Hello, Better win between these two: Ezzard Charles win over Joe Louis or Gene Tunney's win over Jack Dempsey first fight. Thoughts?
Tunney over Dempsey. Dempsey was still reigning and had not yet shown his vulnerabilities the way the Brown Bomber had.
Louis was further past his prime when he retired for those 2 years compared to Dempsey when he went out for the 3, so id say Tunney fought a more prime Dempsey, while Charles fought a more shopworn Louis, but Louis was the better heavyweight in my eyes, although older and further past prime he did go out KO'ing the other top guy in the heavyweight picture after getting a close win in their previous fight. Its close
Tunney over Dempsey. Tunney was a huge underdog and expected to be bullied by Dempsey into either wide loss or stoppage loss. Charles was the reigning champion facing a man on the comeback trail.
Saying Louis was on the come back trail makes it sound like he was coming back from a loss or something, he went out beating one of the top heavyweights around and chose Walcott and Charles to fight for his vacated title, he and Dempsey both went into their time off without losing their title, their situation was very similar, they just came back differently, Dempsey kept his title while Louis decided to vacate Both came back as favorites as well (Dempsey more so than Louis) Among the Louis pickers was Tunney who picked Joe to KO Charles in 5. I still think this just depends, Dempsey was closer to his prime but not as good a heavyweight as Louis, while Louis was more shopworn but was a better heavyweight than Dempsey (In my opinion, and most others)
Definitely Tunny over Dempsey. Dempsey went on to beat a prime Sharkey, while Louis's best win was over Savold.
Tunney beating Dempsey - but it was a style thing really - Dempsey and Louis were probably as equally shot as eachother so terms of that its 50/50ish really but Dempsey was still a search and destroy merchant and always started each round in high intensity mode. He was still all aggression and coming after Tunney - just nowhere near the speed he used to do it. But Tunney did still have to box on the retreat to survive where as Charles really didn't - Dempsey may have backed up at times as the fight wore on but it was more a ploy to try and draw Tunney forward a little bit just to get him to engage whereas Charles started out really bringing the fight to Louis - he boxed his way in but he could afford to be that bit more aggressive himself - he did elect to box in and out when Louis unloaded his heavy guns but he could be much more aggressive with his own punching than Tunney could with Dempsey because Louis was that bit more methodical and did allow that bit more time to think so Charles didn't have to retreat at as fast a pace as Tunney either to stay safe - to be fair though in both cases it did look like had either engaged and really stopped to trade for too long it may well have been curtains for both