"Not many boxers could out-box Tunney at this stage of his career,but Loughran could"

Interesting, Chuck. I have heard simlar remarks about Cavanaugh's book. Anybody else have thoughts on it?

 

Yes, 100% Loughran was born and based out of Philadelphia. He's their home town boy and is in the Pennsylvania hall of fame. As such the local news papers might be a little slanted on who won.

Read a detailed round by round report. Or read Loughran's statement that Klompton posted. Tunney won it.

Well if Tunney almost knocked him out and shook him up a few times, up 4 rounds to 1 with 1 even going into the 8th round, you'd assume in a longer fight Tunney could knock him out.

Speculation on my part is Tunney took Loughran lightly as he did not have a big reputation when the fight took place. Tunney won it, but by lasting the distance and giving up weight and experience, Loughran's reputation was also raised.

Are there any non-philly sources that say Loughran won?

I agree a re-match for 15 rounds would have been nice. Not a fan of the ND's of the time or 8 round fights in general.

 

I read it but didn't it just come out in 06?

 

Loughran said he was out of it until the seventh round after the KD. You dont get knocked down and outboxed until the seventh round in an 8 rounder and claim you won, especially not after publicly crying over the loss and stating you have no alibi's.

 

I didnt think it was that good. It got a lot of stuff wrong. Didnt delve at all into Tunney's criminal ties. Didnt discuss his life in depth after his career. It was strange because he had advertisements in Ring magazine soliciting research on Tunney. That must have cost a decent amount and you would think he would have gotten some help but his book didnt reflect. I suspect he got what he didnt want and ignored it. Tunney is the type of guy that once you start digging his warts start emerging very quickly. Tunney was great at manipulating the media to shape his image. Those guys always start falling apart when you scratch the surface. Cavanaugh was writing a love letter kind of like Flame of Pure Fire was for Dempsey and it looked like he ignored anything negative about Tunney.

 

I enjoyed Tunney by Jack Cavanaugh. It did include some factual errors including Greb losing to Norfolk. Without any in depth reporting on their match. However I didn't find nearly as over indulging on it's subject matter as a flame of pure fire was.

 

This is a very odd stance by Cavanaugh. Loughran and Tunney had every similar styles but I would argue Tunney was the more complete fighter and every bit as good a boxer as Loughran. He was certainly more consistent and in my opinion he was much better at controlling and judging distance (one of the best ever at it).

 

@McGrain I suspect Loughran was a tricky style for Tunney. Tunney would be used to winning with his jab, so expects to outjab his opponent. But Loughran has the jab of his generation. It's long, quick, very straight and heavy, while he also controlled distance just as well as Tunney. Therefore Loughran's jab quite probably did land first against Tunney more often than not. And that's boxing 101 despite me disliking how stiff Loughran was.

EDIT think a Quartey Delahoya type bout

 

I also disliked Roger Kahn's Ring of Fire, a biography of Jack Dempsey because I didn't learn anything while reading it. It is my feeling that Kahn only did a fraction of the research needed to write a top-notch biography of Dempsey, let alone writing a nuanced one.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I would say that Loughran was the better boxer of the two, but that Tunney simply had much better firepower.

I would further suggest that Tunney had his hands full with a green Loughran, and had no desire to fight a more experienced version.

 

It seemed like this to me as well but I find it very hard to find detailed "warts" on Tunney anywhere .. almost nothing about the post career drinking, ect .. any detailed accounts on this ?