong & JAB the forum laughing-stock is right .... Tunney is just the latest in a long line of legendary fighters who you have chosen to HATE-ON... get a life you sad little midget

 

far from it, Tunney defeated Dempsey (twice) Greb (thrice) Gibbons, Winert, Delaney, Carpentier, Madden, Risko, O Dowd, Burke, Spalla, Jamieson, Smith, Loughran, Levinsky...

 

I think I underrate tunney quite a lot. I'm almost certain of it.

I think he should have been counted out against dempsey and fight reports suggest greb did better than 1 in 5... However, even if you share my view on that, he's still beaten everyone he fought and split a series with both greb and dempsey, which in itself is tremendous.

I'm not quite sure why he was never lhw champ, unless i've got that wrong?

It's a shame really because had he stayed a while longer he could have fought wills, sharkey and schmelling which would greatly boost his standings.

I dunno i'm not sold on tunney but by the same stretch I haven't read nor seen much of him apart from being on the ground for 14 seconds against tunney.

What i'd appreciate, rather than someone disagree about the long count, would be for someone to school me on tunney.

 

DOUBLE STANDARDS AGAIN.....just a couple of days ago it was pointed out to you in another thread that Boxrec records of most of the fighters pre-1950 are far from complete with fighters who have say a record of 2-0-1 maybe having a hundred unrecorded fights or more. yet here is "JAB the guy who rates Tommy Morrison up there with the All Time Greats" trashing the career's of Gene Tunney and every opponent he ever fought. as well as trashing every historian in the links provided claiming that every last one of them is WRONG ... Keep it up sunshine, your the laughing stock of the forum and your HATE AGENDA of every fighter pre-2002 makes for you being ranked No1 Top of the List of Trolls & Liar's on the forum.