Conn VS Tunney

I love Billy Conn for his quickness and bravado,but I have to go along with the more disciplined gene tunney. Tunney was a great boxing mind, ala Benny Leonard, was stronger than Conn, and a more punishing puncher... Of course Tunney didn't hit as hard as Louis,
but he hit OFTEN, so I pick Tunney over any lightheavy in history with the" possible " exception of Ezzard Charles .
Aside- during Conn's title reign, his place as an alltime great LH,was not as high as it is now
for what it's worth !

 

No, but a Prime Joe Louis is a bigger test than Harry Greb. Especially when you take into consideration Tunney had a good 12-15lb on Greb, while Conn was giving up 25lb to Louis.

 

And in favor of your view is the fact that Louis identified him as the best opponent Joe faced, saying "Billy Conn had it all!" The interview clip of Louis making that comment aired repeatedly on ESPN the day Joe died, a remarkable statement considering his experiences with Walcott, Charles, Marciano and Schmeling. By inference, he was rating Conn over Charles.

Greb was faster than Gene. Not certain Billy would enjoy the same advantage in speed, but if he did, Tunney had figured out how to cope with that kind of speed by 1925. Carpentier was also blindingly fast, and Tunney dissected him.

 

I'll take Conn by UD. He took all the risks that Tunney avoided. People speak of Gene's discipline inside the ring but forget that he was equally disciplined outside of it in avoiding black fighters and other potential hazards (things Conn and his camp dove headfirst into). If you look at and compare his record to those of his contemporaries you will see how carefully constructed it is, replete with muggings of fading middleweight and light-heavyweight contenders and former champs. Just about all were on their last legs when Tunney fought them (why not fight Loughran a few more times?).

Perfect example: Billy Gibson, Tunney's manager, demanded the fight with Jeff Smith be a no-decision bout because they couldnt select a pro-Tunney referee. The more one reads about Tunney's back room dealings the less respect one has for him. The guy was undeniably talented but he sure seemed to have the deck stacked in his favor whenever he could. Its even worse when you consider that Smith was several inches shorter, had a shorter reach, weighed in at 12 pounds less (despite coming in at about 11 pounds OVER his best weight), 6 years older, and turned pro more than five years before Tunney, and had a lot more mileage on the odomoter. Basically Tunney had every conceivable advantage and STILL wanted to have friendly officiating

 

@ Q going off the deep end and embracing it. Sometimes it's the only way to achieve true catharsis. :yep

 

:huh

 

But Conn failed that test, so what's the point?

Tunney did pass the Greb test, along with the Dempsey test, which are both bigger tests than Conn ever actually passed.

 

How on earth do you figure that? Tunney has wins over one fighter considered arguably THE greatest fighter of all time (even in Conn's own opinion, incidentally), and another considered one of the greatest cruiser-sized fighters of all time. The best win on Conn's resume is... Gus Lesnevich?

You call this "fluid"?

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Try keeping track of how many times he stumbles or falls down just in the first few minutes of this vid.

Tell Tommy Gibbons that Tunney "fights outside the whole fight" and "has a limited inside game."

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Reports also credit Tunney with beating Greb by working him over on the inside with body shots.

 

There's also a great read from the NY Times describing how Tunney "was entitled to the verdict over Tommy Loughran."

The Associated Press described how Loughran "fought eight close rounds with Tunney."

Why would you cherrypick the Philly article and claim that was the one that was "correct"?


There's also "great reads" describing how Conn was outboxed by Teddy Yarosz and Young Corbett, but you've chosen to overlook those ones and only focus on Tunney's difficult fights.

 

Then why did Conn have so much difficulty with other "low guard" boxers like Yarosz or Corbett? - both of whom lacked the size and power of Tunney and were also past their primes.

 

Equating a high guard with fundamental skill/technical prowess is just downright silly

 

Even assuming that that was true (which it isn't necessarily so), what would simply fighting but not beating the stiffer competition prove?

This is exactly the kind of reasoning that you've CRITICIZED in other situations, like so:

:nono